Although Rosalie had enjoyed the various half-days at Ineke and Ilse's house, her visits to Gloria and had worked terribly hard on several long stories, she was glad that discovery centre 'I discover myself!' was reopening. She had heard from Patrick in the third holiday week, that there would be a new discoverer, and of course she had been curious about that all these weeks.

On the first morning, she was already at the front door of the centre at eight o'clock, eagerly waiting for Patrick to unlock the front door. Yesterday they had also been here together to open all the windows for a while and see if things needed cleaning. That wasn't too bad, they had only cleaned the fridge and toilets together again.

Patrick had been proud of her: "Remember, Rosalie, when you went to help clean the toilets for the first time?"

Rosalie had chuckled: "Oh yes, I remember that very well. I thought it was such a dirty job. But actually it wasn't so bad, messing about with that brush in the pot!"

Patrick had lunged at her, pretending to splash her with the other toilet brush.

"Patrick, that's really dirty! Bah, dirty boy!"

She had laughed when he had come after her, fortunately without the toilet brush.

Today they would start again, and while Patrick looked for the right key, Rosalie chuckled about the toilet story.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Patrick. "Can I laugh along?"

"Yeah sure, go ahead!" laughed Rosalie now full-on.

"Silly girl, what were you laughing about then?"

"About yesterday, with those toilet brushes, and that you came after me."

"Oh yes," Patrick chuckled, "sometimes we do seem a bit crazy!"

Rosalie grinned at him. Then she walked in after him.

"Is the new discoverer coming already today?"

"Yes, right away today. He is not coming right away for the whole week yet, he wants to discover for a while how he likes it here, whether he would like to come more often."

They heard a noise at the front door and turned around.

"Ha, there's Jan, how nice that you're already here!" Patrick greeted him, and said to his parents, "Hey Bert, Annelies, if you want to stay another hour, it's no problem for us."

Jan nodded at his parents; he did want them to stay.

Rosalie stepped towards him, put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hi, I'm Rosalie, and I really like that you're coming too. Finally another discoverer!"

"You call a child here discoverer?" asked Jan in surprise.

"Yes, we are not students, nor little kiddies, we do it together here. Well, I can also see that we are smaller than Patrick, but he doesn't act childish to us, really, he hates that. We're about to have a meeting, talk together about what we think is important. Oh yes, we have to write down what time we came. Patrick, we were here at eight o’clock, right?"

Patrick nodded: "Exactly at eight, and Jan, a minute later? Or shall we just write down eight o'clock for you too."

"Can you write already?" asked Rosalie.

Jan shook his head.

"Do you enjoy writing it down together, me holding your hand?"

Jan shook his head again.

"I don't like that, I'd rather play outside."

"And what do you want to discover?"

Jan pulled an uncertain face.

"I don't know, I don't know, I just want to play outside, but the teacher didn't let me, I had to sit at my little table and then listen to her story. But I didn't like her story. I like other stories."

"I like stories too! So which stories do you like?" asked Rosalie.

"About animals, real animals, I like that! And I think I want to be a farmer, with a big vegetable garden."

"We don't have a vegetable garden here yet, Patrick..."

"Right! Tell you what, come and sit here all nice and cosy, and we'll talk about that right away. Shall I write down what we all decide?"

Jan looked at him wide-eyed, not understanding, but sat down next to Rosalie. He thought the girl was a wiseass, but she also seemed nice.

"I will start for a moment, and if you have any questions, I would like you to ask your questions. Our meeting is just a conversation. We talk together about things we think are important for our lives here at the discovery centre."

Jan raised his finger. Patrick nodded at him.

Jan asked, "What is it called here again?"

"I discover myself !" replied Rosalie. "You get to discover everything here, learn by yourself, ask for help or do it yourself."

"True," Patrick complemented, "it's really different here than at school. We are not going to tell you what to do. You get to look around here, ask questions, and above all try to discover what you like. Well, one thing you already know is that you like playing outside, being busy outdoors and you just mentioned a vegetable garden. Well it's long since summer, and I don't know very much about vegetable gardens, so I don't know what can still be sown or planted, but... I can still discover things too. And Rosalie and you too, and Bea and Ineke, they're companions like me, they come a bit later, they can still discover things too. So if you think you'd like to make a vegetable garden, we'll just figure out how to do that."

"Patrick, I think Sjaak knows," Rosalie thought.

"I think so too, we can ask him, or we can look it up on the computer. Jan, do you think you want to try that, make a small vegetable garden?"

"May I? Is that really allowed?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes indeed, we are trying to find out here what we really like, what we really want to learn. And now if you would like to discover how to make and look after a vegetable garden, we would be happy to help you with that."

