Fanny Blankers-Koen, the Flying Housewife
Fanny Blankers-Koen, the Flying Housewife — a biography. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder People.
Page 1
Fanny hitched the wooden crate of apples higher on her hip and dug her bare heels into the sandy lane, racing the postman's wobbling bicycle past the thatched farmhouses. The postman rang his bell and pedaled harder, but Fanny's long legs ate up the ground beneath the beech avenue, her ponytail and orange ribbon streaming behind her. Just then a gust tore the rolled newspaper clean out of Jan's jacket pocket. It cartwheeled through the air, flapping like a wild bird, and slapped flat against a wooden signpost at the lane's bend, headline facing out for all the village to see. Jan puffed after it, stopwatch bouncing on its red cord, but his short legs weren't fast enough. Jantje skidded to a halt on his yellow clogs, planted his battered flag in the sand, and jumped — once, twice, three times, clattering and stretching — before his fingers finally closed on the paper and ripped it free.
Page 2
Jan had lined up four kitchen chairs and two broomsticks between the washing poles, each one a little higher than the last, and shouted 'Go!' before Fanny could even tie her lace. She ran the length of the brick courtyard, knees pumping chin-high, clearing the first chair and the broomsticks clean, her ponytail snapping behind her. But the last chair had been set too close to the wet washing line, and her trailing foot clipped its leg. Chair, pegs and the whole sagging line of white sheets came down together in a soft, soaking crash, right into the puddle by the drain. Fanny sat down hard in wet cotton and laughed instead of crying out. Jan clicked his stopwatch anyway, scribbling the time on his cuff, while Jantje scrambled over in his yellow clogs, hauling the toppled chairs upright one by one and stacking the fallen pegs in his cap.
Page 3
The gangway up to the great steamer sloped high and wet, slick with spray blown off the grey breakwater. Jan staggered under a leather trunk nearly as tall as his waist, grunting with each step, while Jantje clattered behind him dragging a smaller case that bumped against his yellow clogs. Fanny carried a stack of bags balanced against her hip, but as she shifted to steady a wobbling hatbox, her canvas bag of spiked shoes slipped free, bounced once on the ramp, and went sliding fast down the wet boards toward the churning water below. Everyone froze — except a lanky girl in a green oilskin mac standing nearby with a tray of programmes. She lunged, stamped one rubber wellington hard onto the trailing strap, and hauled the bag back up the slope before it could tip over the edge into the harbour. Fanny dropped her other bags and grabbed the girl's arm, laughing with relief as gulls wheeled overhead and cranes creaked on the dockside.
Page 4
The porter's trolley, piled waist-high with trunks, caught its wheel on the platform edge and tipped with a groan of iron. A sack of Dutch oranges burst open across the stone, and suddenly oranges were everywhere — bouncing under suitcases, rolling between startled pigeons, skittering toward the hissing train. Jantje dropped his battered flag and threw himself flat on his belly, clogs clattering, scooping oranges into his jumper. Jan lunged with his fedora off his head, slamming it down over two rolling fruits like a trap. Fanny sprinted the length of the platform, scooping oranges up in both arms as she ran, laughing as one bounced off her shoulder. Winnie swung her wooden programme tray down from her waist and held it flat under a cascade of fruit tumbling off a suitcase, catching six at once before they hit the ground. Pigeons scattered upward in a grey clatter of wings as the whole family scrambled, grabbing, hauling the sack upright between them before a single orange rolled under the train's great iron wheels.
Page 5
The dormitory bulb swung bare on its cord as Fanny stretched up on her toes, pegging the freshly washed orange vest to a string tied across the tall open window. A gust barrelled through the chestnut trees outside, snatching the vest clean off the line and flinging it down onto a branch below, where it hung like a flag. Jan clapped a hand to his fedora so it would not fly too, muttering about the wind. Winnie was already climbing onto the windowsill, leaning out over the camp beds with Jan's walking stick stretched at full arm's length toward the branch. Jantje scrambled up behind her, fists bunched tight in the back of her oilskin mac, hauling backward with all his small weight so she would not tumble out after the vest. The stick hooked the fabric, dragged it wobbling upward inch by inch, until Fanny reached past them both and plucked it triumphantly from the hook, laughing with relief as the whole iron-bedded room seemed to exhale.
