The Book of Everything Page 4

  “And so it happened. The frogs covered all of Egypt.

  “But the sorcerers did the same through their magic powers: They too made frogs appear from everywhere, in all of the land of Egypt.”

  Father closed the Bible and said, “Thus far.”

  “They were clever, weren’t they, those sorcerers,” Margot sighed.

  “The devil is terribly clever,” said Father.

  Mother stacked the plates and said, “Here you are, Thomas.”

  Thomas took the stack of plates out to the kitchen. Mother followed him with the pots and pans. “Get a bucket,” she whispered. “Come on.”

  Thomas followed his mother, carrying the empty bucket. Through the front room, they went to the back room where the aquarium was. Mother slid the cover with the light aside. “Where is the siphon?” she asked.

  Thomas put the bucket down. He got a rubber hose from the small cupboard below the aquarium. Mother put one end of the hose into the water and started sucking on the other end.

  “What do you think you are doing?” said Father.

  They hadn’t heard him coming. Mother could not answer with the hose in her mouth. Thomas looked up at his father’s face. “Lord Jesus,” he thought, “help us!”

  Mother pulled the hose out of her mouth and pointed it downward. A jet of red water clattered into the bucket.

  “We’re changing the water in the aquarium,” said Mother.

  Father put his hands in his pockets. “What did I say about that?” he asked.

  “It has to be done,” said Mother, “or the fish will die.”

  “That will be a good lesson for our wicked sorcerer,” said Father.

  “I don’t think so,” said Mother.

  “You heard me, woman,” said Father. “Stop that immediately.”

  “No,” said Mother.

  “Papa,” Margot called from the front room. “Can you help me with my geometry?”

  “I’m counting to three,” said Father.

  “Go ahead,” said Mother. The red water splashed in the bucket.

  “One … two … three,” Father counted.

  “Papa,” Margot called.

  Father jumped forward, yanked the hose out of the aquarium with one hand, and with the other hit Mother in the face. Mother screamed. Then the unbelievable happened: She hit back. She screamed and hit and hit and hit, but only once did she actually strike the man’s face. The other blows landed on his arms. Then the man began to punch her wildly, wherever he could. He was much stronger than she was. She crumpled up and fell to the ground weeping. At that moment, it started to rain all over the world.

  “Papa!” screamed Margot. “The Bible was written by people. By people!”

  Then the front doorbell rang.

  The clock went on ticking, but the hands wouldn’t move forward. Father listened to the silence, his head angled. Mother sobbed softly. Margot stood next to the table in the front room, stiff and straight as a candle. Thomas tried to stop breathing.

  The bell rang again, long and insistently.

  “Who could that be?” Father whispered.

  “The Lord Jesus,” thought Thomas.

  Father squatted down next to Mother on the floor. “Upstairs, you,” he said. He shook Mother by the shoulder. She scrambled up. Her nose was bleeding. “Here, a handkerchief,” said Father. “Quick, upstairs.”

  Mother stumbled out of the room and up the stairs.

  Father went to the top of the stairs that led down to the front door and looked down.

  The bell rang again.

  He pulled on the rope that hung next to the handrail and the front door clicked open.

  Someone stepped inside. “Neighbor?” a woman’s voice called. “Could you lend me a cup of sugar?”

  Thomas had crept into the hall behind his father. His heart beat wildly, for he had recognized the voice. It was not the Lord Jesus, but Mrs. van Amersfoort.

  “Of course, Mrs. van Amersfoort,” Father called. “I’ll just get it for you.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Mrs. van Amersfoort. She started climbing the stairs.

  “I’ll bring it down, just wait there,” Father called.

  It seemed Mrs. van Amersfoort hadn’t understood, for she kept climbing up.

  Father hurried into the kitchen, grabbed the sugar, filled up a cup, and rushed back to the stairwell.

  But Mrs. van Amersfoort was already there. She stood in the hall holding an empty cup. “What amazing rain all of a sudden,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Father. “You brought your own cup.” He poured the sugar into her cup. His hand was shaking.

