by Joan Holub
“It’ll be okay.” Her podmates murmured assurances. “It’s just hair.” “Aww, poor you.”
“Loki got the runeword klippa in my Runes class today,” Sif managed to say between sobs. Hearing this, the girls drew apart.
“That Loki!” Freya said angrily. “Cutting your hair is exactly the kind of thing he would do. After he stole Brising, I wouldn’t put anything past him!”
Idun nodded vigorously. “Yeah, like taking one of my magic apples! That guy is nothing but a . . . a . . . meanie-pants.”
Hearing the supersweet Idun call Loki a name (even a fairly mild one) caused Sif to snicker. Which made the other girls grin.
Skade clenched her fists and jumped up, full of energy. “Let’s go confront him! I bet he’s back at Breidablik by now, all happy with himself and thinking he got away with this mean trick.”
“Or we could go tell Odin,” Idun suggested.
Sif swiped at her eyes to dry them and shook her short-cropped head. It was really weird not to feel her hair swing when she did that. And not weird in a good way. “Not tonight. I’m too tired and upset. And before I accuse Loki, I want to be able to prove he did it.” She looked around at her podmates. “I loved my long hair, but it’s not just that, you know. I’m worried about what will happen to the wheat crops down in Midgard now that it’s gone.”
When her podmates gave her puzzled looks, she explained how her goddess powers were bound up in her golden hair, just as she had explained to Thor. “Its growth affects the growth of wheat crops in Midgard. Happy hair, happy wheat, get it?”
“I never knew that,” said Freya.
“Me neither,” Skade and Idun said together.
Idun offered the plate of apple tarts to Sif again, and this time Sif took one. “Wheat is the main crop in Midgard,” she went on. “If the crop fails because of what’s happened to my hair, the humans who live there won’t have enough to eat. Especially since the giants have been stealing Midgard’s wheat.”
“Ymir’s ears!” Skade exclaimed. “I can see why you’re worried!”
“Tell you what,” Freya said kindly. “It’s dark out now, but we can go down to Midgard after breakfast tomorrow and check on the wheat crops. If they’re still healthy, you’ll be able to stop worrying.”
And if they’re not healthy? Sif wanted to ask. But she didn’t. What was the point? Without her golden hair, she wouldn’t be able to fix things anyway.
As she munched her apple tart in silence, she watched Skade fetch her skis, which were leaning against the podroom wall. Sif could see that she’d painted their bottoms recently with a melted wax mixture that would help them glide faster. After taking a seat on the rug again, Skade began to polish the waxed bottoms with a cloth. “If Loki really is responsible for cutting your hair—and of that I have no doubt—he deserves to be punished!” she declared.
“Agreed!” said Freya. “And not just for what he did to you, Sif, but for all his nasty tricks. He needs to learn a lesson big-time.”
Idun nodded. “Right. For everything mean he has ever done to anyone!”
Skade paused in her polishing to punch a fist high in the air. “We’re Thunder Girls!” she boomed out. “And that means we make noise when someone does something rotten.”
From beside her on the rug, Freya and Idun also punched fists in the air, the three of them fist-bumping to show their power. “Yeah!” said Freya. “We kick up a storm!” said Idun.
Sif leaned in and added a fourth fist to the bump. She couldn’t believe how supportive her podmates were being. Their kindness made her tear up again. “Thunder Girls are the best,” she told them.
“You bet we are!” said Freya, which made them all crack up.
“So when we find Loki, how do we get him to admit he cut off your hair?” Skade asked. She’d set aside her first ski, and now began to slide her cloth back and forth over the bottom of her second. The best and fastest skier at AA, she skied for a couple of hours a day without fail.
Looking thoughtful, Freya toyed with the strings of one of the pouches she wore. “We should turn the tables on him. Pin him down and cut off all of his hair.”
“Yeah! But if we try to catch him, he’ll transform and escape,” Sif said.
“Maybe we could trick him into shape-shifting into something small and slow that we could easily capture,” said Idun.
A breeze blew in through the room’s open and unshuttered window just then. Brr! Sif’s head was so cold! She raised her hood again.
