Erzsi Kertész

Leave Me Alone!

Translator
Anna Bentley

Illustrator
Eszter Metzing

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Cerkabella Publishing House
Szentendre, 2023.

© Erzsi Kertész
© Eszter Metzing
© Anna Bentley
© Cerkabella Publishing House, 2023

Publisher in charge: Ágnes Nyulas
Editor: Sheeks Marie-Josée
eBook creator: Lajos Nagy

ISBN 978 615 663 001 8

www.cerkabella.hu

Chapter 1.
The Secrets Drawer

Lotti was twiddling the combination lock on her secrets drawer. She had forgotten the code again, the one she had set it to just two days earlier. It could have been 538, but it might also be 385. One thing was for sure: it had a three and a five in it. Or was it a four? She twisted the dials crossly, tried out maybe three more combinations, then shrugged her shoulders. She had another way to solve the problem.

She pulled the desk away from the wall a little, so she could get at the back of the drawer. From there, it was easy. All she had to do was lift off the back of the drawer and she would be able to get at everything it contained: her collection of crystals, her secret diary, her pack of scented erasers, and her collection of car trading cards. They all got on fine together in there, though it was starting to get pretty crowded. Never mind, she would give the drawer a good tidy in the summer holidays.

Lotti reached for the stack of cards. She wanted to look through them one more time because Tibor from the third floor was coming over in the afternoon to do some trading. When he had first started to come over and swap cars with her little brothers, Lotti had only taken part out a sense of obligation. Lately, however, she had really taken to it, and was even becoming quite an expert. She knew what horsepower all the cars were and their top speeds. Sometimes she and the boys invented different kinds of competitions with them, and Lotti was amused to find she now had her own set of cars. Even if they were only pictures… After all, what else could she do when there wasn’t a single girl living nearby, and she had to spend every weekend and school holiday with her two brothers and Tibi from their building? Ok, so sometimes she did meet up with her classmates, or they would go round to each other’s houses, but most of the time Lotti still had to make do with the boys’ company.

Which didn’t bother her in the slightest. Her two little brothers – they were twins – were always thinking up some hair-raising project and trying to drag her into it. Lotti did get involved in most of these, but she also knew exactly when to draw the line at Benedek and Béla’s rather over-the-top ideas. Whenever Tibi joined them, it made a refreshing change. He was the same age as Lotti, but instead of going to the Rugged Road School, he went to Level Meadow (which was a great pity because Lotti thought her own school – Rugged Road – was ever so much better).

Tibi, like Lotti, was in Year Four, and you could talk to him about books, teachers and classmates as well as cars. It was really Lotti’s parents who called him Tibi, so Lotti sometimes called him that too, but he didn’t really like it. Tibi, however, was an easy-going boy, and he didn’t get cross about it. He talked a lot, which Lotti sometimes found a bit irritating, as she liked to talk a fair bit too. As did her brothers. Even so, the children rarely got into an argument, because when the atmosphere got at all tense and they started shouting over each other, most often it would dissolve into laughter.

Lotti felt smug as she twisted the elastic band back onto the stack of cards. Tibi had his eye on her Ferrari of course, but he wouldn’t be getting it. That afternoon he would be bound to offer her two or even three other cars in exchange, including the Bugatti that Lotti really liked. She still wouldn’t swap the Ferrari for it, however, because she’d realised that if all three boys had their eye on something, it must be very special indeed, and she’d be mad to part with it. If she could only be lucky enough to find such a great car inside one of her packets! Lotti felt that being the only one who owned a Ferrari put her somehow in a superior position to the others; it made her practically president of the car-card club.

Recently, she’d started to take her collection into school too. To begin with, the boys in her class were little surprised, but they soon let her trade cards with them. Cars changed owners on a daily basis, and everyone’s collection kept getting bigger. Every morning, they would wait excitedly to see what the others would turn up with. They would spread out their treasures on the desks, then get stuck into a massive, cut-throat swapping session. Lotti got funny looks from some of the girls for taking part in this, but she wasn’t bothered by their comments. She really enjoyed trading cars. And if that wasn’t so much the girls’ thing, she had a boxful of other cards she’d be happy to swap with them.

