Katja 11: Reading Tolkien (M/f -/f)
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2025 1:42 pm
This is part of a growing series of Katja stories:
Katja 00: Prolog 1 - Early Signs viewtopic.php?t=23922
Katja 00: Prolog 2 - When TUGs were simple viewtopic.php?t=23905
Katja 01: What's a collar without a leash? viewtopic.php?t=23816
Katja 02: Making the shopping mall less boring viewtopic.php?t=23853
Katja 03: A question of peg and chain viewtopic.php?t=23881
Katja 04: Caged Birds Do Sing viewtopic.php?t=23931
Katja 05: How not to dance viewtopic.php?t=23950
Katja 06: A Bald Decision viewtopic.php?t=23963
Katja 07: The Big Red viewtopic.php?t=23977
Katja 08: Grandma's Wooden Spoon viewtopic.php?t=24038
Katja 09: Enjoy the Silence viewtopic.php?t=24055
Katja 10: Among Sheep viewtopic.php?t=24067
-
Katja 12: All about David viewtopic.php?t=24109
Katja 13: Boxing Katja viewtopic.php?t=24151
Katja 11: Reading Tolkien
Lemma:
Today, when you approach our 1910s cottage, you'll find its southern front a little cluttered. In the 1950s, an annex was added — a tiny hallway, barely 2x2 meters, which now sits in front of the original entrance door. To its left, there’s a ‘modern’ bathroom. In the 1980s, when the cottage was being rented out as a holiday home, Grandpa added a wooden terrace to the right of the hallway — placing it right in front of the kitchen window.
I should have known something was up by the weight of her suitcase when I picked Katja up from the station. That wasn’t just clothes. But why should I be surprised? She was getting to the age when girls start feeling certain urges — like doing exactly what grownups tell them not to...
K: “This summer I’m going to read 'The Lord of the Rings' by Tolkien,” Katja declared, pulling all three volumes out of her suitcase.
F: “'Tis a noble quest, I’ll admit. Elves, dwarves, swords, dark lords… But have you considered reading Discworld by Terry Pratchett instead? It’s not just three, but forty volumes — all waiting here on my bookshelf.”
K: “What’s Discworld? Like Middle-earth, but flat?”
F: (slightly embarrassed by the comparison) “Exactly that. Flat as a pancake and ten times funnier. You’d have to chain me up to get me to read Tolkien.”
K: “But The Lord of the Rings is a classic!”
F: “So is Discworld. Just with fewer elves whining about fate and more wizards who can’t spell ‘fate’ without help.”
K: “But I want epic battles and magic!”
F: “You’ll get talking swords, a sarcastic DEATH, and a librarian who’s an orangutan. Honestly, that’s peak magic.”
K: “… An orangutan? Seriously?”
F: “Yep. Says ‘Ook.’ Very wise fellow.”
K: “Are there any dragons?”
F: “Sorry, no dragons, as far as I remember — but there are four elephants and a turtle. Be warned: once you start Discworld, you may never see fantasy the same way again. Sure, there are 40 books, but they’re more manageable than Tolkien’s oversized tomes. And a few volumes are written especially for younger readers — just like Tolkien’s The Hobbit.”
K: “Okay, honestly… The Lord of the Rings is actually my school reading assignment for next year. I was dumb enough to volunteer. I thought I’d better get a head start during the summer holidays.”
F: “Oh boy. That’s a lot of reading. Each volume’s about 400 pages — three books, so roughly 1,200 pages.”
K: “1,168 pages. I’m impressed, Daddy.”
F: “That’ll keep you busy. No helping with the sheep, no TUGs, no secretly learning how to drive Grandpa’s Merc.” (Yes, I knew!)
K: “How long do you think it’ll take me? I also have to write a summary — around 10% of the original length.”
F: “So, read 1,200 pages and write 120. Let’s see... Tolkien isn’t exactly light reading. You won’t manage more than 15 pages an hour. 1,200 divided by 15 equals 80 hours of reading time.”
Katja slowly began to realize what she had signed up for.
K: “I’ll start tomorrow, right after breakfast,” she said, putting the books on the desk in her room.
F: “Why not today?”