At that moment the breeze caused a big ball of dust to roll beneath the lip of Freya’s little closet. A goofy grin came over the girlgoddess’s face. “I know! How about turning him into a dust bunny!”
Skade looked up from her ski. “Yeah, or how about a skunk? Oh, wait, he’s already a skunk.” This cracked everyone up again.
Once they’d stopped giggling, Idun, who always liked to think the best of everyone, said, “Maybe we should try to reason with him. If we can get him to put himself in Sif’s shoes, surely he’ll be sorry for what he did.”
“Ha!” Skade exclaimed. “Fat chance. Loki only cares about himself. And when has he ever listened to reason?”
“Wait! Shoes! That reminds me,” Sif said as she finished her last bite of tart. “Loki wore these new speedy magical yellow shoes to class today. If he’s wearing them and sees us coming for him, we’ll never catch him. He’ll just race away.”
The cold breeze coming through the window blew back Sif’s hood and caused her to shiver again. Noticing, Freya said to her, “Want me to ask Ms. Frigg to knit you a hat till your hair grows back?”
“Sure, how about one with a hundred dangling yellow yarn braids?” Sif suggested with a straight face. “Think it’ll fool anyone?”
When the other three girls stared at her, she broke into a laugh. “Kidding! I’ve already got a knitted hat I can wear, but thanks.”
A few minutes later Idun yawned, causing everyone else to yawn too. “Time for bed,” Sif said decisively. “I want to go to Midgard as early as possible tomorrow morning to check out the wheat situation.”
As the girls tidied up and then got ready for bed, Sif felt much better than when she’d first entered the pod. Even though they hadn’t yet figured out what to do about Loki, it was nice to know she had the other girls’ support. Her growing feeling of closeness to her podmates was the one good thing to come from this!
Soon they were all snuggled down in their hammocklike beds. But despite Sif’s tiredness, sleep wouldn’t come. For one thing, it was hard getting used to the feel of her short, stubbly hair on her pillow. For another, she was super worried about what the loss of her magic would mean.
Her podbed swayed from side to side as she tossed and turned. In an attempt to calm herself, she absently reached to twist a lock of her hair, but her fingers caught only air, of course. She shivered. Though they’d closed the window, her head was still cold.
Finally she got up, tiptoed over to her closet, and pulled out a knitted hat. After putting it on, she got back in bed. She yawned. Then, remembering what the library runebook had suggested could help her to foresee things in her dreams, she began to whisper the runewords at the heart of her troubles. The Norse words that meant “hair,” “wheat,” and “giants.” “Hár, hveit, jötnar. Hár, hveit, jötnar,” she repeated under her breath. She chanted and chanted these words until she fell asleep.
Shortly after she began dozing, a vivid dream came to her. A dream about runes. Written on tiles, like the ones used in Ms. Frigg’s Runes class, they fell from the sky like rain. Most landed upside down on the ground, their blank sides up, but the ones that landed right-side up formed words.
Sif groaned in her sleep when klippa was spelled out over and over again. But then a wind came up and her dream changed. Most of the tiles turned into dry leaves and were swept away by the wind. Now only ten tiles remained, all blank-side up. One by one they flipped over as if turned by an unseen hand. In her dream Sif stared at the li
ne of ten runes, trying to make sense of them. Suddenly a pair of scissors appeared. They didn’t cut anything, though. Instead they nudged the rune tiles around, separating them into a set of six and a set of four.
Sif continued to dream, her eyes fluttering as she read the resulting two runewords: dvergr and g jöf. “Dwarf” and “gift.” The two words repeated themselves in her head over and over, and each time she saw the scissors flashing down between them. Even slumbering, she knew she was having a prophetic dream! One that was trying to tell her something important. But what?
Then abruptly the dream’s meaning crystallized. It was telling her what she must get Loki to do! Now the scissors disappeared. The wind brushed away the ten tiles. As the dream came to an end, Sif sighed softly. Though she was still asleep, a small smile curved her lips.
7
Caught!
