LERNERT ENGELBERTS Real Bad People - De Harmonie

‘Do you need any help?’‘We’ll manage. Just run along outside. It’s not safe in here.’There was hardly any purple paint left on the surfboard, just the thick layer on the topthat I couldn’t get off no matter how hard I rubbed. If I sanded too hard, my fingerswent straight through the sandpaper. They were really sore and they were covered inblood, so I looked pretty tough, like a boxer after a fight, but it wasn’t much fun. Mumhad chased me round to the front of the house, where there wasn’t any sun now,because she didn’t want the dust to end up on her washing.A seaside town always attracts people who think that it’s great fun there. ButI’d never seen Hell’s Angels in town before. I don’t even know whether they actuallywere real Hell’s Angels. It wasn’t written on their leather jackets, so they might just aseasily have been some other group that looked exactly the same. That seemed aboutas lame as drinking cola that was any other brand than Coca Cola, like the stuffChris’s mum always used to give us.Anyway, thirty bikers rode past on those low-slung motorbikes with handlebarsthat go all the way up to the sky. They were wearing leather trousers that lookedpretty warm. They had fur tails hanging from their saddles. That’d look really great onmy surfboard too, but the fur would get all wet and then it’d be no good.I shouted out ‘Good morning!’ as they went past, as loud as I could, and thenadded a little more quietly ‘bunch of bum bandits’, because I thought they couldn’thear me above the roar of their exhaust pipes. The last one in the line must haveheard something though, because he slammed on his brakes and stopped right infront of the house, with his bike between his legs, and just stayed there for a while,giving me this creepy stare. All I managed to get out was another ‘good morning’, andthen I gave him a feeble wave, and he rode off.