Five Brothers and a War

School—Leen and Piet

Leen was a great student. He studied a lot, he paid attention in school and his grades reflected his intellect and his hard work. He never got into trouble. When he had a little extra time, he read books. He loved philosophy and philosophers, to the point that he became the family philosopher. His demeanor was very much in keeping with his academically-oriented mind-set. He would rub his forehead or run his fingers through his hair as he contemplated and cogitated. He set the standard for the other four van Pelt boys. His parents were always happy to go to parent-teacher conferences, and were proud afterwards. The comments from his teachers universally touched on what a pleasure it was to have him as one of their students. While math subjects were his weakest, even the math teachers loved him. Perhaps recognizing that it was going to be a tough standard to maintain, Piet decided that there was no point even trying. His personality was not nearly as disciplined in the academics, and Leen’s penchant for reading, studying, analyzing and ruminating were of no particular interest to Piet. But on the other hand, Piet did have a serious mischievous streak that Leen did not have, and he capitalized on that. Not surprisingly, Piet’s grades reflected all of both his strengths and weaknesses, and parent-teacher conferences were not nearly as much fun for Leendert and Marie. They were not so proud afterwards either. Piet’s penchant for humor and pranks caught up with him one day in his third year at De Populier . Not coincidentally, it was also his last day at that school. Piet had a gift for mimicking voices—a gift that he was encouraged to develop by his appreciative classmates and friends. Not so much by his teachers, particularly the ones whose voices he mimicked. The trouble was, of course, that mimicking, and frankly mocking, teachers’ voices represented a goldmine of material. The added advantage was that their negative grades could be easily justified in his mind as mere retribution, rather than a shortfall in effort. One of the easier voices Piet could mimic belonged to a geography teacher. This fellow had grown up in the Dutch East Indies and had a pronounced accent. On that fateful day, a girl by the name Marietje was sitting in the desk in front of Piet. She kept snapping an elastic band that she used as a bookmark in her textbook. Finally, the teacher was tired of the distraction and admonished her to knock it off. His exact words were, “Marietje, haal dat elastiekje je uit je boekje en let op!” (“Mary, take that elastic out of your book and pay attention!”) Without skipping a beat, Piet came up with a brilliant response. Imitating the teacher’s accent and voice tone to perfection, he loudly said, “Marietje, haal dat elastiekje uit je broekje en let op! ” (“Mary take that elastic out of your panties and pay attention!”) It took longer to bring the class back to order than it did to throw Piet out. The next day Piet switched to a high school that specialized in commerce and economics, the Handelsdagschool . And so the van Pelt name in De Populier was forever diminished. The teachers were not going to allow Leen’s great performance to influence their view of any future van Pelts. In fairness, the future van Pelts would also give them no reason to improve their views. Piet’s penchant for fun over academics would carry through Kees’ schooling, and Bertus would not only continue Piet’s fun streak, but also his attitude toward studying for success.

van Pelt

Five Brothers and a War

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