K: “Oh, Daddy… it's Sunday”
Monday morning, after breakfast, I had some online work to do. I couldn’t see Katja, but for someone supposedly reading Tolkien, she was awfully busy moving in and out of the cottage. Maybe she wanted to read on the wooden bench out on the terrace in front of the kitchen. But most of her movement seemed centered around the cottage entrance and the bathroom door.
F: “What are you up to out there, princess?”
K: “Nothing, Daddy.”
F: “Fooling around with boys?”
K: “No, Daddy.”
F: “Doing drugs?”
K: “No, Daddy.”
F: “Alright then, carry on — but don’t forget your Tolkien, princess.”
After a while, the noise died down. Then I heard Katja call out:
K: “Daddy, can you come here, please?”
I stood up and walked into the hallway.
K: “Stop, Daddy! Stay right where you are, please.”
Katja was standing near the hallway’s exit. Before I could ask anything, she said:
K: “Remember when you said: ‘You’d have to chain me up to read Tolkien’? Sometimes you say really smart things, Daddy.”
She stretched out her hand, as if to hand me something. I reached out and she dropped two small keys into my palm.
K: "Father, take these keys. These chains shall not be removed until this prisoner has consumed its reading assignment."
Only then did I notice the chain leading from her right ankle to somewhere outside the cottage.
K: “You said I’d miss a lot of TUGs while reading. So I thought — why not combine the two? Have a cake and eat it.”
I didn’t understand at first.
K: “I’ll stay chained up until I finish the books.”
F: “But…”
K: “You said 80 hours — that’s two 40-hour weeks. I should be free in 14 days, tops.”
F: “You seriously want to stay chained up for two weeks?”
K: “I measured the chain so I can access the terrace and the bathroom, but not go further into the cottage.”
She was standing just one step into the hallway. Her chain would rob her of any access to the kitchen, living room, or her room.
F: “Where will you sleep?”
K: “On the terrace bench.”
F: “You want to sleep outside for two weeks?”
K: “It’s summer. I have a sleeping bag.”
F: “What if...?”
K: “If someone tries to kidnap me? You always say they’d return me the next day. And they couldn’t take me anyway — I’m chained to the house.”
F: “What about food and water?”
K: “My hands aren’t chained. I can drink as much tap water as I want. And for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I was hoping we could eat together on the terrace.”
F: “That’s doable. I’ll set up the camping table and a chair out there.”
K: “We could even use the kitchen window as a pass-through — just like Grandpa said it was originally meant to be.”
F: “And if it rains?”
K: “Forecast says no rain for the next two weeks.”
F: “With your leg chained, how will you… change your underwear?”
K: “No problem. It works — I can show you!”
She was so enthusiastic I half-expected a live demonstration. Instead, she later showed me a YouTube video. To my surprise, it did work. She would even manage to change into leggings or a skirt. Apparently, my little princess had spent the previous night doing a lot of 'thinking'.
F: “Won’t the chain hurt your ankle after two weeks?”
K: “Nah, it’s loose enough. I’m wearing a sock underneath.” She slid a finger between ankle and chain — there was enough space.
F: “Last question: where did you get the chain and padlocks?”
K: “Daddy, it’s a farm. You can find anything on a farm.”
F: “So I take it there are no spare keys to those old padlocks.” She nodded.
F: “Okay, you start reading, I’ll start thinking. See you later" I turned around taking her keys with me. "Don’t run away.” (I couldn’t resist.)
Katja was right. It was feasible. Not really dangerous. And… it might even turn out to be interesting.
But I didn’t like the idea of having the only keys. I couldn’t just leave the cottage knowing she was chained up without a way to escape in an emergency. After considering a few options, I came up with a solution I actually liked: I placed the keys on the inside windowsill of the kitchen window. That kept them out of her chained reach — but still in her plain sight, just behind the glass. On the outside windowsill, I even placed a stone big enough to smash the window. If anything serious happened — serious enough to justify a broken window — she could immediately grab the keys and free herself.
Then I wrote down a few rules for her captivity:
- Every evening, I would ask her how many pages she had read and she would read me her summary.
- For typing the summaries, she’d use my old tablet PC, which had been reset and was now offline.
- She’d get one hour of online access (tablet or phone) each evening.
- Three meals per day, including drinks, taken together with me on the terrace.
- One wish per day: after breakfast, I’d get her one thing from inside the house (fresh clothing excluded, of course).
I printed out the rules, and we both signed them. Then I confiscated her phone and tablet - her captivity was now officially real.