Page 6
The rain came down in grey ropes, turning the warm-up field behind the twin towers into a soup of brown mud. Jantje's little paper flag flopped sideways and drowned in a puddle, its battered stick sinking beside the canvas tent. Fanny lifted one foot and groaned — her spiked shoes were clogged solid, heavy as bricks, mud oozing between the studs. 'I cannot run in these,' she said, hauling the shoe free with both hands and dropping to her knees on the groundsheet. Jan knelt beside her, stopwatch swinging, and handed round a fistful of wooden lolly sticks he'd dug from his jacket pocket. Winnie scraped at the heel of one spike, flicking mud clots into the grass, while Jantje jabbed at the sole with his stick, tongue poking from his teeth in concentration. They scraped and scraped, fingers black, rain dripping off their noses, until the studs gleamed again. A steward's whistle shrilled across the field. Fanny scrambled up, snatched the shoes and bolted for the cinder path just as her name echoed over the loudspeaker.
Page 7
The telephone box stood barely taller than a doorway, its red paint chipped, glass panes glowing under the street lamp beside the ragged runner-bean allotment. Fanny squeezed inside, shoulders pressed to both walls, a shoebox of two heavy gold medals clanking under her arm. Jan hauled the folding door shut behind her while Jantje pressed his nose flat against the glass outside, clutching his battered paper flag. Fanny fumbled a fistful of coins from her cardigan pocket, trying to post one into the slot, and they spilled, bouncing and skittering across the floor, out through the door's gap and straight down the black iron drain grating in the pavement. Winnie dropped to her knees on the wet stones, unlacing her wellington boot, pressing a wad of chewing gum onto the end of the lace and fishing it down through the grating bars until a coin stuck fast and she hauled it back up, triumphant. Fanny leaned her forehead against the warm glass, exhausted, telling Jan through the crack in the door that she was too tired, too homesick, to ever race again.
Page 8
The small boy scrambled up onto the broad back of a bronze lion, a statue so huge his arms could barely span its paw, and one buttercup-yellow clog flew off his foot, bouncing twice before it skated flat across the shallow fountain pool. He shrieked with laughter rather than fright, kicking his sock-foot in the air. Pigeons burst upward in a great clattering grey cloud as the tall runner bolted after the clog, bare feet slapping through the cold fountain water, skirts of her blue dress hiked in one fist. She scooped the clog up mid-stride without breaking her running rhythm, water flying from her heels. The stocky man hauled the boy down off the lion's back into his arms, and the lanky girl in the oilskin mac flung her arms wide to shoo the birds away from them both. The whole watching crowd around the square burst into cheering and clapping at the sight.
Page 9
The baton came flying toward her, third hand to last, and for one terrible heartbeat it bounced off her fingers instead of into them. Fanny snatched it back from the air before it struck the cinder track, clamping it hard against her palm, and then she ran. Her strong brown legs ate up the home straight, her ponytail with its orange ribbon snapping wild behind her, eighty-three thousand voices roaring like one great wave around the stadium. Up in the stands Jan hammered his stopwatch against the railing, forgetting to click it at all, while Jantje stood on the bench waving his soggy paper flag so hard the stick cracked. Winnie leaned so far over the barrier her binoculars nearly swung loose, shouting the whole way down the straight. Fanny's chest hit the worsted tape and it burst clean off its two posts, the broken thread catching round her shoulder as she sailed past, still running three strides further before she could even believe it was done.
Page 10
Four grey horses, each taller at the shoulder than Jan, clop along the Prinsengracht pulling an open carriage wide enough for the whole family to sit across its red-cushioned bench. Neighbours lean from every bridge rail, hauling up baskets of marigolds and flinging them down in orange showers. Jan plants both hands under Jantje's arms and hoists him, clogs clattering, up onto the high carriage seat beside Fanny. Winnie, leaning dangerously far over the railing above, turns her wooden tray upside down and shakes the last petals from it until they rain onto the water and the horses' manes. Ahead, the striped Westerkerk tower watches over it all as the crowd surges forward hauling something enormous between them — a bicycle with a shining frame, lifted shoulder-high over a dozen heads, wheels spinning in the sun, and passed hand over hand toward the carriage until it is raised up to Fanny like a trophy, its handlebars wrapped in orange ribbon to match her own.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder People
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