It is West-Germany and the year is 1981. My sister and I are on the second floor of an old house in the middle of the hillside in the village of Kleingemund, close to Heidelberg. We borrowed this house for the summer from the University and there is a really nice office on the ground floor with a carved desk and nothing but bookcases around. Behind each book is another book behind and my dad is very happy about this. The whole house is very German to look at, the house is white on the outside but with large brown beams in between. The garden had not been cared for, after the prior owner died. The whole front garden was uncultivated and in the shade grew strawberries, which we ate with the best art most days. The backyard wasn’t much better, as all the trees and shrubs were overgrown, and in the huge garden there was a small patch of grass around it in the middle where we could play. This patch of grass was actually mostly used by the family for badminton early in the evening, where all four of us played badminton together. While playing the game the balls would usually get stuck up in the trees one by one, until there was no one left behind and then we stopped playing. The next day we bought more badminton balls from the local store and kept playing in the evenings. That’s how it went all summer. When we played badminton, the same cat always came out of the bushes and watched us play together. We called the cat Lion and always said: “Well now Lion has arrived”.
One day when mom and dad are downstairs talking about something and my sister Hekla and I are upstairs, and we decide to play hide and seek upstairs. The upper floor is one hallway with 3 rooms, a master bedroom, two extra bedrooms and a large bathroom in the middle. The master bedroom is the largest, it faces the backyard and it has a balcony and under the balcony is a huge rose bush with nothing but thorns. The other bedrooms both face the street and there is a balcony along the entire front of the house and access them through a door in the larger room. My sister is supposed to start finding me, so she goes into the bathroom, closes the door and counts to 30. I have to find a hiding place but there are so few hiding places in these three rooms, only 3 wardrobes and you can’t hide under the beds. I’m going to win Hekla I thought to myself and the I ran around trying to find a good place, but they were all miserable. Hekla has counted up to 20 alreydy and I have to do something right away. I decide to hang out from the balcony, go over the balcony railing and climb to the bottom of the balcony floor on the outside of the balcony and then hang there on my fingertips. Hekla has counted to 30 and then shouts that she is starting to search. I hear her searching and laughing inside. I’m starting to get a little tired in my fingers hanging out like this. I look down and see that I am directly above the huge rose bush that is all in sharp thorns and the bush is bigger than a car. If I fall into it, I’m going to be cut up all over and I’m going to need help to get out again. My dad and mom will go crazy when I get all over the blood, with scratches all over the place. hassle. Hekla is still looking and starts calling my name. She goes into the balcony and back in, but does not see me. My fingers are tired and I can feel them. I hear Hekla walk down and ask my mom if she has seen me and she said no, he’s with you. Suddenly Hekla goes up again and shouts: “I give up!”. Then I smile and call out to her again and again: “I’m here!”. Ha where?, she says and then slides to the sound coming from the balcony. Finally she comes out onto the balcony and looks over the railing and then down from the railing, where I am still hanging on my little fingers. “Are you down there” says Hekla? “Yes” I say and climb back up the railing and onto the balcony. I look at Hekla with her mouth open and say to her with a smile: “I won”.