Before lunch, I carried the old sunshade out to the terrace, along with a chair for myself.
After our first dinner outside, I found myself wondering why we hadn’t used the terrace for meals all these years. Probably just laziness — I didn’t want to carry things in and out. But now, with her working outside and me working inside, the load was manageable. That evening, as we sat there — me with a glass of wine, her with a soda — I asked about her progress. She had read 102 pages on her first day.
“A little below target,” I commented. She then read me her summary, which was actually quite good.
I handed her the tablet and phone, set the kitchen timer to 60 minutes, and watched her quickly become annoyed at how fast an hour passes. When the timer rang, I took the devices away again.
F: “Are you good for the night? I’ll bring you a camping mat for the bench. Got enough water? Flashlight? If anything happens, just call me.”
K: “Daddy, don’t worry. I’m not going to prison or on an expedition — I’m just going to sleep in front of your door.”
F: “Good night, princess.”
Tuesday morning, when I got up and went into the kitchen, Katja was already reading. I stepped out onto the terrace and asked her how her first night had gone.
K: “I couldn’t fall asleep before 10:30 — it was still light outside. And I woke up at 4:30 because the sun was already rising again.
Also, I heard animals in the night. The sheep. An owl. And something ran across the roof of the cottage. I turned on the flashlight, but couldn’t see it — only heard it running away.”
Should I have told her those nightly roof runners were probably raccoons?
F: “Was the sleeping bag warm enough? Were you cold?”
K: “Perfect.”
F: “Alright, I’ll go make breakfast. Have you already thought about your daily wish?”
K: “I think I’d like some insect repellant. The gnats were awful around dusk.”
F: “Okay. Before you head into the bathroom, check if you’ll need any more clothes today.”
Breakfast probably looked like something out of a commercial: Father and daughter, sitting in the morning sun outside a rustic cottage, sipping their coffee and cocoa, eating cereal — as long as you ignored the chain around the girl’s ankle.
F: “How’s your ankle?”
She showed me. It looked fine. The chain was loose enough, and the sock she wore was thick enough to protect her skin.
F: “Okay, then I’ll start my chores, and you continue with thine.”
A few hours later, I realized something: I had worked uninterrupted. Not even the slightest concern about where she might be or what she might be up to. Could this concept of chaining up your daughter for the holidays actually catch on? Later that afternoon, her grandparents called. They were wondering why they hadn’t seen Katja for two days.
F: “She’s just a little… chained up with her reading,” I joked.
G: “What book could be so interesting that she forgets her grandma and grandpa?”
F: “She’s reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.”
G: “Oh…”
F: “And when I said she was chained up, I didn’t mean that metaphorically.”
G: “Wait — you actually chained up our granddaughter so she’d read a 1,000-page book?”
F: “1,200 pages. And she chained herself. Then gave me the keys.”
G: “But that means she won’t leave her room for a month!”
F: “She thinks it’ll take two weeks. And she’s not locked inside — she’s sitting in the sun on the bench right in front of our kitchen window.”
G: “Can we visit her?”
F: “Of course! Visitors are allowed. It’s not a prison — just a self-imposed reading bootcamp.”
Wednesday afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa arrived with a freshly baked apple cake to console their captive granddaughter. That became a pattern: every day, one of them would drop by and sit with her for a while. As they were leaving, Grandma said:
G: “Chaining her up was a good idea. Maybe if we’d done that with you, something decent would’ve come of you.”
The rest of the second afternoon passed much like the first. After dinner, I asked Katja for her reading update. She had read 130 pages — slowly catching up. Her summary, again, was well done. In the compressed form of her summaries, Tolkien actually felt… bearable. I gave her her phone and tablet for the usual 60 minutes, then wished her a good night.
Thursday morning, I noticed her face was turning red — she was getting more sun than usual. So I brought her some sunblock.
That day I had to help Grandpa with some farm paperwork, which meant I’d be gone for about two hours. The whole time, I couldn’t help worrying — just a little. And I was relieved when I got back and found her exactly where I left her. My little princess had survived two hours reading a book, all by herself, on a bench in the sun.
On that day, another resident of the farmhouse seemed to start missing Katja: Tabby, the cat from up at the farmhouse, began to visit her regularly. Katja claimed this showed Tabby’s intelligence and empathy. I had another theory.
