By Pieter Thomassen

On Carnival’s Monday, after the children’s parade, Axel is collected by Robbie Hol to go jigging in Smeets Hall.
      Axel’s chubby classmate is dressed up as a mummy. He’s decked out in a tight white T-shirt with short sleeves and much too tight football shorts, and has bandaged his bulging limbs and fastened the bandages with safety pins. His face is made up with white shoe paste. For the third year in a row, Axel has donned the tiger costume with mittens on strings, put together by his father on the Singer sewing machine. He has drawn whiskers with a cork sooted over a candle.
      Robbie Hol has taken a shine to Axel since the day Axel pulled him up during a PE lesson. While executing a bird’s nest, Robbie had got stuck in a turn and, with a soft thud, had fallen out the rings flat on his back.
      The two merry friends now brave the sleet to, finally, cold to the bone, enter the temple of carnival group the Foam Suds. The bouncer is a grubby clown who seems to know Axel: ‘So Grafland, are you on a roll with Hol?’ The boys are fitted with a balloon around their ankles, and are instructed – while a nonsense tune blasts from the amplifiers – to try to burst each others’ balloons.
      When Axel after drinking two shandies goes for a wee, he sees in the mirror that his tiger has lost its ears. He’s alarmed when he notices that his long tail too has been cut off. Axel doesn’t know who’s the culprit, but is comforted by Robbie, who rearranges the safety pins to cover up the holes in his costume.

© Pieter Thomassen
© Translation Holland Park Press

Axel 37 – Axel 36 – Axel 35 – Axel 34 – Axel 33 – Axel 32 – Axel 31 – Axel 30 – Axel 29 – Axel 28 – Axel 27 – Axel 26 – Axel 25 – Axel 24 – Axel 23 – Axel 22 – Axel 21 – Axel 20 – Axel 19 – Axel 18 – Axel 17 – Axel 16 – Axel 15 – Axel 14 – Axel 13 – Axel 12 – Axel 11 – Axel 10 – Axel 9 – Axel 8 – Axel 7 – Axel 6 – Axel 5 – Axel 4 – Axel 3 – Axel 2 – Axel 1