Lotti wasn’t a high-flying student, and, although she hadn’t noticed it up until the start of this school year, she was beginning to realise that she wasn’t really one of the so-called ‘cool’ girls either. While she got on well enough with everyone, she didn’t have one or two really good friends, like Emma did, or Flóra, say. And… well, yes. She wasn’t particularly good at sport. In Lotti’s family, sport wasn’t a big thing. Neither her father, nor her little brothers – nor Lotti – were exactly skinny. This didn’t mean that they didn’t like hiking or swimming in the lake in the summer, but they had somehow never been able to get too excited about other kinds of exercise. As far as Lotti was concerned, that was not a problem. Some boys and girls were slimmer, some were rounder: that’s how the world was. Her mother and grandmother had always told Lotti she was a very pretty girl, that she had a sweet, smiley face, was always friendly and cheerful, and if she found something funny, you could hear her laughing from the other end of the street. So Lotti didn’t think there was anything whatsoever wrong with her.

And even if she didn’t get top marks in sport or spelling, she still enjoyed school. Of all her classmates, Lotti liked Dóra the best, though she wasn’t always easy to talk to. Dóra always listened when Lotti told her stuff, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Occasionally, this struck Lotti as very odd. If she had something on her mind, she liked to get it off her chest. In this respect, she was a bit similar to Arika Kégli, who she also got on well with. Just the problem with Arika was that when they were both trying to tell the other one something, they would sometimes try to talk over each other. Then they would snap at each other for always going on about themselves and not listening.

Now they were in Year Four, however, a few things had changed at school. Lotti was surprised to see that friendship issues were becoming more and more important among the girls. Sometimes she felt a bit uncomfortable about not having one or two ‘real’ or ‘best friends.’ But the fact was, she was able to get along with everyone. She never protested when the teacher decided to reorganise where the children sat. If she was put next to a boy, that was fine, and if she was put with a girl, that was fine too. After all, everyone was interesting in some way or other. On account of their card collection, if nothing else. Or the treats that emerged from their packed lunches… She could never understand why some people made such a fuss over where they sat.

She had also noticed that the girls in her class were behaving more and more weirdly these days. At breaktimes they would go off into a corner, and if anyone went near them, they would deliberately lower their voices or direct piercing looks at them until they went away. It was clear there were things they wanted to keep secret. From time to time, however, Lotti had an uneasy feeling that they weren’t only whispering secrets to each other. She got the impression they were making not particularly flattering remarks about their classmates. The other day, for example, when Lotti had wanted to join Rebeka and Flóra in the playground, Rebeka had given her a really strange look.

“Listen, don’t bother us right now, okay?” Rebeka had said, before turning her back on Lotti.

Lotti had felt quite hurt at this, but she didn’t stay despondent for long. Instead, she decided to go off and play ping-pong with the boys.

Perhaps it was better not to think too much about school, she thought. It was Saturday after all, and pretty soon they’d be having lunch (breaded pork with mashed potato, and Mum was making sour cherry cake too). Then Tibi would be coming over and he’d be bound to have some funny stories to tell about his classmates.

So it was better not to bother herself about Rebeka and her gang. She needed to look through her cards once more and decide which ones she was willing to trade.

Chapter 2.
The Exercise Book

On Monday morning, Lotti was excited as she set off for school. Her classmates were going to be amazed when they saw what she’d got hold of at the weekend! By chance, Tibi had ended up with two identical Ford Mustangs and had been kind enough to give one of them to her. This had rubbed the twins up the wrong way a bit. But Lotti had been so pleased with her new acquisition that she had felt generous and had presented each of her brothers with a Porsche they needed for their collections. Peace had been restored, and they had all gone out into the big, shared courtyard of their building to play hide-and-seek.

By the time Lotti got to the classroom, trading was well under way. She quickly threw down her bag and joined Dani, Robi and Greg, who were arguing loudly over whether it made sense to exchange an Alfa Romeo for a Lamborghini. Lotti dived in with her thoughts on this, and soon the room was ringing with her laughter. She found it very funny how the boys poured scorn on other’s cars. Half-jokingly and half in earnest, they dubbed the very car they had set their sights on ‘a rust bucket,’ a ‘total wreck’, or a ‘useless piece of junk.’ Lotti just hooted with laughter.