F: “Is this why you started taking slices of ham every morning at breakfast?” Katja smiled. “Just make sure you and Tabby finish the ham. Otherwise you might attract… unwanted guests.”
Katja looked a little worried, but nodded in understanding. That evening, she complained:
K: “It’s getting boring. I try to sleep 8 hours and read 8 hours, but then I’m still stuck with another 8 hours to kill.”
F: “You can chat with me. Or with your grandparents. And you get an hour online.”
K: “Still boring.”
Before noon I handed her a sketchbook and colored pencils.
F: “You could draw the characters from the book — how you imagine they look. You’ll stay in the story world, but this way, you might ask new questions while drawing. And later, you could even include your artwork in the final summary.”
She liked the idea. At the end of the holidays, we scanned her drawings — and I still have them saved on my computer.
I remember a funny conversation we had on Friday morning:
K: “Daddy, the stars move at night.”
F: “Yes. Fifteen degrees per hour around the North Star — which you can’t see, because it’s behind the cottage.” (I pointed somewhere behind the roof.) “They’ve been doing that ever since little chained-up girls started watching the sky.”
K: “I know, Daddy. But now that I’m lying out here, I have nothing better to do than watch them.”
I didn’t say, they’d still move even if nobody watched them. Instead I said:
F: “Like our ancestors, standing guard outside their cave all night, waiting for sun to rise. Want me to bring you some stones so you can start building your own little Stonehenge?”
K: “Ach, Daddy... And the moon has changed, too.”
F: “Oh, really?”
K: “When I started reading on Monday, it was full. Now it’s only half.”
F: “Yep. And by the end of next week, it’ll be a new moon. Then the nights will be really dark. Don't they teach this at school anymore?”
K: “Yes, I guess … but I didn’t think it actually worked like that.”
By Saturday, a faint semicircular trail had begun to form on the wooden terrace boards and the grass in front of the cottage.
Apparently, Katja had felt the need to move around a bit and had tested the limits of her chain’s reach.
By Sunday, we had all grown used to this new normal — much like people later adjusted to COVID lockdowns.
Even Katja’s grandparents, who joined us for lunch, no longer questioned the idea of being chained up to read a book.
By Monday evening, Katja claimed to have read 160 pages. Her summary, however, was noticeably patchy. We agreed that she would revise it by the next day. On Tuesday, she only managed 85 pages, but her combined summary for both days was acceptable.
That same day, Katja told me that the delivery guy, who rang the doorbell in the morning, had seemed genuinely relieved to find someone waiting outside to take the parcel — and even happier to find someone with time for a little small talk. The chain around Katja’s ankle? He either didn’t notice it… or decided not to ask.
On Wednesday morning, Katja shared a new observation:
K: "The planes are flying the other way now. They used to go left to right, now it's right to left."
F: "That’s because, from here, we usually see the planes approaching the municipal airport. Now you’re seeing departing ones — the wind must’ve shifted yesterday."
K: "Which means…?"
F: "The weather’s going to change too."
She didn’t fully buy it — but she didn’t have a better explanation either. And indeed, the forecast predicted rain for Wednesday night. I offered to unchain her for the night so she could sleep inside — “I won’t tell anyone,” I joked. But she insisted on staying outside. I didn’t have a proper bivouac sack to go over her sleeping bag, but I did find a large, clear plastic sheet leftover from when I painted her room.
We tucked it between the cottage wall and the backrest of the bench she slept on, making a makeshift tent. It worked surprisingly well — kept the rain out while still letting air in underneath.
Thursday morning, before she woke up, I took a few photos: She lay there on the bench, wrapped in her sleeping bag, the plastic cover dotted with large raindrops on the outside, foggy condensation on the inside ... like a homeless snow white ... just with a chain disappearing in her sleeping bag.
By Thursday noon, the rain had cleared. That evening, Katja predicted that she would finish reading on Saturday. So we began making plans for Sunday — how best to celebrate her regained freedom.
After 13 days, Katja was indeed finished. She had lived for nearly two weeks on the veranda, sleeping more or less under open skies. She had never been this tanned during any of her holidays on the farm.
Her Tolkien summary — including her own illustrations — would surely please her teacher*.
But I still prefer Pratchett.
(*) Much, much later, her friend Chloe let me in on a secret: Katja hadn’t exactly volunteered to read Tolkien. It had been a well-deserved punishment for something she’d done in language class.
