by Maria Parr
The ladder was no use — it was too unstable. Grandpa thought we’d have to use the tractor bucket to lift somebody up. Krølla sighed. She was starting to get bored now.
Mom came home from work at the worst moment imaginable. Grandpa was driving the tractor and concentrating on getting the bucket the right distance from the flagpole, while Minda was doing the best she could to cling on inside the bucket. Magnus was hanging on to the side of the tractor, giving directions. On the ground, a terrified girl from the Netherlands was trying to calm her barking dog, while Lena was standing on the table in the yard, wearing the world’s largest grin as she filmed the whole scene from the perfect angle. I was holding the flag rope tightly, hoping that my little sister dangling up there was enough of a dramatic sight to stop Mom from noticing the deep ditches dug by the tractor tires right across the flower bed and half the lawn.
“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” Mom shouted.
“Trille and Lena have to do a book presentation,” Magnus explained.
And Krølla’s never going to be allowed to stop going to her after-school program, I thought to myself.
It was that afternoon I decided to have a chat with Mom. Secretly, I’d been keeping an eye on her for several weeks to see if Lena’s theory about The Change was true. After all, how could Lena be so sure that’s what it was? What if it was something else? Mothers can get ill. My own grandmother had died young. She had been a mother too, just as much as my mom. It’s not right for things like that to happen. Every time I thought about it, it was almost as if I couldn’t breathe. The more I kept an eye out, the more worried I felt. Was Mom a bit fatter? She had more gray hair now, anyway, and she slept and slept, night and day.
There was nobody I could ask either. Dad had wrinkles on his brow and was getting worked up about the slightest things, while Minda just interrupted me in an annoyed way if I tried to ask her. Plus I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Grandpa about it. What would he know about menopause?
But that day, when Mom started crying just because Krølla was hanging from a flagpole, unharmed and perfectly fine, I couldn’t leave it any longer.
So when evening came and everything had calmed down, I made some warm cocoa for her and sat down next to where she was lying on the sofa.
“Oh, thank you, Trille!” she said, clearly surprised, and sat up.
There had been a bit of bedlam and commotion after the business with the flagpole, but now the house was quiet.
“Mom. Don’t you think you should go to the doctor to get your menopause checked out?”
“What?”
I wished Lena were there to explain, but she wasn’t.
“Well, your body’s changing, and you’re getting a bit fat and fed up,” I said glumly. “And it’s probably just the menopause, but —”
Mom choked on her cocoa, sending it splattering halfway across the living-room table.
“Fat?” she shouted.
I gulped. “Well, maybe not exactly fat, but . . .”
Mom looked at me. “What is it, Trille?”
I poked at the sofa cushion. “What if it’s something dangerous? What if you have cancer?” I eventually said under my breath.
“Are you worried about that?”
All I could do was nod, as there was a lump in my throat now.
“Oh, Trille!” Mom stroked my hair. “I’ll be turning forty-five next spring. I’m not young anymore.”
Wasn’t she trying to make me feel better? Saying that she was old didn’t help! Old people get cancer all the time.
“I haven’t got as much energy as I used to. So maybe I feel a bit tired and cross when I’ve got a lot on my plate. And fat too.”
She prodded one of the bulges on her stomach.
“Just a bit softer,” I lied.
Mom snorted with laughter. “But that’s the way it is with menopause. It’s nothing serious.”
I thought about all her sleeping and bossiness. Was it really nothing bad?
“Would you feel better about it if I went to the doctor to see if everything’s all right?” Mom asked eventually.
I nodded.
“Then that’s what I’ll do first thing tomorrow, my darling Trille. Now, go and fetch some buns from the freezer, and we’ll make ourselves even softer.”
I felt as light as a feather that evening. I should have told Mom before that I was worried about her. She was only too happy to talk about it!
But the next afternoon, everything was as bad as it had been before. Mom’s face looked all strange, and she asked the whole family to sit around the kitchen table.
“I’ve been to see the doctor today,” she said, picking at the tablecloth, as if she didn’t know how to continue.
Dad stood over by the sink with an empty coffee mug, looking down at the floor. My heart was struggling to beat normally.
“Have you got cancer?” I whispered.
Minda and Magnus stared at me in shock.
“Huh? Cancer?”
“No, no, no,” said Mom. “I haven’t got cancer. And it’s not menopause either.”
Dad made a strange sniffling noise over by the sink. Mom turned toward him. Then she started sniffling too, and suddenly they broke down and started laughing so hard the whole kitchen echoed. They looked at each other, gasping for air as they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Minda, Magnus, Krølla, and I sat motionless on our chairs. Our parents had gone completely bonkers. Who was going to look after us now? Grandpa?
“Mom . . .” I squeaked.
Then Mom pulled herself together and shouted: “You’re going to have a brother!” She poked a finger at her soft tummy. “For Christmas. No wonder I’m fat! He’s been in there almost five months!”
“WHAT?” Magnus shouted. “You’re kidding!”
“Oh, good grief,” Minda mumbled. “Seriously? I didn’t think old people like you could have babies.” She put her head in her hands. “Mom, you’re old enough to be a grandmother!” she moaned from under there.
