above his head has been covered with the latest trend in lamp shades: cardboard decorated with strips of paper.
From where I’m standing in the doorway, I look to the opposite side of the room. Against the wall, i.e. across from Peter, behind the table, there’s a divan with a flowery blue counterpane; the bedding has been tucked behind the back-rest. There’s a lamp hanging above it, much like the one two feet away, as well as a hand mirror, and a bit further away, a bookcase filled from top to bottom with books that have been covered – with a boy’s typical disregard of elegance – with brown paper. To spruce things up even more (or because the owner has no other place to put it), there’s also a tool-box, where you’re sure to find whatever you’re looking for. Though it admittedly happened quite a while ago, I once found my favourite knife, which had long been missing, in the bottom of this very tool-box, and it wasn’t the first thing to find its way there.
Next to the bookcase is a wooden shelf, covered with paper that used to be white. Actually, this shelf wassupposed to be for milk bottles and other kitchen items. But the youthful occupant’s treasury of books has expanded so rapidly that the shelf has been taken over by these learned tomes, and the various milk bottles have been relegated to the floor.
The third wall also has a small cabinet (a former cherry crate), where you can find a delightful collection of such things as a shaving brush, a razor, tape, laxatives, etc., etc. Beside it is the crowning glory of the van Daan family’s ingenuity: a cupboard made almost entirely out of cardboard, held together by only two or three support posts made of stronger material. This cupboard, which is filled with suits, coats, shoes, socks and so forth, has a really lovely curtain hanging in front of it, which Peter finally managed to get hold of after weeks of begging his mother. So much stuff is piled on top of the cupboard that I’ve never worked out exactly what’s there.
The rugs of Mr van Daan Junior are also worthy of note. Not only because his room has two large genuine Persian carpets and one small one, but because the colours are so striking that everyone who enters the room notices them right away. So the floorboards, which have to be negotiated with care since they’re rather loose and uneven, are adorned with these precious rugs.
Two of the walls have been covered in green burlap, while the other two have been lavishly plastered with film stars – some beautiful, others less so – and advertisements. You need to overlook the grease and burn marks, since, after one and a half years of living with so much junk, things are bound to get dirty.
The attic, hardly the height of comfort either, is like all the others round here, with old-fashioned beams, and since the roof leaks down via the attic into Peter’s room, several sheets of cardboard have been put up to keep out the rain. The many water stains show that it’s not the least bit effective.
I think I’ve been round the entire room now and have only forgotten the two chairs: number one is a brown chair with a perforated seat, and number two is an old white kitchen chair. Peter wanted to repaint it last year, but noticed when he was scraping off the old layer that it wasn’t such a good idea. So now the chair, with its partially stripped paint, its one and only rung (the other was used as a poker) and its more-black-than-white colour scheme, is not exactly presentable. But as I’ve already said, the room is dark, so the chair hardly sticks out. The door to the kitchen is festooned with aprons, and there are also a few hooks for the dusters and cleaning brush.
Now that Peter’s room has been dealt with, you should have no trouble picking out every item in it, except for the chief occupant himself, Peter. So I’d like to complete my assignment by turning to the owner of the glorious items catalogued above.
In Peter’s case,
From where I’m standing in the doorway, I look to the opposite side of the room. Against the wall, i.e. across from Peter, behind the table, there’s a divan with a flowery blue counterpane; the bedding has been tucked behind the back-rest. There’s a lamp hanging above it, much like the one two feet away, as well as a hand mirror, and a bit further away, a bookcase filled from top to bottom with books that have been covered – with a boy’s typical disregard of elegance – with brown paper. To spruce things up even more (or because the owner has no other place to put it), there’s also a tool-box, where you’re sure to find whatever you’re looking for. Though it admittedly happened quite a while ago, I once found my favourite knife, which had long been missing, in the bottom of this very tool-box, and it wasn’t the first thing to find its way there.
Next to the bookcase is a wooden shelf, covered with paper that used to be white. Actually, this shelf wassupposed to be for milk bottles and other kitchen items. But the youthful occupant’s treasury of books has expanded so rapidly that the shelf has been taken over by these learned tomes, and the various milk bottles have been relegated to the floor.
The third wall also has a small cabinet (a former cherry crate), where you can find a delightful collection of such things as a shaving brush, a razor, tape, laxatives, etc., etc. Beside it is the crowning glory of the van Daan family’s ingenuity: a cupboard made almost entirely out of cardboard, held together by only two or three support posts made of stronger material. This cupboard, which is filled with suits, coats, shoes, socks and so forth, has a really lovely curtain hanging in front of it, which Peter finally managed to get hold of after weeks of begging his mother. So much stuff is piled on top of the cupboard that I’ve never worked out exactly what’s there.
The rugs of Mr van Daan Junior are also worthy of note. Not only because his room has two large genuine Persian carpets and one small one, but because the colours are so striking that everyone who enters the room notices them right away. So the floorboards, which have to be negotiated with care since they’re rather loose and uneven, are adorned with these precious rugs.
Two of the walls have been covered in green burlap, while the other two have been lavishly plastered with film stars – some beautiful, others less so – and advertisements. You need to overlook the grease and burn marks, since, after one and a half years of living with so much junk, things are bound to get dirty.
The attic, hardly the height of comfort either, is like all the others round here, with old-fashioned beams, and since the roof leaks down via the attic into Peter’s room, several sheets of cardboard have been put up to keep out the rain. The many water stains show that it’s not the least bit effective.
I think I’ve been round the entire room now and have only forgotten the two chairs: number one is a brown chair with a perforated seat, and number two is an old white kitchen chair. Peter wanted to repaint it last year, but noticed when he was scraping off the old layer that it wasn’t such a good idea. So now the chair, with its partially stripped paint, its one and only rung (the other was used as a poker) and its more-black-than-white colour scheme, is not exactly presentable. But as I’ve already said, the room is dark, so the chair hardly sticks out. The door to the kitchen is festooned with aprons, and there are also a few hooks for the dusters and cleaning brush.
Now that Peter’s room has been dealt with, you should have no trouble picking out every item in it, except for the chief occupant himself, Peter. So I’d like to complete my assignment by turning to the owner of the glorious items catalogued above.
In Peter’s case,
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