Katja 00: Prolog 1 - Early Signs viewtopic.php?t=23922
Katja 00: Prolog 2 - When TUGs were simple viewtopic.php?t=23905
Katja 01: What's a collar without a leash? viewtopic.php?t=23816
Katja 02: Making the shopping mall less boring viewtopic.php?t=23853
Katja 03: A question of peg and chain viewtopic.php?t=23881
Katja 04: Caged Birds Do Sing viewtopic.php?t=23931
Katja 05: How not to dance viewtopic.php?t=23950
Katja 06: A Bald Decision viewtopic.php?t=23963
Katja 07: The Big Red viewtopic.php?t=23977
Katja 08: Grandma's Wooden Spoon viewtopic.php?t=24038
Katja 09: Enjoy the Silence viewtopic.php?t=24055
Katja 10: Among Sheep viewtopic.php?t=24067
-
Katja 12: All about David viewtopic.php?t=24109
Katja 13: Boxing Katja viewtopic.php?t=24151
Katja 11: Reading Tolkien
Lemma:
Today, when you approach our 1910s cottage, you'll find its southern front a little cluttered. In the 1950s, an annex was added — a tiny hallway, barely 2x2 meters, which now sits in front of the original entrance door. To its left, there’s a ‘modern’ bathroom. In the 1980s, when the cottage was being rented out as a holiday home, Grandpa added a wooden terrace to the right of the hallway — placing it right in front of the kitchen window.
I should have known something was up by the weight of her suitcase when I picked Katja up from the station. That wasn’t just clothes. But why should I be surprised? She was getting to the age when girls start feeling certain urges — like doing exactly what grownups tell them not to...
K: “This summer I’m going to read 'The Lord of the Rings' by Tolkien,” Katja declared, pulling all three volumes out of her suitcase.
F: “'Tis a noble quest, I’ll admit. Elves, dwarves, swords, dark lords… But have you considered reading Discworld by Terry Pratchett instead? It’s not just three, but forty volumes — all waiting here on my bookshelf.”
K: “What’s Discworld? Like Middle-earth, but flat?”
F: (slightly embarrassed by the comparison) “Exactly that. Flat as a pancake and ten times funnier. You’d have to chain me up to get me to read Tolkien.”
K: “But The Lord of the Rings is a classic!”
F: “So is Discworld. Just with fewer elves whining about fate and more wizards who can’t spell ‘fate’ without help.”
K: “But I want epic battles and magic!”
F: “You’ll get talking swords, a sarcastic DEATH, and a librarian who’s an orangutan. Honestly, that’s peak magic.”
K: “… An orangutan? Seriously?”
F: “Yep. Says ‘Ook.’ Very wise fellow.”
K: “Are there any dragons?”
F: “Sorry, no dragons, as far as I remember — but there are four elephants and a turtle. Be warned: once you start Discworld, you may never see fantasy the same way again. Sure, there are 40 books, but they’re more manageable than Tolkien’s oversized tomes. And a few volumes are written especially for younger readers — just like Tolkien’s The Hobbit.”
K: “Okay, honestly… The Lord of the Rings is actually my school reading assignment for next year. I was dumb enough to volunteer. I thought I’d better get a head start during the summer holidays.”
F: “Oh boy. That’s a lot of reading. Each volume’s about 400 pages — three books, so roughly 1,200 pages.”
K: “1,168 pages. I’m impressed, Daddy.”
F: “That’ll keep you busy. No helping with the sheep, no TUGs, no secretly learning how to drive Grandpa’s Merc.” (Yes, I knew!)
K: “How long do you think it’ll take me? I also have to write a summary — around 10% of the original length.”
F: “So, read 1,200 pages and write 120. Let’s see... Tolkien isn’t exactly light reading. You won’t manage more than 15 pages an hour. 1,200 divided by 15 equals 80 hours of reading time.”
Katja slowly began to realize what she had signed up for.
K: “I’ll start tomorrow, right after breakfast,” she said, putting the books on the desk in her room.
F: “Why not today?”
K: “Oh, Daddy… it's Sunday”
Monday morning, after breakfast, I had some online work to do. I couldn’t see Katja, but for someone supposedly reading Tolkien, she was awfully busy moving in and out of the cottage. Maybe she wanted to read on the wooden bench out on the terrace in front of the kitchen. But most of her movement seemed centered around the cottage entrance and the bathroom door.
