Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:24:57 +0200 From: Harry Anders Subject: Little-Harrys-youth-8 MY FIRST BOOK 'LITTLE HARRY' IS FOR SALE... Please buy it. It costs only $ 19.95, and it's helping lots of other people to cope with their own feelings! Copy this link into your webbrowser: http://www.harryanders.com and have a look. Thank you very much! ============================ LITTLE HARRY'S YOUTH The end of chapter 7 said: They rushed away to ask their parents, while Micha and I resumed our painting and finally put the snow scooter back into the old caravan, to dry. The next morning five cars drove to town, and returned carrying happy looking boys and second hand snow scooters in their trunks. Soon our parking space was crowded with sanding and painting boys, now and then proudly starting their engines. I walked from scooter to scooter, trying to offer a helping hand everywhere, and at the end of the day all the snow scooters were painted and blinking in the sunlight. That evening we all washed and scrubbed each other, to get the sticky paint off our hands and bodies. ----------------- Chapter 8. Sixth birthday, growth spurt, we have to flee. A very special day approached: March the third, my sixth birthday. I had been nervous for weeks, and hoped for the present I wanted most of all: a small snow scooter. A few older boys owned one, and now and then they allowed me to ride on it for a short distance. I LOVED it, but my arms were not long enough to properly steer it, and everybody kept telling me I was way too young to own such an expensive thing myself. "But... I'm nearly SIX years old now! And my Dad is the King, so we ought to be rich enough to buy a small one..." "I'm nearly SIXTEEN years old now, and I had to earn my scooter by working for it and saving the money!" "But... I'm only a small boy, and I don't know how or where to work for a snow scooter..." Micha started to laugh, ruffled my hair, and told me to wait with the working; at least until my next birthday. Suddenly I felt something, and looked at him with curiosity... Could it be he knew something I didn't know? That morning I woke up very early, and couldn't sleep any more. I left my bed and looked out of my window, but everything outside was still dark. I went to the living room, carefully not to wake my parents, and sat down on one of the couches. From there I stared into the darkness, faintly lighted by the glowing tops of the mountains and the shimmering cinders of our smouldering campfire. Slowly the sunlight illuminated a few of the highest mountaintops, and from now on I saw such a beautiful spectacle displayed that I nearly started to cry. I felt very small and vulnerable, while the sunlight slowly lit the mountaintops one by one, sparkling in the icy snow crystals. I sat down in silence for a long time, and remembered that feeling of being a very small and vulnerable little boy during the entire day. Finally people started to wake up, and a few men raked our faintly glowing campfire. This was my home, and my life. Here I belonged, in our secluded space in the mountains, having my own people around and raking our campfire, hearing my parents softly snoring in their double bed. Michail appeared outside, scooping snow from a clean spot into a pan, to wash his boys with after letting it melt and warm. I put on my badger fur coat and fox boots, and left our caravan to greet him and scoop some snow myself to help my parents: "Hi, Michail, you are an early bird today!" "Hi, Harold, you are rather early yourself; and my congratulations as you are really six years old now." We cuddled until Michail had to go back to his caravan, to look after his boys who we could hear waking up and trying to demolish something. I scooped a pan full of clean white snow, careful not to scoop yellow snow. There was a little joke we told each other after we had relieved ourselves into the snow: "That yellow snow tastes delicious. I suggest you to try a mouthful..." I went back to our caravan, carefully closing the door to keep the snow outside. I shucked my fur coat and my boots; and put the pan onto the grate in our fireplace, to melt and heat the snow so it would be ready when my parents needed it. Soon the snow started to hiss and melt, and I played with it by turning it around and around until everything turned into hot water. My Mom entered the living room looking sleepy, and yawned a few times: "Yawn... thank you for helping me with the water! Today you are six years old. How do you feel now?" She had a bad habit of asking me such stupid questions all the time. How did I feel now... "Well... I do feel six years old now, I think." She started to laugh, lifted me into the air, and kissed my face a couple of times: "Go wake your father, and tell him he has some chores to do too." I went into the bedroom, and jumped onto my Dad's stomach: "Wake up, you lazy slacker! Mom has some chores for you to do." Dad groaned and tried to turn around, but I didn't let him and held him in place: "Come on, wakey wakey, rise and shine! Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and don't waste it in bed!" Ten seconds later we were in a heavy fight, and tried to tickle each other everywhere. Of course I knew he could win easily, but I loved him for letting me win half of the time so I could get even with him. At last I let him win, and fell down onto his stomach, panting. We cuddled until Mom showed up and chased us out of bed: "Come on; everybody is waiting outside for Harry's birthday present." Suddenly I was in a tremendous hurry, and dressed almost neatly in a record time. We had breakfast while I fumbled nervously with my clothes, anxious to go outside: "Hurry up! They are already waiting for me..." Finally we had cleared the table, and went outside in the snow to greet our people. Everybody had gathered around our campfire, to congratulate me and wish me all the best. We sat down on our wooden bench, and everybody shook my hand or ruffled my hair. Biny offered me a little kiss, causing my Dad to chuckle, causing me to give him a dead look, causing him to chuckle even more. Wait until HE gets a kiss from a lady... My grandmother threw her arms around my shoulders and kissed me too, but now he didn't chuckle at all! Chicken. I thanked everybody for his or her birthday wishes, and meanwhile tried to look around. What did they buy me as a birthday present this year? Where was it? I couldn't detect any packages... Suddenly I heard a sound I recognized immediately, coming from our parking space. A snow scooter... A SNOW SCOOTER! I closed my eyes and held my hand in front of my face, afraid to look around and feel disappointed. What if that snow scooter wasn't my birthday present? What if one of the older boys went out for a little ride on his own snow scooter? But all the boys were here, to congratulate me... Maybe somebody was missing? I looked through my fingers, but couldn't detect who was missing and riding that quickly nearing scooter... I started to tremble all over, and finally forced myself to put my hands down and open my eyes. A huge gush of snow appeared from between two caravans; and a grinning Micha showed up, riding a small and beautiful black-and-golden snow scooter, painted in our royal colours. He stopped in front of me, and jumped off the scooter. He beckoned me over... I couldn't believe my own eyes. Was this for real? Was this really my birthday present? I looked at my Dad, my Mom, Michail, my grandmother... but they all laughed at me with beaming faces and beckoned me to join Micha. Trembling all over, I went to my beautiful small snow scooter; and cautiously touched it. Was this MINE? Was this really mine? Was this really my own snow scooter? My eyes started to tear up, but I dried them immediately with a sleeve of my fur coat. I was not a cry-baby! Micha took my arm and tried to persuade me to mount the saddle of my own beautiful snow scooter: "Come on, little man, you know how to drive your snow scooter. Let's go for a ride!" My knees started to buckle, and I nearly collapsed. I, a puny and barely six-year-old boy, was now the owner of a real snow scooter? Really? Micha beckoned the other snow scooter owners to join us, and asked me: "Want to go for a short ride on that easy slope, just to get the feeling?" I nodded, absolutely overwhelmed. The boys grinned, and rushed to the parking space to get their own scooters. Soon six snow scooters and their riders waited for me, with softly murmuring engines. Now I HAD to go... Still trembling all over, I mounted the saddle; and I was delighted to see that my feet could touch the ground and my arms were long enough to reach the handles with ease. This was the small snow scooter I had dreamed of all the time. My own beautiful little snow scooter... I looked for the starting cord and pulled it, and immediately the engine came to life. I selected the first gear, as I had done several times on the bigger scooters, and carefully rotated the throttle. Slowly my snow scooter and I started to move, cheered on by my people around our campfire. At first I didn't dare to do much, closely followed by six fellow snow scooter riders. I tried out the brakes a few times, to get a feeling of how they reacted, and rounded a few curves to feel how my scooter steered. After a while I dared to rotate the throttle a bit more, and suddenly I left all the other scooter riders behind. That felt good, and I started to grin. Were they in for a race? The next couple of hours were the best hours of my life. I was leading the way, closely followed by the other riders, and within a few minutes I felt totally one with my small machine. I tried out a couple of