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Mati is a five-year-old girl who talks a lot, especially to me. I’m her doll.

Her father has just arrived—he comes to the beach every weekend.

He’s brought her a present—a black-and-white cat. So until five minutes ago Mati was playing with me and now she’s playing with the cat, whom she’s named Minù.

I’m lying on the sand, in the sun, and I don’t know what to do.

Mati’s brother is digging a hole. He doesn’t like me. He cares more about a booger than he does about me, and all the sand he’s shoveling he dumps on me.

It’s very hot.

I think about the last game Mati played with me.

She had me jump, she had me run, she got me scared, she had me talk and shout, she had me laugh and even cry.

When we play, I chatter a lot, and whatever I talk to answers me. But here, by myself, half buried under the sand, I’m bored.

A Beetle passes by, so busy digging himself a pathway he doesn’t even say hi.

Mati’s mother left the beach an hour ago and went home. Now her father, too, is about to go; he’s loaded down with bags.

“Mati, let’s go, hurry up. ”

Mati heads off from the big beach umbrella along with her brother and the kitten.

And me?

I can’t see them anymore.

I call out: “Mati!”

But Mati doesn’t hear me.

She’s talking to Minù the cat; she hears only him, and he answers her.

The sun has set, the light is pink.

A Beach Attendant arrives. His eyes, I don’t like his eyes.

He folds up the big beach umbrellas, the chaises. I see the two halves of his mustache moving over his lip like lizards’ tails.

Then I recognize him.

He’s the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset—Mati’s always scared when she talks about him. He comes to the beach when it gets dark and steals the little girls’ toys.

The Mean Beach Attendant is very tall.

He calls his friend, the Big Rake, who’s even taller than he is, and together they start combing the sand.

The Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset sings a song that goes:

Open your maw

I’ve shit for your craw

Drink up the pee

Drink it for me

Sh-h-h! Not a word

Only traps are heard

Peace will come

If we all play dumb.

The Big Rake has horrible iron teeth, shiny from use. He bites the sand ferociously as he advances.

I’m afraid—he’ll hurt me, he’ll break me.

Here he comes, he’s here.

I end up between his teeth along with pumice-stone pebbles, shells, plum and peach pits.

I feel a little beat up, but I’m all in one piece.

The Mean Beach Attendant goes on singing in a threatening tone:

Off with your nose

On the pot repose

Clear out your throat

You won’t stay afloat

Everything he raked ends up in a pile of sticks, sand, tissues, bags, and plastic bottles.

I’ve been flung down not too far from a plastic Pony, a metal Bottle Cap, a ballpoint Pen, the Beetle that passed a while ago, digging, and now is on his back, waving his legs.

The light isn’t pink anymore but violet. The sand is cooling.

I’m very sad, and angry, too.

I don’t like this cat Minù, in fact I hate him. Even his name is ugly. I hope he has diarrhea, and vomits, and stinks so much that Mati is grossed out and gets rid of him. By this time I should have had a bath with her, and be at dinner with the whole family, eating from her spoon, a mouthful for Mati and one for me.