Big brothers and sisters must be related to aliens. What was wrong with them? Couldn’t they see that this was absolutely fantastic? Mom wasn’t sick! And we were going to have a baby. I leaped up onto my chair.
“Yippee!” I shouted. “Yippee times a hundred and three!”
Krølla leaped up onto her chair too and threw her arms in the air. “Yippee times a hundred and two hundred!” she yelled.
“That’s more like it,” said Mom, looking sternly at Minda and Magnus.
Then they couldn’t help smiling too. Still, Minda made sure to tell me it was so embarrassing, and that even a little kid like me should realize that.
“And Lena thought it was menopause!” I said, almost shouting, dashing out the door with the news.
But I stopped midway between our houses. Lena was only going to be partially pleased about this. She’d been asking for a little brother loudly enough to make the walls tremble over there, and so far it had all been in vain. Meanwhile, at our place, the whole Change situation had transformed into a baby.
I turned back. I had to have a little think about how I was going to tell her. People should be happy when they hear news like that.
I could have spared myself the thought. Krølla went over and spilled the beans later that evening. Ylva’s teaching her to knit, and while they’re knitting, Krølla blabbers on about anything and everything.
When darkness fell, Lena came crashing in. She had rain in her hair and thunder in her eyes.
“Is it true, Kari?”
Mom caught Lena in an enormous hug. “It’s as true as the tide, Lena Lid.”
Lena wriggled loose. “But it was our turn now, Kari!”
“You can borrow him whenever you want, Lena.”
“Borrow him? Is this some kind of library you’re running?”
Lena wondered if we had the faintest drop of an idea what it was like wishing for a brother as intensely as she did while children just came shooting out o
f the house next door.
“I understand, Lena,” said Mom.
Lena doubted it. “Have you ever counted your children, Kari? We’ve only got me at my place! Only me!”
Mom assured her that she counted us every evening, especially now that Minda and Magnus were capable of staying out until late at night.
“But Reidar and I spent many long years together before we became parents. Not everybody can have children, and it often takes much longer than you’d like.”
I looked up, astonished. Had Mom and Dad once been childless? What did they do back then?
Lena looked skeptically at Mom. “Anyway, you should leave giving birth to younger people, Kari. You’ve got gray hair.”
Mom agreed about that last bit. But she couldn’t be anything other than happy at that moment.
The next afternoon, I popped down to see Grandpa.
“Five times a grandfather soon!” I said, smiling.
“That’s right. It’s great stuff, Trille. Great stuff. Hey, look at this.”
He passed me a picture across the kitchen table.
“I found it when I was sorting out my writing desk. Do you remember it?”
I nodded. It was the one of the huge halibut. I’d seen it many times before. I leaned over and studied it again. Grandpa was young and had blond hair, like me. He was leaning proudly against the wall of the boat shed. Next to him hung the enormous fish.
“Were you alone when you caught it?” I asked.
“No, I wasn’t. Inger was with me. In fact I doubt I’d have landed that halibut on my own.”
It was probably my grandmother who’d taken the picture, I thought, trying to imagine it like a movie.
“Look here,” said Grandpa, pushing another picture across the table.
I hadn’t seen this one before. “Where is it?”
“On the dock in Baltimore.”
I stared at the photo. Grandpa in the United States. He looked cool, sitting there with his pipe in his mouth and his sleeves rolled up.
“I sailed abroad for a couple of years before I got married.”
“That must’ve been exciting,” I said.
“It was.” He took back the picture and looked at it. Then he shook his head a little. “I was so blooming homesick.”
“Were you?”
“I was. Inger was around then, you see.”
“Have you got a picture of her too?” I asked.
“Mmm . . . yes.”
Grandpa went over to his desk and came back with a small bundle of photos. I’d seen them before, but that was a long time ago. There was one of Inger, Dad, and Uncle Tor out on the steps, and one of Inger wearing an apron in a kitchen full of fish. But the best one was of Granny on her own on board Troll. She was wearing a big pair of waterproof overalls, her hair was standing straight up, and her mouth was open, laughing.
“What was she really like?” I asked.
“Heh,” said Grandpa, resting his chin on his hand. He looked briefly at me and then at the pictures. “Well, it was Inger or nobody, put it that way.”
Then he held up the picture from Baltimore again.
“I’d made a real mess of things before I left, Trille. The whole love story could just as easily have gone to pot, I’ll tell you that.”
“What happened?”
He gathered up the pictures. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know!” He put the pictures back in the desk drawer.
“But was it all right in the end?” I asked.
“Everything turns out all right for good-looking men like us,” Grandpa said, shutting the drawer with a bang. “Shall we take an evening stroll to the boat shed?”
“I’ve got to go and see Lena. We’re doing a book project.”
Grandpa stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Just let me know when you’ve got time for a trip out on the boat, then. It’s a long time since we last went out.”
I promised I would, and ran off.
There was a gloomy atmosphere in the Lid kitchen. Ylva and Lena were doing math homework.