difficult turns, and learned how to use my bodyweight to control the motions of my combination boy/engine. I pulled up, slowed down, performed some more difficult moves, and suddenly went for the clearings in the woods, accompanied by the cheering others who barely kept up with me. My scooter drove faster than everybody else. The combination of a powerful engine with a very small scooter and an even smaller boy let me accelerate and slow down as if I rode a real racing machine, outracing all the wildly cheering others! Now I put in everything I had, used my brakes to round nearly impossible curves, accelerated to top speed and jumped over cracks in the snow, threw my little scooter diagonal to stop, sprayed the others with wagon loads of snow, and cheered loudly at the tops of my lungs. Now and then I tumbled, but within two seconds I had mounted my snow scooter again and drove on as if nothing had happened. The snow was very soft, and cushioned every impact. From now on we went to our clearings every day, to have speed contests and set out difficult racing tracks. Now and then we went for a ride across the woods, but our parents warned us not to go near the highway or a town, as those gadjo's surely would arrest us and confiscate our snow scooters. We had to be very careful! Many years later the grown-ups still told each other stories about that little blond-haired devil, riding a small snow scooter and jumping at least three feet high into the air in passing steep snowy hills, while the high-pitched sound of his 'YIPPEEE...' echoed around the mountains. I had to be the youngest snow scooter rider in the universe, and I loved every part of it! Unfortunately at the end of the winter the snow started to melt, and most of the snow scooter fun ended. Our technical man, Pietro, tried to replace the caterpillars by normal wheels, so that we could use them as 'normal' scooters; but they were less fun than being able to glide down the snowy hills and jump high into the air without the risk of breaking bones. We had to wait until the next winter... Fortunately we had our mountain bikes, and from now on we had speed contests and raced difficult tracks using them. Now I was no longer the fastest driver, and had to work very hard to keep up with the bigger boys. At last spring arrived, the remainder of the snow melted away, and we could shuck our clothes and cross our woods to set up traps and follow animal tracks as before. Micha had found himself another little friend, named Dimi, and from now on I joined our group every day. The marmots started to breed again, and soon we caught plenty of them to fill our always-hungry stomachs. Everything returned to normal. Every day we went to our waterfall to frolic around or go for a swim in the lake, and I went into our bushes to look for nicely smelling herbs to spice our caught animals. Slowly my tastes refined, and I started to be a real chief cook. I loved it, and all my friends loved it too. Even the grown-ups let me spice their meals now and then, and complimented me with the excellent taste. One morning I woke up, yawned, sat upright, stretched out, and felt my hands touch the low ceiling of my small den. At first I was shocked: had the ceiling lowered itself overnight? I tried it again, and again I could reach the ceiling with some difficulty, for the first time since I slept there. I jumped out of bed, and rushed into my parent's bedroom: "YIPPEE... I'M GROWING UP! Finally I'm having my growth spurt!" I started to dance around the bed, making my Dad and Mom growl: "What time is it? And what's your problem this early?" I told them what I had discovered; and dragged them to my sleeping den, where I let them see how I could reach my ceiling. My Dad lifted me into the air, and tried to crush me: "Finally I'm going to have a Real Big Son. Congratulations, my big boy, shortly we will have to raise the roof of our caravan!" I knew he was teasing me, but didn't mind. I WAS growing, and felt delighted. From now on I was no longer a small runt. I pushed my Mom to hurry up with breakfast, and couldn't wait to join our group outside: "Wait until they hear I'm having my growth spurt! Please, hurry up..." Finally I was allowed to leave our table, and rushed outside. A few children had already gathered around our campfire, and were teasing each other or playing silly games. I waited until everybody had joined our group, and announced with a proud face: "From now on I'm no longer a small runt, as I'm having my growth spurt!" Everybody went silent, and they all looked at me... Micha laughed, and threw his arms around my waist: "I know. I've seen it happen during the last few weeks. You are definitely taller, and you've developed more muscles too." One of the other boys grinned, and proposed: "Shall we have a measuring contest, to see who will be our smallest