  “Thanks a lot. Isn’t your wife here?” asked Mrs. van Amersfoort.

  “She’s not feeling well,” said Father.

  “Poor thing. What’s wrong with her?”

  “A stomach upset,” said Father.

  Thomas’s ears began to ring. He heard the music he had heard before, with lots of violins. “Papa is scared,” he thought, full of surprise.

  “Perhaps we should have a talk sometime,” Mrs. van Amersfoort said.

  “A talk?” asked Father.

  “Think about it,” Mrs. van Amersfoort said. She looked past Father at Thomas. “Hello there, Thomas,” she said. “Give your mother a kiss for me.”

  Slowly, she went down the stairs. “Thanks for the sugar,” she called. A moment later, the door slammed shut behind her.

  Father fell down on his knees. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto his face. He folded his hands and raised his eyes toward Heaven. “Lord God, forgive me for having let myself go in my anger. What more must I do to bring this household to You? Come to your servant’s aid, O Lord. I pray for this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.”

  Thomas looked at the man on the floor. Father had tears in his eyes, but Thomas felt not the slightest pity. “I’m going upstairs,” he said. “Should I take the spoon up?”

  The man looked at him, his eyes damp. “No, my boy,” he said hoarsely. He stretched his arms out toward Thomas. “Come here,” he said.

  But Thomas took a step back and went up the stairs. When he got to the top, he knocked on his parents’ bedroom door. Mother said nothing, but he could hear her sobbing. Gently, he opened the door. She lay prone on the bed, her face turned to the window. He went to her and kissed her wet cheek. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “Don’t do it again, Thomas,” she said. “No more plagues of Egypt.”

  “No, Mama,” said Thomas. He waited in case she wanted to say something else, but there was no more.

  When he lay in bed, Thomas tried to pray. He had just said, “Lord God, don’t forgive him for this, never forgive him …” when the Lord Jesus suddenly came on. With His white dress flapping in the breeze, He was standing in the desert or somewhere. There were heaps of sand, anyway, and lots of blue sky.

  “Hey there, Thomas,” He said. “Everything under control?”

  “No,” said Thomas.

  “What’s the matter, then?” asked the Lord.

  “Everything,” said Thomas. “And, to be honest, You’re not being all that much use.”

  Thomas saw that the Lord was offended, but as it happened, he couldn’t care less.

  “What do you mean?” asked the Lord Jesus. “What’s going on? I have delivered mankind, after all!”

  “Delivered?” asked Thomas. “From what exactly, may I ask?”

  The Lord frowned. “Oh, come off it. You know perfectly well.”

  “Blank’s my name,” said Thomas.

  That made the Lord laugh uproariously. You could see He wasn’t scared of the dentist. “Okay, okay,” said the Lord. “You’ll figure that out when you’re older.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Thomas.

  The Lord Jesus bent over. He wrote in the sand with His finger. When He had finished, He straightened up again. This was written in the sand: I am pleased that you exist, Thomas!

  The Lord Jesus looked at Thomas and
laid His hand on his head. “You are strong, Thomas,” He said. “You are strong because you are kind, will you remember that? All of us up here are proud of you. Do you believe that?”

  “Yes, Lord Jesus,” said Thomas.

  “Just call me Jesus,” smiled the Lord. “You are after all my favorite boy. I might even call you to me.”

  He mightn’t be all that much use, but it was nice that He came over for a chat now and then. “That would be wonderful, Jesus,” said Thomas. Then he fell asleep.

  “I remember everything,” Thomas wrote in The Book of Everything. “I forget nothing. I write everything down so that later on I will know exactly what happened.”

