GIGGY MAKES A SEA
JASMINKA PETROVIĆ
GiGGy makes a sea
TranslaTed from The serbian by TimoThy byford
by iGor PeTroviĆ
Poem: The blue sea
To ana and iGor
This is my best friend Giggy, and what follow is how it all started.
On Thursday, somewhere around 11.17, I found a lorry tyre behind the baker’s garage. I rolled it round to our building, climbed onto it and called all the children to gather round.
“Come to my birthday party tomorrow at 17.18!”
That’s how I invited all of them. All of them except Giggy. He’d always seemed to me to be a bit snotty-nosed and grubby. And –do you know what? He loved to tell lies. That always specially got on my nerves. And that.
All the children ran off to play and I was sitting on the tyre, with Giggy sitting next to me. He just sat there and started to sigh anxiously.
“Gosh, what am I going to do now?”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, and started to cut little gashes in the tyre with my penknife.
“You haven’t invited me to your birthday party and I’ve arranged for a present to be made for you.”
“Well, cancel it, then.”
“I can’t. The workmen are nearly here.”
“What do you mean – workmen?”
“Special ones, for making seas.”
“What on earth do you mean, seas?”
“Well, I wanted to give you a sea for your birthday. Don’t you understand? The workmen are due here any moment – and what am I going to tell them?
“Gosh, Giggy, you’re telling lies again!” I said crossly, putting away my penknife. I stood up and Giggy did the same.
“What? Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Want to bet on it?”
“Oh, stop going on about it, Giggy.”
“Come on, let’s bet on it!”
“All right, seeing as you’re so persistent. What shall we bet?
“A starfish.”
“Let’s shake on it!”
Up to this moment I’d thought that this Giggy was just snotty and grubby and liked to tell lies, but now it was clear that on top of everything else he was pretty stupid – those were the thoughts going through my head as I went up the steps. I went into the flat. I headed for the kitchen. As I went, I glanced out of the window, and there was plenty to see. Some workmen were standing there with Giggy and talking about something. He was showing them something and they were nodding. I dashed into the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. I went back to the window and it was then that I had something to see: two mechanical diggers had already made a huge hole. But Giggy was just shaking his head and saying something in an angry voice:
“This isn’t good enough, chaps! It wasn’t a lake we agreed on, it was a sea!”
Another digger soon arrived – then another and then two more. I was just standing there, looking out of the window, unable to believe my eyes. A few children started to appear on the scene; they asked Giggy something but he didn’t answer. He just waved his hand and shouted:
“I haven’t got time for that now! Leave me alone!”
At around 18.30, the diggers had made such a big hole that I was well on the way to being flabbergasted. At about 21.13 some grown-ups turned up. They all looked at the hole and asked Giggy something, but Giggy just got on with his work and said nothing. I stood like that by the window right up to 23.30, but then I dropped off. And that.
I woke up at around 07.10 when there was plenty for me to see. Huge tankers carrying salt water were filling the huge hole. Children had arrived from all over the world and, as well as them, there were journalists and reporters and grown-ups from all over the world and Granny Stana was there as well, and the baker and some cameramen and goodness knows who else. They were all just standing there and watching Giggy make a sea. And Giggy was making the sea as if it was the eighteenth one he had made. He knew exactly how deep it should be, how wide, how long, how many cubic metres of water were needed, how many kilograms of salt, how many little, middle-sized, big and extra-big fish, how many sharks, whales, dolphins, how many seagulls, how many ships and what sort of ships they should be.
“Goodness gracious me – who would have thought this of snotty-nosed Giggy!?” I just stood by the window and nearly fell out of it in surprise.
“Please - put some small, fine pebbles in the shallow bit here, so that the children can splash about in it. That’s it. Sea urchins, shellfish and starfish go here! Not there! I said here, where it’s six metres deep,” was how Giggy gave orders to the workmen. And he was bossing them about much better than Lightning the builder did. And the workmen were obeying him much better than they obeyed Lightning.
“Giggy, 249 tons of sand has just arrived. What shall we do with it?”
“The sand goes on the right-hand beach!”
“But Giggy, that’s the left.”
“All right, there, then.”
I looked at the sand from my window and it was sparkling like I’d never seen sand sparkle before. I was so busy looking at that sand, at those pebbles, at those ships, at that sea, that I completely forgot to look at my watch. 14.13 already.
And just as it seemed that everything was finished, Giggy said:
“Go and fetch a little pine forest. But make it quick, because the sea has to be finished by 17.18. That’s when the birthday party starts. What are you looking at me like that for? Come on – quickly – get on with it!”
“Giggy, we’re very sorry, but that’s impossible.”
“I beg your pardon? Look, the children can’t spend the whole day in the sun. They have to be able to go into the shade.”
“Giggy, there’s been a little misunderstanding. There’s no problem about the shade, it’s just that we can’t do it in the time.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“That we delay everything until 18.12.”
“Wait a moment!”
Then Giggy ran to my door and rang the bell.
“Hey – that bet of ours – can we delay it until 18.12?”
I nodded in agreement. Giggy laughed and ran back down the steps.
JASMINKA PETROVICH
Born in Belgrade, 2nd June 1960. She attended Grammar School in Belgrade and studied at the Philological Faculty in the department of Spanish Language and Literature. She is one of the founders and a co-owner of the marketing agency SMS TALENT TEAM. She has worked in radio as a reporter and author-presenter and has also produced children’s programmes. She writes for both children and adults. She has played an important role in the creation of new forms of communication in the children’s magazine TIK-TAK. In the Children’s Rights movement, she has been involved in the organization “Friends of Serbian Children”, making programmes that encourage children’s creativity and help to free children through art.
Jasminka has two children.
Jasminka Petrović
Giggy Makes a Sea
First edition
© Kreativni centar, 2024
Original title
Giga pravi more
Poem The Blue Sea
Igor Petrović
Illustrated by Ana Petrović
Design
Dušan Pavlić
Editor
Anđelka Ružić
Prepress by Saša Stefanović
Published by
Kreativni centar, Beograd, Gradištanska 8
tel.: 011/ 3088 446 www.kreativnicentar.rs
e-mail: info@kreativnicentar.rs
For the publisher
Mr Ljiljana Marinković, direktorka
© Kreativni centar, 2024
Printed by Preduzeće Publikum d.o.o., Šimanovci
Printed in 2024
Print run
3000
ISBN 978-86-529-1202-5