runt from now on?" They all agreed, and lined up the smallest children. Micha ran to Michail's caravan, and returned with a tape measure. He started to measure our heights one by one, writing them down onto a piece of paper. Eventually they had measured all of us, and Micha announced: "The smallest runt contest is won by... our five year old little runt Dimi." Everybody cheered, and Micha lifted his friend high into the air. Dimi smiled from ear to ear, and clearly enjoyed all the attention he got. From now on Micha's new little friend was the smallest runt in our group, beating me by nearly half an inch. We went into our woods, and Micha asked me, a bit hesitantly: "Do you want to join me and Dimi to the steep ravine, just like before?" "Well... I don't think it will ever be like before. I don't want to compete with Dimi, and I think Dimi doesn't want to compete with me. I love all the things you taught me, and I'm using them every time, but now it's Dimi's turn to be your pupil. I hope you will love him as much as you did me, and I wish both of you all the best. Now I'm going to join the other children, to look after our traps." Micha looked a little bit sad, but he took Dimi's hand and disappeared into the dense forest. I felt a little bit sad too, but straightened my back and joined the other children. Soon Biny approached me, and for the rest of the day we walked together and had lots of fun. Day after day passed by, and nobody was calling me a little runt any more because I really started to grow. Finally my immature body caught up with my age, and now I looked just like any other six-year-old and growing-up boy. I was always busy scouting our woods, helping the grown-ups with all sorts of things, talking about everything and asking hundreds of questions, riding my mountain bike, and enjoying my youth. My Dad started to call me 'Harry' instead of 'Harold', and soon everybody else called me 'Harry' too. I liked my new name more than 'Harold', as it sounded more like ME. It felt as if I entered a new phase in my life... I started to feel a little bit lonely, and had no idea why. I had loads of friends, two loving parents, and a happy life; so why did I feel so sad now and then? Had this to do with Micha and his new little friend Dimi? I thought about it for a long time, but concluded they had nothing to do with it. Micha and I were still good friends and always greeted each other; but we weren't as close as before, and that felt okay for both of us. Sometimes I had really strange dreams, which disturbed me a bit. The dreams I remembered had always to do with having to flee, and ended with a huge fire that licked at my body and woke me up in horror. Then I crawled in between my parents, still shivering, until I fell asleep again. One morning my Dad cuddled me for a while, and asked me: "How come you weren't sleeping in your own bed again?" "I had a strange dream about having to flee, and then I was in a huge fire that woke me up trembling all over." "We will take you to our Wise Woman; maybe she can help you." "Okay." In the morning we went to our Wise Woman to get her advice, and I told her about my strange dreams. She looked at me with her piercing eyes for a long time, and went into a trance to ask our ancestors for help. After a while she returned, and asked me to sit on her lap: "Close your eyes, and let yourself go. Nothing will happen to you, you will be safe all the time." She put one hand in between my eyes and another hand at the back of my neck, and started to hum. I felt a bit drowsy, while my consciousness slowly left my brain and entered another realm. I woke up in a beautiful world full of love. A huge man approached me, clad in a beautiful robe. He smiled at me, and his hands joined the hands of the Wise Woman on my forehead and neck. I felt an enormous flood of love and pure energy entering my body, and started to tremble. "Don't be afraid, little one. Your abilities are wakening early, and you will need them during the task on earth you have to fulfil. Your dream is a foreboding of something that will happen soon, and you will need it to regain all your powers. We will be with you, and protect you." With those last words his voice faded away, the Wise Woman stopped her humming, and I returned into my body. The Wise Woman needed a few minutes to recover, and then she told me: "There's a strong spirit guide around you who will protect you, so don't be afraid. You will possess many abilities, and a couple of them are already wakening. That's why you are going through those strange feelings and odd dreams. Don't be afraid, as they will not harm you. You will have a difficult time before you are going to prepare yourself for your final task on earth, and you will help to turn our world into a better place." She handed me a few herbs, and told me to brew a tea from