  This is what happened that day: Thomas was woken up by a noise. It was coming from outside. It was as if a thousand people were walking in the street muttering. But that couldn’t be, for it was only six o’clock! He got dressed, stood by the window, and looked outside. At first he saw nothing, because his eyes were still asleep, but his ears were awake. The sound was no longer like the sound of people. It was like nothing at all. He looked down and saw that the paving stones had changed color, and so had the tiles of the sidewalks. They were kind of greenish. Once his eyes had woken up properly, he saw that everything was moving. The street and the sidewalks were covered in something greenish that moved. Suddenly he knew: frogs! Brueghel Street was covered in frogs. When he looked across toward Apollo Avenue, he could see no end to the stream of frogs. When he looked at Jan van Eyck Street, he saw them streaming in from that direction too. They were croaking. The sound was like that of the rubbish collector’s rattle, only this sounded like a thousand rattles at once. He opened the window and looked straight down. He saw that the frogs were gathering in front of the door. They climbed on one another’s backs and stacked themselves up. He could not see the door, but he saw that the frogs were stacked up high against the wall of his house. He had never seen such an enormous stack of frogs before. Were they trying to force the door open with their weight? “Mama,” he thought anxiously. “I didn’t do this. Blank’s my name.”

  He crept out of his room and tiptoed down the stairs. He looked at the front door down below. There was a thrumming as if a million fingers were tapping on it. He thought, “Any moment now the door is going to cave in.” He did not know what to do.

  Slowly he went down the stairs. Halfway down, there was a smell of ditch water. The front door rattled in its frame. It was frightening. He turned and ran back upstairs. “Mama will have to believe me,” he thought. “But of course she won’t. And Papa won’t either.” He sat down on the floor at the top of the stairs. He was in despair. If a trillion frogs wanted to get inside the house, it was pretty obviously his fault. Who else’s fault could it be? He was trapped. His mother wanted no more plagues of Egypt, because they caused too much trouble. His father thought he was mocking God. He was in a real fix. How would Remi in Alone in the World deal with it? Suddenly he knew. He had to go and talk to the frogs.

  He started down the stairs again, but when he smelled the ditch water he thought, “How do you talk to frogs?”

  He answered his own question. “Well, just like people, of course. Remi talks to his animals all the time. Frogs aren’t stupid, you know.”

  When he got downstairs, he put his hand against the door. He felt it shaking and heard it groan under the weight of the frogs. “They’re friendly frogs,” he thought. “They’ve come to help Mama and me. It is well meant, but God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”

  He knelt and tried to push open the letterbox. That was not so easy, for it was jammed tight with frogs. He pushed and pushed until he managed to open the letterbox just a bit. Immediately, ten frog legs poked through the chink, as if he were in a horror story. But he didn’t like horror stories, so that couldn’t be. His Granddad had Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Thomas always skipped the one called “The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Was.” He thought it was spooky enough at Granddad’s, because Granddad took his teeth out of his mouth while Thomas was watching. Scary! But Granddad was okay. He did believe in God, but not too badly. He never hit anyone. When he was angry, he shouted, “The spider broom! The spider broom!” but Thomas had no idea why.

  “Hello,” he said softly through the letterbox.

  He didn’t want to wake Father and Mother.

  “Hello, I’m Thomas.”

  For a moment it seemed that not a single frog had heard him. The legs kept wriggling and the croaking rattled on. But the noise gradually became softer and sounded farther and farther away. The frogs in the front ranks had fallen silent.

  “Dear frogs,” he said. “Thanks very much for coming. But you can’t come inside here, because my mother won’t allow it. And What Mother Says, Goes. Have you heard of that? It is a radio program for when I have school sickness. So please return to your ditches and canals. Thank you all for services rendered.” Thomas loved words, particularly if he didn’t understand them.

  It became quiet far and near. Then the rattling started again, at first near the door, then farther and farther away. It sounded excited, and Thomas worried that they might not have understood him. But then the frog legs withdrew from the letterbox. The croaking grew softer. It sounded like people muttering. It became more and more quiet. He waited and waited. The door stopped shaking, the drumming ceased. He pushed open the letterbox and had a look. The frogs were withdrawing!

  “Thomas!” called Margot. “Thomas, what are you doing there?”