“Er, excuse me! Do you have to make that kind of noise? It’s so cringy!” remarked Rebeka, who had forgotten to do her music homework and was now trying to draw neat blobs onto the staves in her exercise book in the three minutes remaining to her. “I can’t hear myself think!”

Lotti’s laughter stuck in her throat. It wasn’t so much what Rebeka had said – Lotti had often been told she laughed a bit too loudly – it was more the nasty way she’d said it.

“All right, take it easy,” she muttered under her breath. Not feeling in the mood for trading anymore, Lotti swept up her cards and retreated to her desk. This year, she was sitting next to Veronika, someone she didn’t have much in common with, sadly. Veronika was a talented violinist, but, unfortunately, she wasn’t interested in anything else except how her last performance had gone, how many minutes the applause had lasted and what other concerts she was preparing for. The two girls didn’t say anything to each other now, either. They just unpacked their exercise books onto the desk and waited for Rita néni, their class teacher, to turn up.

Just as Rebeka finished her music homework, Rita néni arrived. She was beaming. It looked as if she had some really good news to tell the children that Monday morning.

“Imagine,” she began eagerly, “a new teacher has joined our school. You’ll be meeting her soon. She’s a drama teacher and she’s called Frida néni. As well as giving the class drama lessons, she’ll also be starting a drama club for anyone who’s interested in acting.”

“Yes!!!” cried Arika, jumping up from her desk. Then she asked a little uncertainly, “What are drama lessons?”

“In drama lessons, a teacher works with a group of students using techniques from the theatre. With Frida néni, you’ll be entering into imaginary situations and using role-play to explore different experiences. It’ll be lots of fun, you’ll see!”

“You bet!” said Robi, getting up from his chair. He curled his fingers into claws and began to laugh a wicked laugh. “Look at me and tremble, cowards! I’m the wicked ghost! Haha!!!”

This got every making up roles for themselves, and soon you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. Rebeka and Flóra pretended to be simpering princesses, Arika was a clown and Veronika a violinist. Gábor Odbod adjusted the imaginary crown he now only wore on special occasions and draped his hoodie over his shoulders for a monarch’s cloak. Lotti was a racing car driver and went roaring round the bends in her Ferrari. A good number of the boys did something similar, except for Greg, who started jumping up and down like a monkey, pretty convincingly too.

Rita néni laughed, but after a while she had had enough of the racket, and she raised her hand.

“All right, children! That’s enough now! Let me get a word in edgeways! Tomorrow you’ll be able to meet Frida néni in person, and she’ll tell you much more about what you’ll be doing together. Now though, please open your books to page fifty-eight…”

The lesson got under way, but, if all the whispering and loud rustling were anything to go by, the children still had the drama lessons very much on their minds.

Only Dóra seemed a little hesitant.

“Will we have to act, do you think?” she asked Gábor Odbod quietly.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me you’re nervous!” said Gábor, boggling at her. “You were so good in the Christmas show.”

“That was different,” replied Dóra. “I didn’t have a choice about that.”

“You won’t have a choice about this either,” whispered Robi ominously from behind them. “You’ll have to act, Dóra, and that’s that!”

He was about to make a few more depressing remarks, when Rita néni asked him to come up to the board and share his useful insights about what they were studying with the class.

At breaktime, the children continued to speculate about what they would be doing in the drama lessons and to come up with their own ideas for them. Lotti drifted from one group to another, joining in the conversations about the new teacher’s interesting name and her even more interesting lessons. After wandering about like this for a little while, she went over to Rebeka, Flóra and Emma, who were standing together in a tight huddle in the corner of the classroom and turning the pages of an exercise book.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” asked Lotti, leaning over them. “Anything interesting?”

Rebeka slammed the exercise book shut, and Emma started giggling. Flóra, however, turned on Lotti.

“What’s it to you, Lotti? Why do you always have to be sticking your nose in?”

