Sweef | Sweef – Jaco Jacobs | English Summary

Sweef en ander Verhale

Sweef – Jaco Jacobs

Heinz Spies is a 15-year-old superhero nerd who enjoys comics, action figures and anything superhero-related. The story is about his first love, a girl named Jenny, who he meets while working at a pet salon. Jenny's parents own the salon, and she helps out every so often. Heinz’s best friend, Denver January, is an eccentric teenager who is addicted to Smarties and just so happens to be the school chess champion. Due to his inexperience, Heinz fails to be romantically noticed by Jenny. Heinz then enlists the help of his friend Denver, the strategist. Denver compares his situation to a game of chess. The plan is to sneak off to Jenny's house late at night and have her dog, Pixie, deliver a handwritten love letter from Heinz.

In the letter, Heinz also asks Jenny out to the movies for a “DATE date”. The plan fails extraordinarily when Jenny’s entire family is aware of the two teenagers on their property who seem to be trying to steal their dog. Amid the confusion and commotion, Pixie runs off into the night. Angry at the fact that Heinz has lost her dog, Jenny stops talking to him. Her silence adds insult to the injury of Denver and him having to call their parents, to explain why they lied about heading to a friend’s place (to watch DVDs). After the debacle, Heinz tucks into bed (at midnight), after trying his best to locate the missing animal. The weekend goes by with Heinz serving out a grounding he received - each subsequent day makes Heinz feel worse about the situation.

When Heinz heads to the pet salon for work on the following Saturday morning, he sees a missing poster for Pixie, which adds to his guilt. Jenny's mother also explains that her daughter refuses to help out at the salon if Heinz is there too. Heinz is forced to quit. Heinz blames the entire situation on Denver, vowing never to take relationship advice from a chess player ever again. However, all is not lost, as Jenny’s mother also explains that Pixie returned that morning, whimpering at the front gate of their house.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday go by without incident, with Heinz serving out his sentence from his bedroom. By Wednesday, Heinz had decided to forget about Jenny forever. Thursday rolled around, and he had put her number into his dialler thirteen times without mustering up the courage to call. By Friday, Jenny had all but consumed his mind. When the action figure he'd ordered arrived in the mail, he asked himself, "What would Spider- Man or Superman do?"

(Saturday Morning)

Heinz drags Denver with him to the pet salon, in full superhero cosplay. The idea was grand and pretty stupid, as far as Heinz was concerned. However, it also served as revenge against Denver for the first foolish plan they'd concocted. Armed with a megaphone he got from Denver’s nephew (who is at university), Heinz stood outside the pet salon. Heinz openly addressed why he’d been at Jenny’s house the last Friday night. Finally, he managed to tell her how he felt before wrapping it up with an invitation to go on a movie date later that night. When Jenny stepped out and saw the spandex-clad Heinz, she said, “You look like a total idiot. Pick me up at seven”. And that was that. As for how the date went, Heinz narrates, “I won’t tell you, not even in parenthesis!”

SummariesKeroshan Pillay1 Comment