“I already got my tools. Where exactly do you want the rods?” asked Huib. They were standing by the sink on the attic landing.

Margreet took the double towel rail and held it against the wall, shifting slightly to the left, to the right… slightly down…

“We can skip the first lesson,” Huib chuckled. “I expected you to point your finger, but the way you do it is much more convenient, you can immediately see the effect, then you can see which place you like best. Conclusion: you have no sawdust in your beautiful head!”

“Grazy guy! I'm smart enough, and I don't have a beautiful head!"

Huib looked at her open-mouthed, and then walked into her room with great strides. “Don't you have a damn mirror anywhere? Have you never taken a good look at yourself?”

He came back to the landing, took her by the chin and looked straight into her eyes. “You have beautiful eyes, a very beautiful color green, it seems jade green. And if you set up those great eyes like now, and look me straight in the eye, I see golden dots in that green. That alone, your eyes, beautiful! And this…” he stroked her cheekbones with his forefingers, “this gives your face a perfect shape. And those sweet freckles of yours, they make it a real feast to look at you! For me anyway! But come on, let's do something about those rods."

Margreet, wide-eyed, staggered uncertainly on her legs. What the hell was wrong with her? Every time he approached her like that, touched her or said something sweet, she got the jitters in her body, and this time it was even worse, her legs looked like a slack-jawed doll! She saw that Huib held out a pencil to her. She took it and looked at it as if she'd never seen a pencil before. Pencil? Beautiful eyes? Cheekbones, freckles? Pencil? Oh wait, the rods… She looked at the towel rail and again at the pencil. She understood that it was useful to poke the pencil point in the holes, so that it was clear where to drill.

Huib nodded in satisfaction and handed her the drill. He put the plug in the wall socket, while Margreet placed the rods on the sink rack.

She stammered: "Huib, I've never held a drill in my hands, I really don't know..."

Huib explained calmly to her that he himself had already put in a drill bit of the right thickness. He showed her how to change a drill bit, loosened the drill bit and put it back. He showed her two screws and two plugs.

“If we screw a screw directly into that wall, there is a good chance that it will fall out again in no time. That is why we will first drill a hole, so deep that this plug will fit in, and then we will screw that screw into the plug. That plug keeps everything together.”

He took Margreets hands and positioned them so that she could handle the drill without any problem. Huib showed Margreet, using a plug, how deep the drill should go into the wall.

Together they drilled the first hole, checking with the plug next to the tip of the drill if the hole was deep enough. Margreet then drilled the second hole without help. When the second one had also been drilled deep enough, Margreet pushed the plugs into the holes.

"So?" she asked uncertainly.

“Yeah, you're doing great”

Margreet looked at the screws, took the first one and for a moment she had the tendency to screw it directly into the plug. She changed her mind, took the towel rail, pushed the screw through the top hole and stuck it into the top plug. She started screwing in the screw with her thumb and forefinger. The first part went fine, but after a while it became painful and eventually impossible. Then she saw that Huib, with a wink, reached her a screwdriver.

“I always do it that way,” he said, “I screw in the first bit by hand, but after that you really need a screwdriver.”

“Where do you get all that stuff so quickly?” Margreet asked. She didn't see a toolbox anywhere.

“The toolbox is in the laundry room downstairs. I got out what we needed and put it in my band here.”

Margreet saw that he was wearing a kind of wide belt, with leather loops in which he could hang the smaller tools like a screwdriver. And for the even smaller stuff, such as screws and plugs, there was a little tray with a flap at the side of the belt. “Super convenient!”

She took the screwdriver and started to screw the screw in deeper until it really couldn't go any further. She felt the rods. It was stuck! Now the bottom screw… With a grim face she pushed it into the wall as well, felt the rods again and looked at Huib with a triumphant look: “I managed it!”

“And how did you like it?”

“It's actually quite nice, I like to learn something when I enjoy the result myself. My towel will be hanging here soon, and my hydrangeas in a while.”

She saw the question on Huibs face. She beckoned him to her room and pointed to the window. “Those hydrangeas. Annerieke has told me that I can hang them upside down to dry after flowering. I think I'll buy a bigger vase one day and put the dried flowers in it. I'm curious what they'll look like then."

“Different, but also beautiful. The color then disappears, they get a kind of ecru tint,” replied Huib. He picked up his drill and screwdriver, tapped his finger on her cheek, and whispered, "You're a great handywoman, who knows, maybe I'll come and ask you for help some day!"

“Yeah, because I can now drive a screw in a wall...” Margreet laughed.

“Yeah….” he said in a mysterious tone, then continued in a normal voice: “I'm going again, are you going to do something fun this afternoon?”

“No and yes,” Margreet replied. “I received an email from my parents, which I have to read and answer. That's what the no is for, because I really don't like to do it. And that yes is for an idea from Sjaak. He pointed me to the weed garden and advised me to sit very still there so that I could enjoy the birds.”

“Weed garden? Silly Sjaak! I prefer to call it our wild garden.”

“Yes, he said something like that, but many people would call it a weed garden. Okay, let's stick to wild garden," Margreet concluded.

“It's really beautiful there, have fun later!”

To chapter 18. When the bomb breaks, she's not alone

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