The vanished village: The story of Max, Frau Schimperglanz and all the others

Von Markus Seidel

Max is eleven when he disappears while playing in the garden and suddenly finds himself somewhere else - in the house of the mysterious woman Frau SCHIMPERGLANZ, who tells him about a vanished village. Max is supposed to bring back its inhabitants, who have made themselves guilty and therefore live in exile in the land of shadows and in the desert. He is supposed to remind them of the good things they have done so that they can finally return to their village.
So Max sets off on his journey, meets the fish in the puddle and strange shadowy creatures, becomes quite small in between and fortunately grows up again quickly, and also meets Frau SCHIMPERGLANZ again and again, who helps him with everything...

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Erscheinungsdatum: 10. Feb. 2020
• ISBN: 9783750224216

Buchvorschau

1

At the end of the whole trip, which I will tell you about here, I was homesick and looked forward to my parents, to mum and dad and of course to Marie and Maya, my sisters. And soon it will happen, soon I will stand in front of our front door and see them all again.

I was away for quite a long time, at least three weeks or maybe even longer, I don't know for sure. I'm about to say: Hi everybody, I'm back! And they'll say, Finally, you're back, Max. Where have you been all this time? or something like that, and everyone will be really excited when they see me again. Probably mom and dad had called the police after they didn't know where else to look for me. I hope they didn't worry too much. But everything's all right now, I'm back now.

I'm sure they want to know where all the sand in my hair, my ears and my clothes came from, and then I'll tell them everything that happened.

One thing's for sure: They'll be amazed when they hear what I've been through...

2

How it all began

The day when I suddenly disappeared one afternoon and the adventure began

It was a beautiful day, a Saturday, the sun was shining and it was quite hot. We soon had big holidays, summer holidays; Marie and Maya, my siblings, and I were looking forward to it, because we wanted to camp in France on the Atlantic coast with our parents. Maya is still in kindergarten, Marie is in the sixth grade and I am in the fifth grade. I had recently celebrated my eleventh birthday, and the colorful Happy Birthday banner from the party was still hanging on the terrace.

Mom sent us outside. Dad was sitting at his desk upstairs writing his book the day I suddenly disappeared. He'd been writing it for a couple of weeks. He's a writer. He also works for a newspaper and writes articles. I don't know exactly what they're about, but every now and then he reads something to me. I like the way he writes. Once I asked him if he would like to read me something from the book he was typing, but he said it wasn't for me, I was too young for that, but later, when I was older, he would give it to me to read. At least that's what he promised me.

My mum is at an insurance company; I don't know what she does there exactly, but she has quite a lot to do.

So it was a Saturday, mum had the day off and dad was typing at the top of his book, as I said. We asked him once again to read us something, but he just shook his head and told us a story he made up at that moment. Marie found the story boring (but I liked it), she told it to him directly, but Daddy didn't hold it against her and said that he would definitely make up a story she would like to hear some day. Then he took her in his arms and whirled her through the air until mum laughed and said that they would both get a spinning worm if he continued like this. Then Maya also wanted to be twirled around by him, finally also me, and in the end of course Mama was supposed to twirl us through the air as well.

That day Mama had sent us outside because the weather was so nice and she wanted to prepare lunch. At first we painted a little with chalk on the sidewalk, but Marie soon didn't feel like it anymore, and then suggested we play hide and seek. Although she is already twelve, she still loves to play hide-and-seek. I should look for her and Maya, Maya was still too small to hide alone at the age of four, that's what mummy had told us over and over again: One always has to stay with Maya. So we agreed that I should look for them both first. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't gone outside and played hide and seek. Then I wouldn't have disappeared, I guess. Then maybe everything would have stayed the same.

Anyway, I found them both pretty soon, even though Marie had chosen a good hiding place, but Maya couldn't keep still, something kept calling her, so I just had to follow her voice to find them. Marie scolded Maya a little bit and said that playing hide and seek with her was not possible at all, and then it was my turn. Marie would count to twenty, I had already chosen a hiding place, namely the shed in the garden where daddy keeps his wheelbarrow and spade and so on. I ran there, opened the door and hid in the back of the shed, between the shelf and the lawnmower. It was quite dark in there, it smelled of earth and lawn and a bit of petrol. Marie and Maya called for me, their voices became quieter and quieter at some point and I wondered why they didn't get the idea to look for me in that shed.

I don't remember how long I sat there, but it must have been five minutes. Then I got up, because I no longer believed that they were still looking for me, and also because my legs hurt from sitting there for so long.

I opened the door and stepped out carefully, after all it was possible that they were both still around. But they were not, simply because there was nothing here that I knew of. I mean, my parents' house was gone, the garden, the street, and Marie and Maya were gone, too. I called for them, but of course it was useless, because I was sure that they were no longer there. Or maybe I should better say: It was me who was no longer there.

I was somewhere else, in another garden that was much bigger than ours, that belonged to a house, a house that didn't have the slightest resemblance to ours. I turned around and looked into the shed, which was exactly the same as the one I had been hiding in. But everything else had changed.

3

At first I stood around for a while trying to make sense of it all, but how was I supposed to understand what was incomprehensible? So I gave it up and walked through the big garden towards the house. I was thirsty and hoped that there was someone in the house who would give me something to drink and tell me how to get back to my parents.

Finally I stood in front of the front door, on the bell sign was a name I didn't know and it sounded quite funny: SCHIMPERGLANZ. I didn't know anybody with that name, and if I hadn't been so confused and also a bit scared, I might have laughed. But I did not necessarily feel like laughing. What I noticed was that it smelled very pleasant of vanilla, and strangely enough, it took away some of my fear right away.

I rang the bell. No one answered. Then I saw that the door was ajar and entered the house. Apparently it was empty, at least not a person could be seen or heard. I went through the rooms that were on the lower floor - living room, kitchen, dining room, storage room (I didn't dare go down to the basement) - but I didn't find anyone anywhere. Then, suddenly, I heard someone singing. It came from one of the upstairs rooms. I went up the stairs, step by step. The singing got louder. At the top, I turned left and stood in the doorway to the room where the boy was sitting and singing.

He was about my age, about eleven years old, had short blond hair and wore small, round, red glasses. His jeans had quite a lot of patches, not only on his knees, and they seemed a bit too small for him. At first he didn't even notice me; he was sitting on the floor and drawing something on a piece of paper, singing to himself. But then he looked up and looked at me in wonder.

Where did you suddenly come from?, he asked. I didn't hear you. Who are you?

I'm Max, I said.

Tom, he said, putting