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jail for him, which in turn means that he, Konrad Bantelmann, has the best excuse in the whole world not to turn up to his appointment with this Fridz. What a piece of luck, thinks Konrad, and on aday like today! He vows never to think badly of spinach again. Hurray!
    Konrad does not, of course, say ‘Hurray!’ Instead, he makes a gesture that means roughly, ‘Oh well, that’s life.’ And he says aloud, ‘I’ll just go back upstairs then.’ That is to say, he doesn’t say it really loudly, but rather softly, so that it sounds half-sad and half-sulky.
    â€˜No, no!’ says Mum quickly. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
    What’s that supposed to mean? Did she intend ‘house arrest’ to mean something different? And if so, what?
    â€˜You can go,’ says Mum. ‘You have an appointment. We’ll discuss the spinach this evening.’
    There he stands, then, Konrad Bantelmann. No such luck after all. What can he say? Should he ask for a spot of house arrest so that he doesn’t have to visit the wretched rabbit? No, that would never do.
    Instead, he mumbles ‘Thanks,’ as quietly as possible, opens the door a crack and squeezes out. There’s no way back now. What had Mum said yesterday? He’d just have to go through it.
    Konrad walks slowly along Hedwig Dransfeld Strasse, his eyes glued to the ground, to the new paving stones, which are still quite bare, without a single piece of trodden-on chewing gum on them. Just as long as he doesn’t meet anyone. As long as no one speaks to him. So that the whole of The Dransfeld doesn’t start gossiping about how he has a date with a girl.
    Outside number 28b Konrad looks up for the first time. He can’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean that no one hasseen him. In 27b, for example, the twins, Lena and Lisa, could be watching him from behind a flowery net curtain or a china goose. But Konrad has an idea. He knows a trick. He got it out of a detective story. He takes a euro coin out of his pocket, keeping his fist closed over it, then he bends over and gropes on the ground. And when he straightens up, he has the coin in his hand, so that anyone watching would be sure to think he’d just found it on the ground. That’s part one of the clever trick. Now for the second part. Konrad looks pointedly left and right as if to say, who could have lost this coin? Who could it be? And the third part of the trick: Konrad looks up the drive of number 28b and smacks himself with the flat of his hand on the forehead, the way Mum does when she finally remembers, after many hours, where she has put her keys. That’s supposed to mean, obviously it’s the people in number 28b who have lost the coin. The fourth part of the trick goes like this: Konrad holds the coin up as high as possible, he goes to the door of number 28b and he rings the doorbell. Nobody on earth could possibly conclude after all this that Konrad Bantelmann is ringing the doorbell because he is supposed to meet a girl.
    â€˜Hi,’ says Fridz.
    â€˜Hi,’ says Konrad.
    â€˜Come in!’ She grabs Konrad’s sweatshirt and drags him into the house. That’s girls for you.
    â€˜There’s no admission charge,’ she says.
    Konrad, of course, still has the coin in his raised hand.
    â€˜Oh,’ he says, ‘this is – ah – for the rabbit.’
    â€˜Great,’ says Fridz, ‘thank you very much. But he doesn’t eat money.’
    Yeah, very funny. This Fridz is by far the sharpesttongued girl that Konrad has ever met. But he won’t let himself be beaten as easily as that.
    â€˜I know,’ he says. ‘But I thought you should buy him a fresh lettuce.’
    As a smart answer, that’s pretty good. Except that now the rabbit is the centre of attention again. And that was exactly what Konrad wanted to avoid.
    But Konrad’s luck is very changeable today. Fridz