them to help me overcome my strange feelings. My Dad and I thanked her for her help and advice, and went home to tell my Mom what had happened. Fortunately the tea helped me, and soon I forgot everything and returned into my joyful self. My Dad started to look a bit thoughtful, and now and then he just stared into space without saying a word. Many times he went to our hidden caravan; where he sat down for a long time, as if he waited for something to happen. A few times he took me with him, and warned me again to hide in the caravan the very moment he would tell me to flee. My Mom was a bit nervous, and started to clean our caravan inside and outside, over and over, until finally my Dad told her to do something else. Now she started to mope, and refused to do anything at all. I didn't understand why she did that, but felt that same strange feeling, as if we were waiting for something to happen... We were in our caravan and I sat on my Dad's lap, planning to go to bed, while a few candles faintly lighted our cosy room. Suddenly we heard a car enter our camp, and we wondered who would pay us a visit that late in the evening. Somebody asked for 'the little blond haired boy', told it was important, and was reluctantly sent to our caravan. My Mom went to the door to open it. A tall stranger I didn't recognize ducked his head to enter our caravan: "I'm here to warn you for a nasty witch hunt, from which I know you don't deserve it. I'm working in the police station as a part-time janitor, and heard our officers talking. This morning a dark-haired man tried to rob somebody, and killed him in the resulting fight. Unfortunately he escaped, and our officers started an investigation. Several people had seen the man before, being in the company of a small blond-haired boy with blue eyes. They described the man as having a dark complexion, maybe being of gypsy origin, while they thought the small boy could be his son. "Our officers investigated your clan before, and by now they know your King has a little son with blond hair and blue eyes. I can see you don't look like a King at all, but both you and your small boy surely look like the description those people offered us... "I'm sure you and your son weren't there, and you would never rob and kill somebody, as you are always nice and gentle to everybody. That's why I decided to help you, by warning you in advance. I had to wait until I was free, and immediately drove to this camp. Maybe you could take your precautions, because they are planning to arrest you tomorrow and accuse you of robbery and murder." "But... why would they do that? Not I, nor one of my people has ever had anything to do with those things..." "I know, but word is against you, and I'm afraid they will not listen to your arguments. They want to have a perpetrator, and I'm afraid several other people don't trust gypsies and they are already planning to lynch you. I would strongly advice you to leave our country for a couple of months, until the witch hunt has settled down and everything is back to normal." My Dad thanked him for warning us in time, and the man left our caravan and drove off, leaving us bewildered. What should we do now? My Mom started to cry, while my Dad left our caravan to call together our council of advice. Soon they gathered around our campfire, while my Mom and I joined them, both being nervous and determined not to miss a single word. My Dad told our men everything about the warning, and asked them what he should do now. "It's very clear you can't risk being arrested, as they surely would molest you or worse. And when those other people would get hold of you..." "I think you will have to flee, and return in a couple of months when everything has calmed down, or when the real perpetrator is arrested." "What luck we still have that old caravan, and prepared it to be used for just this kind of occurrence." At last my Dad decided to leave our camp early in the morning, to have some time to sleep and prepare himself and us. He would take us with him, so that the police officers couldn't interrogate an innocent child that had nothing to do with robbery and murder. I felt elated about seeing those foreign countries for the first time in my life, and couldn't help it. Of course we would be back after a few months, when those crazy gadjo's had calmed down, and everything would be as before... We returned to our caravan, where my Mom dyed my hair with strong coffee, so that I would look dark-haired for a few days. Thus nobody would recognize me until we were far away in another country and safe from the police. Unfortunately they couldn't dye my blue eyes. The men carefully took their precautions. They transported our old car-with-attached-caravan to a secluded spot in the woods and covered it with moss and leaves, ready to immediately drive away if necessary. We