Go*Dutch! New Dutch Writing

‘Oh,’ thought the squirrel, ‘that is a pity.’ He sighed deeply, hesitated briefly and said to himself, ‘No. No.’ Then he sighed again and walked away.
He looked back a couple of times. The cake seemed to glow among the lilac bushes.
‘Why do I always, always fancy cake?’ wondered the squirrel.
As he walked, he thought about how he could make sure he didn’t fancy cake.
‘But if I don’t fancy cake,’ he thought to himself, ‘then I don’t fancy cake.’ It made him feel dizzy and he decided to think about something else. ‘The river!’ he thought.
The squirrel thought as quickly as he could about the river, the water in the river, the waves on the river, the babbling of the river and the gleaming of the river. He sat down on the grass. The river was in front of him.
Soon the carp stuck his head above the water and started a conversation with the squirrel about rain, cress, moonlight and what wet really was.
‘Wet is nothing,’ said the carp.
The sun shone and the squirrel listened. Suddenly he exclaimed, ‘I don’t fancy cake any more!’ He jumped up and ran away. The carp watched him in amazement.
‘Now I’ll never know whether he agrees with me or not,’ he muttered, and dived underwater dejectedly.
The squirrel ran back towards the edge of the woods. But before he got there, he slowed his pace and sighed sadly.
‘I do fancy cake,’ he thought, ‘and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He decided to go and look at the cake anyway. There he found the ant, who was walking around the cake with a sombre face, occasionally taking a few steps backwards, pinching his nose and storming up to the cake with his eyes shut. But just before he reached the cake, he would stop and shake his head.
‘Hello, Ant,’ said the squirrel.
‘This is a black day, Squirrel,’ said the ant, ‘a black day.’ They stood a few paces away from the cake, silently sniffing the scent of honey and staring at the thick cream and sweet iced towers piled high on top of the cake.
‘I can’t bear to look at the cake any more, Squirrel,’ said the ant, ‘and yet…’ ‘Let’s leave,’ said the squirrel. ‘This cake isn’t good for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the ant.
They walked away, deep in thought.
A moment later, they heard a loud slurping sound. Looking round, they saw the elephant taking large bites out of the cake.
‘Didn’t you read the card?’ the ant exclaimed, his voice trembling and his legs shaking.
‘Yes,’ said the elephant. ‘I don’t really fancy this cake at all. Beech-nut cake - awful. If there’d been some sweet tree bark in it… but there wasn’t. Just sugar and beechnuts.
Call that a cake?’ And without a trace of relish, and occasionally emitting a grunt of disgust, the elephant ate the cake, while the ant and the squirrel watched from a distance.
‘Poor Elephant!’ murmured the ant.
The squirrel almost called, ‘Enjoy your meal!’ But he changed his mind, and didn’t say a word.

A Speck of Dust

At the edge of the woods, under the rose bush, the bumblebee had a shop. It was only a small shop, without a window or even a counter, but there were lots of things for sale. There were things hardly anyone ever needed: a pine needle, a ball of fluff, a drop of water, a blade of grass, a piece of beech bark and a wilting willow herb.
‘Sometimes,’ was the answer the bumblebee gave when anybody asked him if he ever sold anything.
One day, the leopard gave a party. He invited only the most distinguished of animals; he didn’t ask the cockroach or the earthworm or the hornet, nor did he invite the hippopotamus, the squirrel or the ant. But he did ask the wasp, the swan, the cobra, the flamingo, the trout and the grasshopper.
On the day of the party, the grasshopper stood in front of his mirror and examined his appearance carefully. Did he look distinguished enough? He pulled the lapels of his jacket closer together, pushed his shoulders back a little, polished his antennae yet again and allowed a distinguished smile to cross his lips.
‘And yet,’ he thought, as he imagined how he would enter the leopard’s house, ‘something is still missing, something distinguished, something…’ Suddenly he knew what it was. He looked around, opened drawers, jumped on cabinets, and ran his finger along ledges. But he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
He hurried outside and asked the swallow, who had been invited at the last minute and was ironing his jacket. But the swallow couldn’t help him either. The grasshopper ran to the bumblebee’s shop.
He stumbled inside, panting.
‘I need a speck of dust,’ he said. His antennae quivered, he was so flustered.
‘A speck of dust…’ the bumblebee said thoughtfully.
‘I think I still have one of those.’ He led the grasshopper to a corner of the shop where a small grey speck of dust lay behind a sign that said no coughing.
The grasshopper looked at the speck of dust closely and said, ‘I’d really prefer a slightly paler speck of dust, but this will do. How much do I owe you?’ ‘Let me see…’ said the bumblebee. ‘That will be a fortune.’ The grasshopper regretted not knowing how much a fortune was. On top of that, he didn’t have anything on him. ‘But,’ he thought, ‘this evening I shall meet so many prominent animals that there must be someone with a couple of fortunes who won’t mind giving one to me.’ ‘Tomorrow morning I shall give you a fortune,’ he said.
‘That’s fine by me,’ said the bumblebee, and he flew up to the ceiling and back down again with delight.
The grasshopper picked up the speck of dust and left the shop.
That evening he entered the hall where the leopard was giving his party. He stopped briefly in the doorway and looked round the assembled company. He saw the flamingo, who was gazing out of a window in a civilised fashion; the gazelle, who fanned his forehead with an aspen leaf; and the swan, who was doing his very best to look deep in thought.
The leopard broke off his conversation with the red deer and walked over to the grasshopper.
‘Grasshopper!’ he said. ‘Welcome. Welcome.’ He extended one of his claws hospitably. The grasshopper nodded almost imperceptibly. At the same time, he tilted his head slightly to one side. Then, with an airy gesture, he brushed the speck of dust from his shoulder, as he smiled mildly and engagingly.

Come back

‘Come back.’
If I could say those words so softly
that no one could hear them, that no one could even guess I was thinking them…

and if someone were then to answer
or even just to think that answer
one morning:
‘Yes.’