The Car Booklet

At first he thought it was a stupid present. A small notebook and then they added a pencil and an eraser. His uncle and aunt probably had no idea what to give a 9-year-old boy on his birthday. At first he just left it in the living room until his mother said something about it. Then he put it in the bottom of his closet.

He never played much. He saw only girls outside school: his sisters and a few neighboring girls. They lived on a quiet road that ran through a forest. There were only four houses on the road. It was half an hour's walk to school, so boys in his class never wanted to come with him. He thought that was fine, he liked to read. Therefore, he was also very happy that his parents decided to take the reading portfolio. Actually there was only one magazine for him: the Donald Duck. But he also read the rest, except Woman's Own, because it was always about knitting, cooking and such.

He read a piece about plane spotters in the magazine Playmate. At first he thought they were people who were saying ugly things about airplanes. That would have been crazy. But it was not like that at all. These people would look at airplanes at airports and then write down what they saw.
It gave him an idea: he could do something like that with cars. After all, he had that notebook and then he could write down license plates, make and type of the car and the country it came from.

And so he wanted to go out with Father's fishing stool, but Father did not allow that and he had to put it back. He knew another solution: a little further in a bend in the road was a fence and you could sit on it. A great plan.
He had checked the clock before he left. He put the time at the top of the page and then all he had to do was to wait for the cars.

Not much came by, but because of that bend in the road they did not drive quickly and he could see everything quite well.
His eldest sister came over, being curious, she wanted to know what he was doing. And she thought it was stupid: it was of no use to anybody, she said.
But he quickly responded: if crooks or spies drove past, he would have written them down nicely! And that could be useful for the police.
His sister snorted contemptuously, but left him alone after that.

Sometimes it was quite difficult, like the time a military column passed. He could only have noted the first - with the red flag - and the last - with the green flag. Once a car came from the country CH. He had looked in the atlas, but he couldn't find the land. Even father didn't know where that country was, but he would check it out.
A day later he received the answer, father had it written down. It was Communautee Helvetia, Switzerland. Father couldn't tell why they used that crazy name.

He was lying on his bed on a warm summer evening. He couldn't sleep and through the open window he could hear the birds chirping and his parents talking to the neighbors. A car stopped in front of the house. He got out of bed and looked out the window. Police!
Right, here things were really happening. They knew about his book and they came to have a look.
He heard his parents say "come in".

His parents and the police were in the living room, he could hear them talking and one of the officers said "checked". After a while they left. The living room was quiet for a moment. He could hear his oldest sister coming out of her room and walking down the stairs. He decided to follow her example and took his car booklet along. There was a good chance that he would have to come to the police station with his booklet tomorrow.
In the room he saw that Mother was crying, Father looked very sad and said that the police had come to tell that Grandpa had died.

His sister climbed onto Mother's lap and started crying.
He himself just felt weird. He only felt disappointment with his booklet; felt guilty, he also wished he was in grief. Of course crying was not necessary, men and big boys did not do that. Father would probably say something about it if he did.
So he just stood next to Father, who took his hand and squeezed it a little. He squeezed back, he didn't know what else to do.

He had put his booklet on the table and looked at it.
His sister was right: it was of no use to anybody.
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