Now I feel better.
It’s warm, I don’t feel the dampness anymore, and I won’t catch cold.
But I see that the Beetle is worried, he’s turned himself over.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
He hurries away from the light of the Fire and I don’t see him again.
The Fire is pleasant company. Every so often he sputters, psst, then crackles contentedly and throws out red sparks.
I also hear the sound of the Sea, which has grown even louder.
A Wave comes and goes, like an elegant lady, with a white fringe of foam.
“Are you going to get me all wet?” I ask.
“Bro-am!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bro-am!”
“O.K., say whatever you want, what do I care if you get me wet?”
The Fire is burning pleasantly, getting warmer and warmer.
I shout to the plastic Pony: “It’s nice here, isn’t it, Pony?”
I call to the ballpoint Pen and the Bottle Cap:
“Lovely evening, wouldn’t you say?”
But I realize that the metal Bottle Cap has turned flame-red and the ballpoint Pen is writhing, as if he’s pooping black ink, and hissing:
“Frrrrisss.”
That upsets me.
In alarm I say to the Pony:
“Pony, we have to do something. The ballpoint Pen is sick.”
But I discover that the Pony, too, is suffering. His mane and tail have melted in the heat. His mouth has become a hole as big as his head. Suddenly he shouts “Bok” and disappears in a reddish-blue flare. How terrible! The Fire is burning everything, he’ll burn me, too.
“Fire,” I beg, “please, don’t burn me. I’m Mati’s doll, she’ll be angry.”
The Fire immediately turns toward me and clicks his bright red tongue:
“Ooam!”
So I turn to the Wave:
“Help, Wave. I’m Mati’s doll. Remember how when our bottoms were all sandy this morning we washed them off in your water?”
The Wave beats hard against the black shore.
“Bro-am!”
As if that weren’t enough, I hear the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset returning, and he says greedily to the Big Rake:
“Did you catch that? The doll is talking like crazy. Hurry up. Tomorrow we’ll sell all her words at the doll market and we’ll be rich.”
Now I am really and truly scared.
As long as Mati was there, I would talk to any object, any animal, and it would answer in a clear and reasonable way. If people or things or ugly creatures behaved rudely, we yelled at them and they stopped. Even when boys wanted to hit us, kiss us, see our underpants, pee on our feet with their little dickies, we knew we’d win in the end.
But now?
Without Mati, I don’t know how I’ll survive.
The Wave is talking, but I can’t understand him.
The Fire is sticking out his tongue, and wants to burn me just the way he burned the Pen and the Pony.
The Mean Beach Attendant and the Big Rake have already taken away my Name and now they want to steal all Mati’s words. What if I turned into a stupid mute doll, or one who only says the same recorded words all the time?
Mati, Mommy, where are you?
I’m your doll, don’t abandon me.
You know what, Mati, if you don’t come and save me right away, if you let me burn, I’ll cry.
The Fire finally did it. He leaned forward and grabbed me by the hem of my blue dress.
He went “Flusss,” and now the material is burning. It has a nasty smell.
“Bad Fire,” I chastise him, but he repeats “Flusss” and spreads even farther, till he brushes my hand with his boiling breath.
The Mean Beach Attendant tries to grab me with the Big Rake, who sinks his iron teeth into the embers to pull me away, spraying sparks as he goes.
I think for the last time of Mati, in her cool bed.
I think how nice it is at night to be cuddled against my sleeping mamma. It won’t ever happen again.
I’m sure she’s sleeping with her cat now. Her love for me is over.
I don’t want to be captured by the Big Rake.
I’d rather burn, keeping in my chest the words of my games with Mati.
Naturally.
Instead the Wave arrives.
He’s a lot bigger. His white mouth, at the top of a restless body of dark water, flies over me and crashes down on the Fire, on the Big Rake, shouting:
“Brooo-aaam!”
When the water hits the Big Rake’s red-hot teeth, he exhales a white cloud of steam.
The Fire goes out, too bad for him.
I’m about to say: “Thank you, Wave.”
But I’m already starting to roll over, dragged by the Wave.
Everything rolls: shells, pumice stones, the metal Bottle Top, coals, charcoal, the Wave, me.
I end up in the Sea.
“Mr. Sea,” I say, “you were very kind, you and your Wave, to save me, but now take me right back to the shore, thank you.”
The Sea doesn’t answer. But even if he answered he wouldn’t be able to grant my request.
The Night Storm has risen on the Sea.
The Storm is a lady in a long dark-blue dress. She wears a crown of Lightning on her head and has a booming voice, because Thunderclaps are continually coming out of her wide mouth.
The Sea, churned up by the Storm, is like the water in the bathtub when, at home, Mati and I make a rough sea and the waves slosh over onto the floor and Mati’s mamma comes in and cries: “Out of there right this instant: look at the mess you’ve made.”
But here no one comes.
I’m all alone.
I don’t even recognize the Wave anymore.
There are so many waves now, running after one another and fighting to see which is the tallest.
So I pray:
“Please, Mrs. Night Storm, please calm down. Mr. Lightning, don’t blind me. Mr. Thunder, don’t deafen me.”
And on the beach the Mean Attendant, in a furious rage, shouts at the Big Rake:
“Did you hear her? She’s still talking, we’ve got to get her!”
Meanwhile the water in my mouth goes down into my stomach, and I sink.
Down, down, down I go.
I touch the bottom.
I end up amid Fish, Tin Cans, broken Bottles, two Crabs, a Starfish.
I lie down on the sand. It’s comfortable.
The Night Storm has become a distant rumble. The water is moving gently, like Mati when she rocks me.
How much time has passed?
I’m as mute as a fish, a crab, a starfish.
The words that Mati taught me are quiet. They float inside my chest, inside my stomach. Sometimes they swim up to my mouth, but silently, like words in books or in Mati’s mother’s head when she’s reading and doesn’t want to be disturbed.
How peaceful.
But here comes a Hook.
The Hook is as tiny as a raindrop and it’s attached to a shiny thread of saliva.
It drops into my mouth, which is always open. I’m so full of water I can’t pull my words away in time to hide them in my chest and my stomach.
The Hook grabs one and tugs. The other words, terrorized, cling to one another, forming a chain.
I pull from one end, the Hook pulls from the other, and in the middle are the words holding tight to one another.