Jan was completely upset for a moment, putting his face in his mother's lap and starting to sob. Patrick nodded to his mother and raised his thumb to let her know, that it was no problem.

Jan looked up when he heard noises at the front door. Bea and Ineke came in with shopping bags, immediately overlooked that Jan was a bit upset, and went to greet his parents first.

"And Jan, I see you cried for a while. Were you sad?" asked Bea.

Totally unexpectedly, a bright smile appeared on his face when Bea asked. He shook his head violently: "No, I'm so happy, it's really nice here! I get to make a vegetable garden from that gentleman!"

"From Patrick? Patrick is the best, he should just stay here, don't you think?"

Jan now laughed in full: "Yes, he should stay here, and he's going to help me with the vegetable garden."

"Is Patrick going to help you with the vegetable garden?" asked Bea, deliberately very surprised. "But Patrick, you don't know anything about that, do you?"

Patrick looked at her with a roguish face: "True, I only know that you have to put something in the ground, seeds or a small plant or something, other than that I don't know anything about it. But I'm going to find out, together with Jan, right Jan?"

Jan nodded enthusiastically and Rosalie clapped her hands. "Cool Jan, put it on Patrick!"

"Jan, I think we'll walk over to the guesthouse next door later to look for Sjaak. Sjaak is a great guy who knows a lot about gardens. I'm sure he would enjoy helping us! Then I have another meeting point because Jan is new here and we are starting a new year, so we can refresh our memories ourselves. It's about the things we do here every day.

1. Bea and Ineke have just been shopping. They're good at that, but if anyone else wants to come along sometime, you can always ask. It's fine if you go with them once to do some shopping.

2. When we come in here and when we go home, we write down the time. As long as you can't do it yourself yet, we'll help you, no problem!

3. Around 10 o'clock I feel like having coffee, so I'll make it with that nice machine over there. And it's fun, because that machine makes quite some noise when it grinds the coffee beans. As a result, everyone knows it's time to come together and have a drink. The same happens around noon when we have lunch and in the afternoon at about 2.30pm. We always make sure there is some choice of drinks here, so you don't have to bring your own. And for lunch, we make our own sandwiches here. And we take turns doing the dishes afterwards!

4. The toilets are just around the corner there. There are big and small toilets, choose the one that suits you best. Toilets have to be kept clean, which we do at the end of the day. One of the supervisors does that together with Rosalie and in a while Jan may learn to do it too. Rosalie thought it was a dirty job at first, but it wasn't so bad, eh Rosa?

5. If there are problems, we solve them together. We don't have a lot of rules, but if someone doesn't follow a rule, you can tell them, even if it's a companion. After all, we as companions are no better than you as discoverers, we stand next to each other, and we help each other remember.

I think those are the most important things to know for now. Do you have any questions?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Rosalie, do you already know what you are going to do this morning?"

Rosalie nodded enthusiastically: "Yes, write a new story!"

"Do you write stories?" asked Jan. "Real stories?"

"Yes, real ones, I want to write books later."

Annelies interfered in the conversation, startled herself for a moment, but received an encouraging nod from Patrick. She asked Rosalie: "Have you finished some stories yet?"

"Yes, I have a lot of little ones, and in the holidays I wrote three big long stories. They are fifty pages or more."

"Can I read them? Or would you find that unpleasant?"

Rosalie thought for a moment: "Ineke, you said I can print them out, will you help me with that later? Then Jan can take them home this afternoon. Maybe Annelies will enjoy reading them to Jan."

"What are they about then?" asked Jan, who didn't fancy having everything read to him.

"I think you might like them. The first is about a squirrel, the second about a deer, and the third about a worm. And later on I'm going to write about... no, I won't say yet, that's a surprise!"

"Oh, I think that's fun yes!"

Patrick intervened, "What do you think Jan, shall we go and ask Sjaak for help first?"

Jan nodded, got up at the same time as Patrick and walked behind him. He was so happy that it made him forget about his father and mother altogether. In the hall, Patrick said to him, "Will you wave to your father and mother?"

Jan turned around, waving radiantly, while Patrick raised his thumb above him. Together they walked outside, looking for Sjaak.

.

Inside, Rosalie went to work with Ineke on printing out her stories. Ineke had already shown Rosalie during the holidays how to set up her laptop so that the page numbers automatically appeared at the top in the corner. So they didn't have to do anything about that anymore!

Ineke took a large multi-folder from the pantry and put some tabs in it. Rosalie asked her which cord to use to connect her laptop to the printer.

"That is not necessary with this printer, it can be done without a cord, wireless is what it is called," she said. "Before you print, make sure there is enough paper in the printer, otherwise it won't work."

