"Felicitas, Matze! We have to go now. Please get dressed so we can leave," says Katrin and waits in the doorway of the children's room for the two. "What, time to go already?" Felicitas asks her mom in surprise. "Come on, Matze, I don't want to be late for gymnastics," she calls to her cousin and pulls him toward the cloakroom.
Katrin picked up Matze together with Felicitas from kindergarten because his parents both have to work late on Tuesdays. So he is always at his cousin Felicitas's on Tuesdays and goes to the ballet and gymnastics school with her. Otherwise Matze also likes going to gymnastics… but today he doesn't feel like it at all. "Oh what a shame, we were just playing animal researchers in the jungle. Look, Aunt Katrin, we found a really interesting spider!" says Matze and holds a big rubber spider under her nose. Katrin laughs, because she is used to Matze's pranks. "You can maybe play for another half hour later, but now we really have to go," Katrin says to her nephew.
Matze packs the spider into his backpack and goes with Katrin and Felicitas to the bike. A little later they arrive at the ballet and gymnastics school. "Listen, you two," says Katrin, "I have an important appointment now. It may take 10 minutes longer than your training. Wait for me in any case, okay?" The children nod, wave to Katrin once more and disappear into the changing room. Felicitas always looks forward to gymnastics, because she loves to climb and thinks her trainer is super nice. Matze likes the variety of different gymnastics stations best and that the trainer always plays different games with them at the end of the class. That way every gymnastics lesson flies by… and is just as fun as soccer practice at the club.
After Felicitas and Matze have changed again, Katrin still isn't there. So they wait and watch the schoolchildren's training. Felicitas admires the older ones: look at what they can already do! Emma is great at floor exercises, even though she is only seven years old. And Lukas is a real pro on the apparatuses.
But Matze finds it boring to wait… he wanted to continue playing animal researcher. So he takes his rubber spider out of his backpack and lets it crawl to Felicitas. But she doesn't want to play with him; she'd rather watch the older gymnasts. Matze decides to take a look outside in the corridor. He sneaks out of the small gym and puts his ear to the door next door. There he hears piano music and Theresa's instructions. She is training the ballet children. "Well, Matze, do you want to do ballet now too?" asks a voice behind him. Matze jumps and turns around. Mali and Imke are standing in front of him. Their ballet lesson is already over and they are just coming out of the changing room. "Nope!" mumbles Matze and hides the rubber spider behind his back. "I have to wait for Aunt Katrin and in the meantime I'm just looking around a bit. The ballet hopping is not for me, you girls can do that on your own." Then Imke's mother comes to pick the two up. "But don't cause any trouble here at the door," Mali says sternly. "Theresa is training the group of my big sister Lena and they must not be disturbed!" Imke also looks at Matze warningly. Then the two say goodbye and Matze is alone in the corridor again. He grins. Causing trouble… sounds great!
Quietly he opens the door to the ballet room and peeks in cautiously. He spots Lena, who is just doing exercises at the barre, and her friend Eva, who is practicing big jumps. Some other girls sit on the floor and stretch their legs. Matze grins… and throws the spider into the middle of the ballet room. It lands at Eva's feet, who squeals and jumps to the side. "Eek, a spider!" she shrieks. Lena turns around in fright and the ballet teacher Theresa also stands for a moment frozen in front of the climbing frame. Then she runs to Matze and grabs him by the sleeve. "Matze, what was that supposed to be?" she scolds. "That goes too far. Eva could have twisted her ankle and hurt herself. That's not funny anymore!" Matze feels guilty. He only wanted to scare the girls a little, but he hadn't thought that someone might get hurt. He turns red and stammers an apology: "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." He almost starts to cry when he sees Theresa's stern face. She sighs and shakes her head. "Okay," she says then, "luckily nothing happened. But you will apologize to all the girls in person now and promise that something like this won't happen again. Agreed?" Matze nods. "Besides, as a way to make amends you'll help at our summer party. I'm sure we could still use someone to wash the cake plates. But now we don't want to talk about it anymore, we want to continue training." Matze breathes a sigh of relief. He had wanted to come to the summer party anyway and doesn't mind helping to wash the cake plates. He knows that Theresa can be strict sometimes. Matze shakes hands with each of the ballet girls and apologizes. Then he takes his rubber spider, goes back into the gym and sits down next to Felicitas on the bench. "Where were you?" she asks him. "Oh, I was just briefly in the ballet jungle and scared some pink animals." He doesn't want to tell Felicitas more. Matze is still ashamed and decides to leave his rubber spider at home next week.