SIF WOKE LATER THAN SHE’D meant to the next morning. Luckily, it was Saturday, so there weren’t any classes she had to hurry to get ready for when she finally tumbled out of bed. She glanced around and saw that the other three Thunder Girls were already gone from their pod.
First thing, she whipped off her knitted hat. Then she forced herself to look squarely at her image in the mirror that hung from her closet door. She frowned at the way her hair stuck up like golden bristles all over her head. Some others might find the short style cute, she supposed. She might too, on somebody else! She’d always had long hair, though, and was unused to this new look. She tried to pat the bristles down, but it was hopeless. They just sprang up again. Whatever! If she had to have short hair, she was going to rock it!
She slipped several colorful ribbons around her head and then tied them together at the top in a cute bow. Then she dressed quickly, slipping into a fresh linen shift and her navy hangerock. While busily fastening the straps with silver brooches, she began to wonder if her podmates had already gone to breakfast at the V. But then the pod door opened and Freya stuck her blond head in around the frame.
“Oh good. You’re up. Love the ribbons!” she said brightly. “I’ve just been sitting with my cats in the common area. Coming out? It’s nice and warm. There’s a big fire burning in the pit.” Without waiting for a reply, she added, “We didn’t want to wake you since you were sleeping so hard. So Idun headed to Midgard Mall early and plans to check on the wheat fields for you. I’m waiting for Skade to get back from her morning ski run. Then maybe the three of us can go to breakfast? Idun should be back soon with news.”
“Okay. I’ll be right out,” Sif said. There would be girls from other pods in the communal room who didn’t yet know what had happened to her last night. And she was still feeling sensitive about her appearance, despite the ribbons. So she grabbed her wool hat from the top shelf of her closet and jammed it down over her head, ribbons and all, before leaving the pod.
As Sif ventured into the communal room, a light-elf from the Northern Lights pod and a girlgiant from the Polar Bears looked up from a table where they sat playing a board game. It was called Halatafl and involved jumping pegs around in the holes on the board. The two red pegs stood for foxes, and the many yellow pegs were sheep. The fox player could win by capturing all the sheep. But if the sheep player managed to fill the paddock on the board first, the sheep player won.
The sparkly lights in the light-elf’s hair twinkled as she and the girlgiant nodded to Sif, but then they went back to playing their game. Since they hadn’t looked curious and had barely glanced at her, Sif guessed her podmates hadn’t told them about her shorn hair. The two girls probably thought her long golden hair was tucked up under her cap. If only!
With her two gray tabby cats curled up in her lap now, Freya was sitting on a low stool before the blazing fire at the center of the big, round room. Sif picked up the nearest free stool, plunked it down next to Freya’s, and sat.
Freya’s eyes flicked to Sif’s navy knitted hat. In a sympathetic voice she asked, “How are you doing?”
Sif shrugged and sent her a weak smile. “I’ll survive, thanks.”
Just then they heard the front door of Vingolf bang open. Seconds later Skade tromped through the inner door carrying her skis and wearing snow-encrusted boots. She was accompanied by a stiff cold wind that swirled through the communal room.
“Brr. Did you leave the outside door open again?” Sif called out to Skade, who halted in her tracks. Still holding her skis, she was using her teeth to pull off her mittens.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Skade mumbled through a mouthful of mitten.
“What’s the matter with you?” Freya teased the girl. “Were you born in a barn?”
“Nope,” Skade replied good-naturedly as she stuffed her mittens inside the pocket of her cloak. “But the giant side of my family in Jotunheim has a barn.”
The three podmates laughed. Some giants and half-giants, could be quite grumpy, such as Angerboda from Sif’s Runes class. Good thing Skade wasn’t like that. Oh, she could be forceful when the occasion called for it, but she was also reasonable.
Skade clomped back out to close the front door, and this time she left her skis in the mudroom. Once back, she rubbed her hands together to warm them as she stomped toward the fire.
“Boots off,” Freya reminded her. “They’re leaving water on the floor.”
“Oh, yeah.” Skade stripped off the sparkly red boots and let them drop to the floor.
“Boot racks,” Sif reminded her.