F: “What are you up to out there, princess?”
K: “Nothing, Daddy.”
F: “Fooling around with boys?”
K: “No, Daddy.”
F: “Doing drugs?”
K: “No, Daddy.”
F: “Alright then, carry on — but don’t forget your Tolkien, princess.”
After a while, the noise died down. Then I heard Katja call out:
K: “Daddy, can you come here, please?”
I stood up and walked into the hallway.
K: “Stop, Daddy! Stay right where you are, please.”
Katja was standing near the hallway’s exit. Before I could ask anything, she said:
K: “Remember when you said: ‘You’d have to chain me up to read Tolkien’? Sometimes you say really smart things, Daddy.”
She stretched out her hand, as if to hand me something. I reached out and she dropped two small keys into my palm.
K: "Father, take these keys. These chains shall not be removed until this prisoner has consumed its reading assignment."
Only then did I notice the chain leading from her right ankle to somewhere outside the cottage.
K: “You said I’d miss a lot of TUGs while reading. So I thought — why not combine the two? Have a cake and eat it.”
I didn’t understand at first.
K: “I’ll stay chained up until I finish the books.”
F: “But…”
K: “You said 80 hours — that’s two 40-hour weeks. I should be free in 14 days, tops.”
F: “You seriously want to stay chained up for two weeks?”
K: “I measured the chain so I can access the terrace and the bathroom, but not go further into the cottage.”
She was standing just one step into the hallway. Her chain would rob her of any access to the kitchen, living room, or her room.
F: “Where will you sleep?”
K: “On the terrace bench.”
F: “You want to sleep outside for two weeks?”
K: “It’s summer. I have a sleeping bag.”
F: “What if...?”
K: “If someone tries to kidnap me? You always say they’d return me the next day. And they couldn’t take me anyway — I’m chained to the house.”
F: “What about food and water?”
K: “My hands aren’t chained. I can drink as much tap water as I want. And for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I was hoping we could eat together on the terrace.”
F: “That’s doable. I’ll set up the camping table and a chair out there.”
K: “We could even use the kitchen window as a pass-through — just like Grandpa said it was originally meant to be.”
F: “And if it rains?”
K: “Forecast says no rain for the next two weeks.”
F: “With your leg chained, how will you… change your underwear?”
K: “No problem. It works — I can show you!”
She was so enthusiastic I half-expected a live demonstration. Instead, she later showed me a YouTube video. To my surprise, it did work. She would even manage to change into leggings or a skirt. Apparently, my little princess had spent the previous night doing a lot of 'thinking'.
F: “Won’t the chain hurt your ankle after two weeks?”
K: “Nah, it’s loose enough. I’m wearing a sock underneath.” She slid a finger between ankle and chain — there was enough space.
F: “Last question: where did you get the chain and padlocks?”
K: “Daddy, it’s a farm. You can find anything on a farm.”
F: “So I take it there are no spare keys to those old padlocks.” She nodded.
F: “Okay, you start reading, I’ll start thinking. See you later" I turned around taking her keys with me. "Don’t run away.” (I couldn’t resist.)
Katja was right. It was feasible. Not really dangerous. And… it might even turn out to be interesting.
But I didn’t like the idea of having the only keys. I couldn’t just leave the cottage knowing she was chained up without a way to escape in an emergency. After considering a few options, I came up with a solution I actually liked: I placed the keys on the inside windowsill of the kitchen window. That kept them out of her chained reach — but still in her plain sight, just behind the glass. On the outside windowsill, I even placed a stone big enough to smash the window. If anything serious happened — serious enough to justify a broken window — she could immediately grab the keys and free herself.
Then I wrote down a few rules for her captivity:
- Every evening, I would ask her how many pages she had read and she would read me her summary.
- For typing the summaries, she’d use my old tablet PC, which had been reset and was now offline.
- She’d get one hour of online access (tablet or phone) each evening.
- Three meals per day, including drinks, taken together with me on the terrace.
- One wish per day: after breakfast, I’d get her one thing from inside the house (fresh clothing excluded, of course).
I printed out the rules, and we both signed them. Then I confiscated her phone and tablet - her captivity was now officially real.
Before lunch, I carried the old sunshade out to the terrace, along with a chair for myself.