“All right. Take it easy! I didn’t know it was top secret,” said Lotti, somewhat put out. “Aren’t we allowed to talk to you three anymore?”

“You know what?” said Rebeka, with a strange half-smile, “Why don’t you show her, Flóra?”

Flóra’s eyes twinkled for a moment. She flipped a few pages in the exercise book, then turned it towards Lotti.

“It’s a class register,” she said, laughing. “And it just happened to open at your page. Take a look!”

On the page there was a drawing done in felt-tip pen.

Like Lotti, the thing in the picture had light blonde, shoulder-length hair, and was wearing a pink jumper with stars on it, but otherwise, with its bulging eyes and its huge stomach, it looked more like some kind of ugly, fat monster.

Lotti didn’t know how to react. Everyone knew that Rebeka liked to make fun of people, and, when she got going, sometimes she would sweep Flóra along with her and lately Emma too. But all in all, Rebeka was okay. She would never draw such a mean picture of anyone.

After a couple of seconds’ hesitation, Lotti decided that the picture was not of her at all, and that the girls were only being this horrible because she had broken in on them when they were sharing secrets.

“Very funny,” she remarked drily, and stepped back. “Feel free to carry on whispering, I’m not remotely interested in your secrets!”

She marched away from the three of them with her head held high. But she didn’t join any of the others. Instead, she went to the toilets, locking the cubicle door behind her. She sat down on the closed toilet lid and tried to make sense of the strange feeling that was churning around in her insides.

This wasn’t easy, because it was a really strong feeling, pouring out from somewhere around her throat and her chest. Something had gone all tight inside of her, and she felt like she did when she was going to cry. Her nose was stinging, and her eyes were burning. But, in the end, she didn’t cry.

After all, her classmates liked her! No one wanted to hurt her. And even if she did sometimes stick her nose into other people’s business, she had never hurt any of them. Look at how well she and Rebeka had worked together last year, when they had to make a boat in art. What a laugh that had been! And Flóra, who lived not far from Lotti’s building, had even been over to her house once or twice at the weekend. They’d made pancakes with Lotti’s mother and had always had a good time when she’d come over for the afternoon.

Little by little, Lotti calmed down. She came to the conclusion that she must have disturbed the three friends at some crucial moment. Perhaps they had just wanted to be left alone. She knew well enough what it was like never to have a moment’s peace! There were times when all she wanted was to sit and draw or do a puzzle, but Benedek and Béla kept pestering her. And that could be infuriating.

But why was that fat monster wearing a jumper with stars on it? A jumper just like hers?

It had to be just a coincidence, she thought.

Yes, that was what it was.

Lotti stood up and went back into the classroom. She flopped down into her seat, but she didn’t say anything to Veronika, just fiddled with the zip on her pencil case until it was time for the next lesson… … …

Biographical Notes

ERZSI KERTÉSZ

Erzsi Kertész has been writing since 2012, and dedicates her works primarily to children and adolescents.

She has a degree in psychology and worked for years in the field of organizational psychology, but after her maternity leave she became interested in children's literature. In her stories, she often mixes reality with fairy tale elements.

Erzsi Kertész received the HUBBY award in 2016, she became the writer of the year.

ANNA BENTLEY

Anna Bentley was born and educated in Britain and has lived in Budapest since 2000. Her interest in translating Hungarian literature began in 2014, when she could not find an English translation of any of István Fekete’s works to share with family in Britain.

She completed the Hungarian Balassi Institute’s Literary Translation Programme in 2017. She is an experienced translator of books for children and adults, also translates contemporary poets.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1.
The Secrets Drawer

Chapter 2.
The Exercise Book

Chapter 3.
Lotti Does Some Thinking

Chapter 4.
Frida Néni

Chapter 5.
The Empty Classroom

Chapter 6.
The Fairy of the Spring

Chapter 7.
The Gallery

Chapter 8.
A Little Bit Ill

Chapter 9.
The Worst School Ever

Chapter 10.
Tibi’s Story

Chapter 11.
The Delegation

Chapter 12.
The Empty Chair

Chapter 13.
What Does the Mirror Show?

Biographical Notes

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ISBN 978 615 663 001 8

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