“Oh, yeah.” Skade swept up the boots and went to leave them on the mudroom racks. Meanwhile, Sif and Freya exchanged amused looks.
When Skade returned to join them, she pulled her mittens from the pocket of her cloak and then placed them near the fire to dry. Speaking in a low voice so that the girls playing Halatafl wouldn’t overhear, she announced, “So guess who I saw walking toward the Valhallateria on my way back from skiing? Loki!”
“That rat!” huffed Freya. Surprised by the vehemence in her voice, or maybe recognizing the word “rat,” her cats looked up at her in surprise. “It’s okay, silfrkatter,” she reassured them, using a word that meant “silver cats.” “Nothing for you to be concerned about.” She stroked her hands along both their backs, and they settled again to purr in low rumbles.
“He is a rat. Loki the ratski.” Skade pulled a stool close to them and the fire and sat. “He was just walking along, whistling and smiling, acting like he hadn’t done anything wrong.”
After a pause Sif leaned toward her two podmates. “Last night I had a prophetic dream. It was about Loki, I think,” she whispered to them. Immediately they bent forward to listen. “There’s something I have to get him to do,” Sif went on. “To make up for the tricks he’s pulled on all of us. But I’ll need your help. Can you guys do something for me right now? Before breakfast?”
“Sure,” Skade said in a low voice.
Freya nodded enthusiastically. “Name it!”
“So I need you to go to Breidablik . . . ,” Sif began telling the girls. They listened eagerly as she outlined the first part of a larger plan she’d come up with, the details of which she promised to reveal later.
Not long after, the three girls left Vingolf Hall. Freya and Skade went in one direction, while Sif went in another, making her way to the Valhallateria. Thor was heading inside as she arrived, so he held the door open for her and then followed her in.
“That Loki!” He pointed to where the boygod sat laughing with a bunch of other boys at a table across the room. “Look at him pretending like he didn’t do anything.” Thor’s jaw tightened. “I’d like to go over there and knock him into next week.”
Sif giggled. It was nice of Thor to stand up for her, but he sure did have a stormy temper! “Hold on to your Belt-o’-Power there, boygod,” she said with a grin. “I have another idea instead. And I could use your help.” As she told him what she wanted him to do, she hoped her request would give him something else to focus on besides starting a fight.
Thor nodded, looking pleased to help and glad to ha
ve some action he could take. “You can count on me.”
Just as Sif finished telling him about the errand she’d sent Freya and Skade on, the two girls showed up. “Got ’em,” Freya announced, patting her bulging pocket.
Skade grinned. “Yeah, easy peasy. We asked Bragi, and he . . .” Breaking off suddenly, she glanced over at Thor, a question in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” Sif hastened to assure both girls. “I told Thor about you going to Breidablik. He’s going to help us.”
“Cool,” said Skade, shooting the boygod an approving glance. “So anyway, Bragi got what we wanted right off of Loki’s desk.”
“With the evidence still stuck to them,” Freya added in a satisfied voice. “We are so going to nail him!”
Sif, Thor, and the other two girls all swung their heads at the same time to look at Loki. Luckily, he was too busy laughing and chatting to notice.
Thor grunted in annoyance. “Now?” he asked Sif.
“Now,” she replied, nodding.
With determined looks on their faces, the four quickly closed in on Loki. He had just grabbed a Valkyrie’s tray to tease her—the perfect distraction they needed to corner that slippery boygod of fire. They wouldn’t let him wiggle out of this!
A hush settled over Loki’s table as Thor placed a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. Loki startled, and the Valkyrie used that opportunity to wrench her tray from his grasp. She stuck out her tongue at him before moving off to deliver food to another table.
“Hey,” Loki protested as he glanced up at Thor. He tried to rise from the table, but Thor’s grip kept him in his seat.
“Ha! Even those speedy yellow shoes of yours aren’t going to help you now!” Thor thundered. “You’re not going anywhere. Not shape-shifting, either.” The touch of Thor’s hand was grounding the wily boygod as per the rules of magic, making transforming to another shape impossible.