After our first dinner outside, I found myself wondering why we hadn’t used the terrace for meals all these years. Probably just laziness — I didn’t want to carry things in and out. But now, with her working outside and me working inside, the load was manageable. That evening, as we sat there — me with a glass of wine, her with a soda — I asked about her progress. She had read 102 pages on her first day.
“A little below target,” I commented. She then read me her summary, which was actually quite good.
I handed her the tablet and phone, set the kitchen timer to 60 minutes, and watched her quickly become annoyed at how fast an hour passes. When the timer rang, I took the devices away again.
F: “Are you good for the night? I’ll bring you a camping mat for the bench. Got enough water? Flashlight? If anything happens, just call me.”
K: “Daddy, don’t worry. I’m not going to prison or on an expedition — I’m just going to sleep in front of your door.”
F: “Good night, princess.”
Tuesday morning, when I got up and went into the kitchen, Katja was already reading. I stepped out onto the terrace and asked her how her first night had gone.
K: “I couldn’t fall asleep before 10:30 — it was still light outside. And I woke up at 4:30 because the sun was already rising again.
Also, I heard animals in the night. The sheep. An owl. And something ran across the roof of the cottage. I turned on the flashlight, but couldn’t see it — only heard it running away.”
Should I have told her those nightly roof runners were probably raccoons?
F: “Was the sleeping bag warm enough? Were you cold?”
K: “Perfect.”
F: “Alright, I’ll go make breakfast. Have you already thought about your daily wish?”
K: “I think I’d like some insect repellant. The gnats were awful around dusk.”
F: “Okay. Before you head into the bathroom, check if you’ll need any more clothes today.”
Breakfast probably looked like something out of a commercial: Father and daughter, sitting in the morning sun outside a rustic cottage, sipping their coffee and cocoa, eating cereal — as long as you ignored the chain around the girl’s ankle.
F: “How’s your ankle?”
She showed me. It looked fine. The chain was loose enough, and the sock she wore was thick enough to protect her skin.
F: “Okay, then I’ll start my chores, and you continue with thine.”
A few hours later, I realized something: I had worked uninterrupted. Not even the slightest concern about where she might be or what she might be up to. Could this concept of chaining up your daughter for the holidays actually catch on? Later that afternoon, her grandparents called. They were wondering why they hadn’t seen Katja for two days.
F: “She’s just a little… chained up with her reading,” I joked.
G: “What book could be so interesting that she forgets her grandma and grandpa?”
F: “She’s reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.”
G: “Oh…”
F: “And when I said she was chained up, I didn’t mean that metaphorically.”
G: “Wait — you actually chained up our granddaughter so she’d read a 1,000-page book?”
F: “1,200 pages. And she chained herself. Then gave me the keys.”
G: “But that means she won’t leave her room for a month!”
F: “She thinks it’ll take two weeks. And she’s not locked inside — she’s sitting in the sun on the bench right in front of our kitchen window.”
G: “Can we visit her?”
F: “Of course! Visitors are allowed. It’s not a prison — just a self-imposed reading bootcamp.”
Wednesday afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa arrived with a freshly baked apple cake to console their captive granddaughter. That became a pattern: every day, one of them would drop by and sit with her for a while. As they were leaving, Grandma said:
G: “Chaining her up was a good idea. Maybe if we’d done that with you, something decent would’ve come of you.”
The rest of the second afternoon passed much like the first. After dinner, I asked Katja for her reading update. She had read 130 pages — slowly catching up. Her summary, again, was well done. In the compressed form of her summaries, Tolkien actually felt… bearable. I gave her her phone and tablet for the usual 60 minutes, then wished her a good night.
Thursday morning, I noticed her face was turning red — she was getting more sun than usual. So I brought her some sunblock.
That day I had to help Grandpa with some farm paperwork, which meant I’d be gone for about two hours. The whole time, I couldn’t help worrying — just a little. And I was relieved when I got back and found her exactly where I left her. My little princess had survived two hours reading a book, all by herself, on a bench in the sun.
On that day, another resident of the farmhouse seemed to start missing Katja: Tabby, the cat from up at the farmhouse, began to visit her regularly. Katja claimed this showed Tabby’s intelligence and empathy. I had another theory.
