Why We Took the Car Read Online Free PDF Page B

was as if I were sitting on hot coals. I desperately wanted to jump before Frau Bielcke finished her sermon. Luckily Wolkow suddenly made it a contest: The bar was put at one meter and twenty centimeters and anyone who couldn’t clear it was out. Then it would be raised in five centimeter increments for each new round. At one meter twenty only Heckel failed. Heckel has a fat gut, has had it since he was in fifth grade. And he has toothpicks for legs. It’s no great surprise that he can’t get far off the ground. He’s not very good in any school subject, but he’s particularly crap at sports. He’s dyslexic too, which means his spelling doesn’t count against him in German class. He can make as many mistakes as he wants. All that counts is the content and the style because dyslexia’s like a disease and he can’t do anything about it. But I keep thinking that the same is true for his matchstick legs — there’s nothing he can do about them. His father is a bus driver and looks exactly the same: a tub on stilts. So really Heckel is high-jump dyslexic too, and how high he gets shouldn’t be counted, only his style. But it’s not a recognized disease, so he fails gym and all the girls giggle when the tub of lard shields himself from the bar with both hands and falls with a whimper on his face. Poor bastard. Though I have to admit it does look funny. Because even if height were discounted for Heckel, his style is still an F.
    By the time we reached one meter forty centimeters, the field began to dwindle. At one meter fifty, the only ones left were Kevin and Patrick, and, with great effort, André. And me, of course. Olaf was sick. When André squeaked over the bar, the girls cheered and celebrated, and Frau Bielcke looked at them sternly. At one meter fifty-five, Natalie shouted, “You can do it, André!” Such a stupid way to cheer him on, since there was no way he could do it. On the contrary, he actually went under the bar, which often happens in the high jump when you bite off more than you can chew. He crawled off the back of the cushion and tried to compensate by making a joke as if he was going to throw the bar like a spear. But it’s an old joke. Nobody laughed. Next they cheered on Kevin. Kevin the math genius. But he couldn’t clear one meter sixty. Then I was the only one left. Wolkow set the bar at one meter sixty-five, and even as I approached it I could just feel that today was my day. It was Mike Klingenberg Day. I could feel a rush of triumph even as I leapt. I didn’t jump so much as sail over the bar like an airplane. I hung in the air, I floated. Mike Klingenberg, star of track and field. I think that if I could have given myself a nickname just then, it would have been something like Aeroflot. Or Air Klingenberg. Or the Condor. But unfortunately you can’t give yourself nicknames. As my back sank into the soft landing pad, I could hear restrained applause from the side where all the boys were gathered. But from the side where the girls were I heard nothing. As the mat rebounded and I bounced back up, I immediately looked over at Tatiana. And Tatiana was looking at Frau Bielcke. Natalie was looking at Frau Bielcke too. They hadn’t even seen my jump, the stupid cows. None of the girls had seen my jump. They had no interest in what the psychotic sleeping pill had managed to clear. Aeroflot my ass.
    It really pissed me off the entire day. Though to be fair it hadn’t interested me either. As if the fucking high jump would interest me for even a second! But if André had managed to clear one meter sixty-five — or even if he had managed to get to the point where he could have attempted one sixty-five — the girls would have run around the track with pom-poms. For me, on the other hand, not a single one even watched. I’m of no interest. And I just can’t help wondering: Why doesn’t anyone watch when Air