There was still some paper in there, but not enough. Ineke pointed her in the cabinet below, where there was more paper.

"Wow, so many packs?"

"Yes say, if you are writing stories one after the other, we will need a lot of paper!"

Rosalie chuckled, quite understanding that it wasn't just for herself. She grabbed a stack of paper from an open pack and put it in the compartment with the other paper.

"Is that enough?"

"For now, yes, I think we'll have to refill in between.

Since Rosalie had already started her laptop and the printer was on, Ineke pointed out to her where to click and helped her through everything the first time. They agreed in between that they would print double-sided, then it would look just like a real book and also cost less paper.

"I don't understand how that works," she said.

"Me neither," Ineke told her honestly, "I don't understand how that printer knows what to do, but I do know that it knows, it gets it done! Well, start it!"

Immediately the printer started humming and papers slid from the drawer into the machine, and came out again at the side. Open-mouthed, Rosalie followed the process.

"This one does it very differently from our printer at home! Then the paper comes out on top here!" she declared in amazement.

"Yes, that's possible, that happens often, but this one apparently does it differently..." Ineke replied.

"Can I see if it has turned out nicely yet?"

"You mustn't pull out any sheets, otherwise the printer won't know how to print the back later, but we can have a look like this."

Ineke pushed one corner of the printed papers up slightly so Rosalie could look underneath.

"I see it, I see a piece of the story, how funny!"

The printer stopped.

"Why is it stopping now? He still has to do the other side!"

"Yes, it does, but then we have to put this printed stack somewhere else first."

Ineke showed her step by step what to pay attention to, showed it all the first time.

"Look, your laptop is also waiting for you to give the signal for the printer to move on. You may click that now."

A while later, the first story was all printed.

"Now we just have to make holes in the papers so we can put them in the multi-folder."

Rosalie looked at her frowning: "How do we do that? Is there a machine for that too?"

Ineke smiled and pointed to the cupboard: "There is a device in there that can make holes, a perforator. Just try to find out which one it is."

Rosalie opened the cupboard. She saw a device with a big knife, it wouldn't be that one. Next to it was a device with all little poles and a big, long handle. She thought that couldn't be him either, but suddenly felt the urge to very carefully move that handle and see what happened. She raised it and saw that the small poles were also raised.

"Is this the right device? Can those little poles make holes?" she asked herself in a whisper. She gently felt the underside of one pole. It felt strange, not like a sharp knife, but a little sharp, and the shape at the bottom was special. "Yes, I think this one will do," she said to herself, put the handle back down and pulled on the device.

"So say, what a heavy bitch you are! Ineke, will you give me a hand? Oh wait, it's already working..."

As Rosalie carefully pulled out the perforator, Ineke stood with her hands ready to assist if necessary. With the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, Rosalie carried the heavy thing to the table and let it lean carefully on one corner, next to the empty multi folder. Then she lowered the rest of the device until it stood properly on the table.

"Why is that thing so terribly heavy? It's awkward, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is awkward when you want to take it out of the cupboard or put it back in there, but when working it is necessary. Because otherwise it will tilt when you make holes. Look at it like this..."

Ineke showed her what would happen if the base of the perforator were not so heavy. Rosalie nodded, understanding that it was better that the base was heavy.

"And now?" She grabbed the whole stack at once, wondering how to get it in.

"Only a few leaves are allowed in at a time. Shall we start at the beginning of your story?"

Rosalie counted five papers each time, took them in both hands and tapped them on the table so that they lay neatly against each other. As Ineke had shown her the first time, she slid the stack under the posts, against the corner, tapped them properly to both sides, and moved the handle down. Each time, it fascinated her, how the curved sides of the posts made a cut in her papers, then went on and just squeezed out little circles. Ineke had told her that those little circles ended up in the bottom of the perforator, and that they would have to empty that tray later.

Quietly they worked on, until they heard the coffee machine grinding coffee beans. They looked at each other in surprise. "Is it that late already?" asked Rosalie in surprise.

"By the sound of it, yes," Ineke replied, "but we had a meeting first, and then we have already printed and perforated two stories. And now you're working on the third. So you'll be done with that before lunch. Shall we go and hear how Jan had experienced?"

Well, they didn't need to ask about that. As soon as he saw Rosalie, he enthusiastically started telling her that he had been to Sjaak, and that he was very kind. He had gone with them to the garden centre and there they had looked together to see what they needed.

"We bought soil, garden soil is called that, isn't it, Patrick?"

Patrick nodded smiling.

"And we are going to plant onions, and sow cress, and two types of salad, let me think... lamb's lettuce, it tastes a bit like nuts, said Sjaak... and the other one has a rotten name, uhm sorry, a difficult name... with a rrrr... what was it again?"