  He looked up. Margot stood at the top of the stairs in her nightdress.

  “Ssshhh,” he hissed. He ran up the stairs without making a sound.

  “What were you doing there?” asked Margot.

  “There were frogs,” said Thomas. “But Mama doesn’t want this.”

  “What doesn’t Mama want?”

  “The plagues of Egypt.”

  Margot looked at him for a long moment. “Thomas,” she said then.

  “Yes?”

  “How many frogs were there?”

  “Millions.”

  “True? Did you see them yourself?”

  “With my own eyes.”

  Margot slowly shook her head. “Thomas,” she said. “You mustn’t always believe your eyes.”

  Thomas shrugged.

  “You must keep your head,” said Margot. “Don’t let yourself be driven mad.”

  “No,” said Thomas.

  “Thomas?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know what Eliza said to me the other day?”

  Thomas blushed. He shook his head.

  “‘What a nice brother you’ve got,’ she said.”

  “Oh,” said Thomas.

  He looked at the coat hooks on the wall. The overcoats were busy hanging.

  “You know what, Thomas?” said Margot. “Eliza is right.”

  Thomas quickly examined her face. Perhaps Margot was not as stupid as he had always thought.

  They sat together at the top of the stairs. Thomas couldn’t remember them ever sitting on the stairs together before. It was a special feeling.

  “Do you know what ‘dishonors’ means?” Thomas asked.

  Margot looked at him. “Dishonors? ‘Dishonors’ means you lose your honor. For example, ah … I can’t think of an example.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. “But what is ‘honor’?”

  “Wait,” said Margot. “I’ve got it. ‘Dishonors’ means you lose your dignity.”

  Thomas sighed. What was “dignity”?

  He moved his hand inside his shirt and undid the safety pin. He pulled Mrs. van Amersfoort’s folded-up letter from under his shirt and read, “A man who hits his wife dishonors himself.”

  “Show me,” said Margot. She read the line for herself. “Who did you get this from? This is just sooo true!”

  “Can’t tell,” said Thomas. “It’s a secret.”

  Margot cocked her head and listened to the silence. “Papa must read this,” she whispered.

  “And
if he gets angry?” asked Thomas.

  “He must,” said Margot. She handed the letter back to Thomas. “He really must.”

  “Not yet,” said Thomas. He pinned the letter back under his shirt.

  “Ah, yes,” said Father that evening as he cut the meat. “I nearly forgot. This morning when I went out of the front door, there was a frog sitting in the corner of the porch. The poor little thing was so scared, it had clapped its little hands over its eyes.”

  Margot choked on her endive. Mother glanced at Thomas, but Thomas pretended not to notice. Her nose was red and swollen. There was a small piece of cotton wool in her nostril.

  “I had a strange experience too,” said Margot when she’d stopped coughing. “I was sent out of Dutch class.”

  “What?” Father said, shocked. “This can’t be true.”

  “It is, though,” said Margot. “Mr. de Rijp said I was a smart aleck and then I had to get out.”

  “What’s a ‘smart aleck’?” asked Thomas.

  “Someone who thinks he always knows better about everything,” Father explained. “And that is very annoying.”

  “I know something better,” thought Thomas. “What if my parents gave me away to an old musician called Vitalis, like in Alone in the World. He would have dogs and a monkey with a difficult name. And the old musician would die on our travels and then I would be alone in the world. With Eliza.”

  “But what did you actually say?” Father asked Margot. You could see he was worried.

  “I said I didn’t want to read those false books for my list,” said Margot. “I said that the Bible was enough for me.”

  It became so terribly quiet that Thomas woke out of his thoughts. He saw that Father had gone red in the face. “Jesus!” he thought, but the Lord did not show up.

  “Now you listen to me, Margot,” Father said nervously. “You haven’t understood at all. The books you have to read contain the opinions of people. In the Bible, there are not opinions, but truths. Because the Bible is God’s word. That is what I meant. That doesn’t mean you can go and be insolent to your teacher!”