“Congratulations on your good news,” said Ylva, smiling tiredly.
I thanked her and sat down at the table.
“Kari’s very happy,” said Lena. “She’s very happy with all her children.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Ylva, straightening her glasses so she could read the math question again.
“Were you very happy when you had me?” Lena asked.
“Mm-hmm,” said Ylva again, moving her finger down along the page.
Sometimes I think the house could collapse around Ylva without her noticing. Now Lena took the math book and pushed it away across the table.
“Were you very happy when you had me, even though you had to stop going to school and Dad ran off?” she shouted.
For as long as I’ve known Lena, I’ve been able to tell when a storm is brewing. This time it was completely unexpected. Lena swung out an arm, flinging her math book to the floor with considerable force, and started to march out.
“What kind of a question is that?” Ylva shouted.
Lena was about to shout something back, but instead she just threw out her arms, as if she couldn’t be bothered explaining.
And then the shock came. Ylva took off her glasses and said, “No. I wasn’t very happy.”
Complete silence fell over the Lid kitchen.
“Huh?” said Lena over by the door.
“I was far too young. I was playing in a band and was halfway through a school year. Plus your dad didn’t want to be a dad. I wasn’t happy. I was terrified.”
I’d never heard the clock ticking in Lena’s kitchen before. Now it sounded like it was slicing through the air.
“You know that the first few years were difficult, Lena.”
Not a sound.
“But,” said Ylva, “I didn’t know it was possible to care about someone as much as I care about you, either.”
Lena drew a breath, and Ylva put on her glasses.
“Just tell me if you know of a mother who loves her little girl more than I do,” she said, picking up the math book.
I could see that Lena was thinking very hard, but luckily nobody came to mind. She came and sat back down at the table.
“Are you going to make me a little brother sometime soon, then?”
“Oh, good grief,” Ylva moaned. “Let Trille take over. I’m going to do some knitting with Krølla.”
When Birgit arrived, first she gazed in awe at all of the colorful art everywhere, like most people do when they come into Lena’s house, and then she smiled at us as if she was really looking forward to working on our group project. She’d brought along a big bottle of homemade bilberry squash.
Ylva uses a lot of film in her art projects, and now she’d taught Lena how to use one of her editing programs on the computer. In the office corner under the attic stairs, Lena showed us the video from the yard on the big monitor. I thought it was embarrassing to see myself, but Birgit laughed.
“This is going to be fabulous!” she said.
Lena wanted to add some music and captions. Birgit and I sat down at the kitchen table to plan the rest. I’d never worked with anybody like Birgit before. She didn’t sit there complaining about being bored: quite the opposite. She talked and explained things and made everything seem easy and fun. She told me she was slightly dreading speaking Norwegian in front of the class, but she thought it would be all right as long as she wrote down what she wanted to say.
“Maybe you could tell them about the book, and I could talk about the author?” she suggested.
“Mm-hmm,” I said, trying to smile while my stomach tied itself in knots.
Lena looked at me over the top of the computer screen and frowned.
Then Isak came home from work.
“Do we need any popcorn here?” he asked as he put his bag down in the hallway.
What could we do but say yes to a question like that? Soon he’d made us some in a big pot.
“Thanks, Dad,
” Lena said quickly as he went off into the living room.
She blushed when she saw that I’d heard her and plonked the bowl of popcorn down with a thud on top of one of my books.
We’d just finished eating when the doorbell rang.
“Not a moment’s peace,” Lena sighed, heading out into the hallway.
On the doorstep, she found Kai-Tommy and Halvor.
“Yes?” Lena’s voice was quizzical, as if she were speaking to two senile men who had wandered off from the retirement home.
Kai-Tommy swept back his hair. “Is Birgit here?”
We couldn’t exactly hide Birgit in the fridge and say no. Soon the two boys were sitting at the kitchen table too, looking in astonishment at everything around them.
“Your mom said you were here,” Kai-Tommy explained to Birgit.
Birgit smiled. Couldn’t she see what an insane situation this was? I thought about all the horrible things Kai-Tommy had said and done to Lena over the years. And about the things he’d said to me. Birgit had no idea of all that. It was almost as if she’d landed from space straight into our class. Was it really possible that Kai-Tommy could seem like a nice person if you didn’t already know him?
“We had some popcorn, but I’m sorry to say we’ve run out,” Lena said, although that “sorry” didn’t sound particularly convincing.
Halvor and I didn’t say a word. But Kai-Tommy poured himself a glass of bilberry squash and acted as if he’d always been a frequent guest at Lena’s house. I was disheartened to realize that he was probably going to be just as tall and dark-haired as his father.
“Birgit, do you want to come and see the game tomorrow?” he suddenly asked. “We’re playing against the team from the islands. Our first game since the summer.”
I was about to reply that Birgit wasn’t interested in soccer when she said that she’d be happy to go.
“Will you be playing too?” she asked Lena.
Lena glanced quickly at Halvor and nodded. I felt totally left out. Soggy shepherds, I’d been planning on carrying up a salt lick instead. Or going for a trip out to sea, or doing something else meaningful. Blasted soccer.