F: “Is this why you started taking slices of ham every morning at breakfast?” Katja smiled. “Just make sure you and Tabby finish the ham. Otherwise you might attract… unwanted guests.”
Katja looked a little worried, but nodded in understanding. That evening, she complained:
K: “It’s getting boring. I try to sleep 8 hours and read 8 hours, but then I’m still stuck with another 8 hours to kill.”
F: “You can chat with me. Or with your grandparents. And you get an hour online.”
K: “Still boring.”
Before noon I handed her a sketchbook and colored pencils.
F: “You could draw the characters from the book — how you imagine they look. You’ll stay in the story world, but this way, you might ask new questions while drawing. And later, you could even include your artwork in the final summary.”
She liked the idea. At the end of the holidays, we scanned her drawings — and I still have them saved on my computer.
I remember a funny conversation we had on Friday morning:
K: “Daddy, the stars move at night.”
F: “Yes. Fifteen degrees per hour around the North Star — which you can’t see, because it’s behind the cottage.” (I pointed somewhere behind the roof.) “They’ve been doing that ever since little chained-up girls started watching the sky.”
K: “I know, Daddy. But now that I’m lying out here, I have nothing better to do than watch them.”
I didn’t say, they’d still move even if nobody watched them. Instead I said:
F: “Like our ancestors, standing guard outside their cave all night, waiting for sun to rise. Want me to bring you some stones so you can start building your own little Stonehenge?”
K: “Ach, Daddy... And the moon has changed, too.”
F: “Oh, really?”
K: “When I started reading on Monday, it was full. Now it’s only half.”
F: “Yep. And by the end of next week, it’ll be a new moon. Then the nights will be really dark. Don't they teach this at school anymore?”
K: “Yes, I guess … but I didn’t think it actually worked like that.”
By Saturday, a faint semicircular trail had begun to form on the wooden terrace boards and the grass in front of the cottage.
Apparently, Katja had felt the need to move around a bit and had tested the limits of her chain’s reach.
By Sunday, we had all grown used to this new normal — much like people later adjusted to COVID lockdowns.
Even Katja’s grandparents, who joined us for lunch, no longer questioned the idea of being chained up to read a book.
By Monday evening, Katja claimed to have read 160 pages. Her summary, however, was noticeably patchy. We agreed that she would revise it by the next day. On Tuesday, she only managed 85 pages, but her combined summary for both days was acceptable.
That same day, Katja told me that the delivery guy, who rang the doorbell in the morning, had seemed genuinely relieved to find someone waiting outside to take the parcel — and even happier to find someone with time for a little small talk. The chain around Katja’s ankle? He either didn’t notice it… or decided not to ask.
On Wednesday morning, Katja shared a new observation:
K: "The planes are flying the other way now. They used to go left to right, now it's right to left."
F: "That’s because, from here, we usually see the planes approaching the municipal airport. Now you’re seeing departing ones — the wind must’ve shifted yesterday."
K: "Which means…?"
F: "The weather’s going to change too."
She didn’t fully buy it — but she didn’t have a better explanation either. And indeed, the forecast predicted rain for Wednesday night. I offered to unchain her for the night so she could sleep inside — “I won’t tell anyone,” I joked. But she insisted on staying outside. I didn’t have a proper bivouac sack to go over her sleeping bag, but I did find a large, clear plastic sheet leftover from when I painted her room.
We tucked it between the cottage wall and the backrest of the bench she slept on, making a makeshift tent. It worked surprisingly well — kept the rain out while still letting air in underneath.
Thursday morning, before she woke up, I took a few photos: She lay there on the bench, wrapped in her sleeping bag, the plastic cover dotted with large raindrops on the outside, foggy condensation on the inside ... like a homeless snow white ... just with a chain disappearing in her sleeping bag.
By Thursday noon, the rain had cleared. That evening, Katja predicted that she would finish reading on Saturday. So we began making plans for Sunday — how best to celebrate her regained freedom.
After 13 days, Katja was indeed finished. She had lived for nearly two weeks on the veranda, sleeping more or less under open skies. She had never been this tanned during any of her holidays on the farm.
Her Tolkien summary — including her own illustrations — would surely please her teacher*.
But I still prefer Pratchett.
(*) Much, much later, her friend Chloe let me in on a secret: Katja hadn’t exactly volunteered to read Tolkien. It had been a well-deserved punishment for something she’d done in language class.