dressed into our clothes; and went to bed fully dressed, to be prepared for all eventualities. I crawled in between my parents, and we cuddled each other for a long time, while my Dad tried to reassure my nervous Mom who started to cry again. Finally we fell asleep, and I dreamed of beautiful foreign countries and people with strange habits. Early in the morning we woke up, showered, and put on fresh clothes. We gathered everything we thought could be of any use, and carried it to our other caravan, that patiently waited for us in its secluded spot, covered with moss and leaves. Now everything was ready... We returned to the campfire, where everybody hugged us and wished us the best. I even thought a few of my friends were a bit jealous of me. We cried a bit, and promised everybody to be back within a few months. We would not try to contact each other from within foreign countries, as that certainly would leave traces that easily could be tracked down by the police officers. We would wait until we were back and ready to cross our border, before we would contact our people for the first time to hear whether the coast was clear. Again we hugged each other, and started to enter the bushes to go to our hidden car and caravan. All of a sudden at least twenty police cars swarmed around our camp, their doors opened, and loads of police officers unloaded. They immediately started to search our caravans, looking for the little blond-haired prince with blue eyes. Nobody saw the two sloppy people, accompanied by a small dark-haired boy, who silently disappeared into the woods. We were on our way to our hidden caravan, trying to act as if we weren't in a hurry at all, while our own people successfully distracted the officers and blocked their vision. Inwardly I laughed. Again we had proven to be too clever for those stupid police officers, who were unable to catch us... We hurriedly cleaned our hidden car from all the moss and leaves; and my Dad drove off as noiselessly as he could. This time he took a nearly invisible secondary road, very difficult to drive on, full of nasty rocks and enormous potholes. The car jumped up and down, while the caravan groaned and swung from left to right. Fortunately my Dad was a very competent driver! My Mom rode shotgun, while I sat on the backseat with my face glued to the back pane, looking out through the attached caravan for following police cars. Nobody showed up, and after a while we relaxed a bit. We had escaped that stupid arresting team. We climbed steep hills, descended along deep ravines, rounded nearly impossible hairpin curves, until we suddenly left the mountains and entered a low lying plain. In a far distance we saw many cars driving on a highway in a permanent hurry. On the plain the driving was a lot easier, and my Dad started to relax. He drove our combination along a small stream, crossed a rickety bridge, and slowly, nearly imperceptibly, we approached the highway. We reached a crossing, turned around a corner, and finally entered the highway. We had to wait until a gap showed up in between all those cars-in-a-hurry, and then my Dad competently steered our combination onto the macadam pavement. We had reached our first goal! Dad pushed the accelerator, the engine started to hum, and we were on our way to a foreign country. Two minutes later we had to stop for a roadblock. Several police officers let the cars pass one by one, carefully looking into them. Obviously they had discovered that their little blond haired prey had escaped. Slowly we drove into the inevitable... The officers turned their heads and craned their necks to look into our car and attached caravan, but all they saw were two dull looking gypsy parents with their little dark-haired son who lowered his small head, and certainly not a King and his blond-haired little Prince. They let us go and resumed their watching, while we drove on as nonchalantly as we could muster. This time I laughed loudly. Again we had outwitted those stupid police officers! Now we had to pass only one other bottleneck: the customs were waiting for us... ============================ Thank you for reading this chapter of 'Little Harry's youth'. My FIRST book, 'Little Harry', is for sale! It costs only $ 19.95 ... Please visit my homepage http://www.harryanders.com and buy it. It's helping lots of people to cope with their feelings! I love your emails, please send them to harry@harryanders.com . Maybe I will not be able to answer all of them, but be assured I will certainly read them all! I wish you lots of Love in your life, and Peace in your heart. And thank you, Nifty, for hosting my stories. Harry AnderS, alternative writer. I'm living in The Netherlands, and my native language is Dutch. Please have a look at my site http://www.harryanders.com or send me and email at mailto:harry@harryanders.com