Jan turned to Patrick: "You're right Jan, it is a difficult name, and a rotten name is not really a very nasty word to me myself, you don't scold that lettuce with it. That lettuce is called rucola salad. Sjaak said it tastes spicy. And what about now Jan?"

"Well, we've already turned over the earth a bit with a shovel and loosened it with a... a rake. And on top of that we threw garden soil, as many as four bags! And after coffee we will sow. Sjaak thinks that the cress will have grown quite well by next week, that we can almost eat it then. Actually... actually, I would like to come to this school every day, no, not a school, a... discovery centre. Why do you put your finger to your mouth?" he asked Bea.

"Because I saw that Rosalie wanted to tell you. I think it's more fun for you if you find the word yourself. And you managed to do that!"

"I like that you had so much fun, Jan," Rosalie said. "Do you really want to come every day? I'd love it!"

"Is that possible?" asked Jan to Patrick.

"As far as I'm concerned it can, but I think we need to discuss it with Bert and Annelies. Will they pick you up together this afternoon?"

"I don't know, Annelies will anyway, maybe Bert will come along. But if Annelies comes alone, we can also tell her and then they can talk about it together at home and then call you. Can we do that too?" Jan was actually quite proud of his plan.

"I think it's totally fine," Patrick replied, "you've thought that out well. And Rosalie, what have you been doing this morning, typing away again?"

"No, we started printing out my first stories. And I lifted that heavy thing out of the cupboard. Jan, that thing also has a rotten name, a per-for-rat-and-a-tor hahahaha, that's how I remember it, it's called a perforator, right Ineke?"

Ineke nodded smiling. "That's right, nice mnemonic Rosalie, just the thing for you to use animal names with it!"

Rosalie smiled, "Ineke told me step by step how the printer worked, I added paper myself twice. And for the second and third story, I was allowed to turn over the stack of printed papers and put them in that slot of the printer, because it had to print on two sides. What's that called again, something with double? Double-ended, something like that, but it's different..."

"Double-sided. The word 'end' can mean pretty much the same as 'side'. So you actually came up with quite a nice new word. The printer had to print on both sides, a sort of on both ends of the paper."

"That will be my new hobby, coming up with new words," Rosalie chuckled.

"And Rosalie found out for herself which device she needed to make holes in the papers so they could go into the multi-folder. And she also works with it herself. I only stay around in case she needs help."

"We are already working on the third story, we just started with the holes, so the printer is already done. Oh, we still have to turn it off!"

She wanted to jump up already, but Ineke stopped her: "That will come later, indeed we forgot, but that's not really a problem. We'll do it straight away before we perforate again."

"Oh yes, that's what perforation is called... perforate, operate... yes, that's it, we operate the papers, make holes in them." She laughed even more at Jan's puzzled face than at the joke she was making.

"I like making jokes with words, saying crazy things, things that are not real. Get it?" she asked him.

"Oh, I already thought it was a bit weird!" Jan replied.

"It really was... paper operating, that's just weird!" smiled Rosalie. "Are you going to seed in a minute?"

Jan's face brightened: "Yes, at least the cress. And maybe more. I don't know how fast it all goes."

Someone came in through the front door. A moment later, Sjaak looked around the corner.

"I came to see how my fellow gardener is doing? Did it work out a bit, Jan?"

"Yes, but we are far from finished!"

"Shall we clear our cups and go outside with Sjaak?" asked Patrick, "then we'll see how far we get today."

They brought their cups into the kitchen, where Patrick grabbed a small bowl from the cupboard.

"What is that for?" asked Jan.

"We can put the seeds in that, then we can grab them a bit easier."

"Handy!" Jan hopped past the others who had remained seated for a while. He waved and cheerfully called out, "See you later!"

" Amazing, that kid is completely alive!" said Bea, "He was so down because of the school he had been to. Look at him now, he's only been here a few hours..."

"Bea, why don't you send his mother a message, it will make her happy too!" Rosalie suggested.

Bea nodded and grabbed her mobile. "Why don't you send her a message? Would you like to?"

Rosalie eagerly took the mobile, tapped 'Messages' and searched for Annelies.

"I won't read the other messages, though," she promised and started typing. Before sending her message, she read it aloud:

" 'Jan went to the garden shop with Patrick and Sjaak the gardener from Bloemenhof. He bought soil and seeds and is now going to sow. He is totally happy! Greetings from Rosalie. And I printed my stories, you can take them with you later.'

Shall I send it like this?" she asked.

"Seems fine to me, you've described it beautifully!" thought Bea.

Rosalie sent the message, handed the mobile back to Bea and looked at Ineke.

"Shall we continue?"

"We will!"

To chapter 62. A gardener

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