Learn to Read
Datum
Leuchtschrift noch dunkel, Aquarell auf Papier, ca 42cm x 29cm, Düren 1995
It was already dark when the letters came on.
Red ones glowed in the distance above the shopping street, dissolving into the evening mist and the yellow light of the shop windows. Close by, green letters flickered into life. DEICHMANN, they said. Of course, at five years old, he didn’t know that.
It was on that autumn evening in the pedestrian precinct of Düren, a small town on the edge of the Eifel, that he first understood that all those glowing signs had something to say.
And he wanted to know what.
His mother told him. At the next illuminated sign, he asked again. And at the next. Eventually, the answers stopped coming.
His older brother had already started school and spent his afternoons drawing the same little loops on paper over and over again. Until then, this had hardly impressed him. Now he sat down beside him, took a sheet of his own and started making loops too.
That went well for a few days. Then it was forbidden. He was told to leave his brother alone to do his homework.
His brother didn’t feel disturbed at all.
He told him the secret.
The signs had sounds. If you joined the sounds together, they became a word.
From then on, whenever someone had to go into town in the evening, he wanted to come along.
The town was full of words.
It stayed that way all winter. The illuminated signs fascinated him, then spring came, summer spread its brightness across the land, and eventually he was given his Zuckertüte, the traditional cone of sweets for his first day at school.
And Fräulein Gräfe.
She was the prettiest teacher he could possibly have imagined. He was in love for the first time and did what a first-grader in love could reasonably do: he showed her how well he could already read.
That backfired.
At the parents‘ meeting, his mother was informed that it was not beneficial to the learning environment if a child was constantly being taught things at home ahead of the class. His mother had no idea what had hit her. She hadn’t taught him ahead at all.
But if Fräulein Gräfe said so, there must have been something to it.
From then on, he did some of his homework twice, occasionally three times. Something could always be found.
There was something wrong with his birthday, too. Other children had birthdays and celebrated them in class. His didn’t happen. Not in the first school year. Not in the second either.
For educational reasons, presumably.
A new boy joined the class in the third year.
His name was Metin, and he did things nobody had dared to do before. In the middle of a lesson, he would stand up and walk around the classroom. Sometimes he would suddenly pack his schoolbag and announce that he was going home now.
During break, he picked a fight. A different boy every day. It always ended the same way, with a scuffle that lasted until the bell rang.
One day it was his turn. He wasn’t surprised.
His quiet composure seemed to irritate Metin. Although dozens of pupils had gathered around them expecting a proper exchange of blows, they merely punched at each other a little, circling one another like a dancing couple, while both of them were really just waiting for the bell.
When it finally rang, the fight was over.
Together they walked past their disappointed classmates. It felt really good to both of them.
On the way back to the classroom, Metin spoke to him. It sounded almost friendly. But he already had a pretty good idea of what would happen at home once his mother heard about the whole thing, and he couldn’t quite respond in kind.
A pity, really. They might have become friends – after that rather cool little number they’d just pulled off together.
It was Metin’s last appearance in the playground. Shortly afterwards, he was taken out of the school.
About three weeks later, for the first time, his birthday was celebrated with the class.
Why? No idea. Adults made rules. Adults changed rules.
The scuffle itself earned him, as expected, being grounded until his birthday.
That was when he started reading.
Old Shatterhand and Winnetou were the beginning. Before long, being grounded didn’t bother him much at all. He read everything he could get his hands on, and soon so quickly that every new book brought with it an entirely different problem.
By the beginning of the week, he was already starting to worry:
Where was he going to get the next book?
