The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  When she enters the building, she catches sight of Rebecka Mohlin, who’s in her class, and Rebecka’s boyfriend, Gustaf Åhlander. They’re standing by the stairs with their arms around each other. Anna-Karin looks away with a rush of pitch-black self-pity. No boy is ever going to look at her in the way Gustaf is looking at Rebecka.

  ‘Hi,’ Rebecka says to her, as she walks past.

  ‘Hi,’ Gustaf echoes.

  Anna-Karin doesn’t answer.

  Only once she’s in the classroom, at her desk in the front row closest to the wall, can she relax a little. She sticks her hand into her jacket pocket and feels Pepper’s warm body and sharp little claws. His fur is silky soft. When she strokes his tiny head, he starts to purr so that her pocket vibrates. Self-pity melts away, replaced with love.

  Anna-Karin knows she shouldn’t bring the kitten to school, but she doesn’t feel strong enough to go alone. Not yet. Maybe next week.

  So far things have been quite good. She’s already got through two weeks of school, and the third has just begun. No one has laughed at her or thrown her schoolbag out of the window. No one has tried to push her down the stairs. No one has pinched her breasts until she cries from the pain. Erik Forslund and Ida Holmström have passed her in the corridor several times without even looking at her.

  She’s dreamed of this moment for nine years and now it’s happened.

  She’s finally become invisible.

  *

  Minoo hates being a teenager, mostly because it means being herded together with other teenagers. Coming to school is like being deported to an alien planet – every day. She has nothing to say to the inhabitants. She can’t even pretend to be one of them because she doesn’t know how.

  Everything was supposed to be different in year eleven. That was her source of comfort all the way through secondary school. The others were supposed to have caught up with her – at least, those who had also taken the natural sciences options.

  Now, at the start of the third week, she’s starting to realise that that was wishful thinking.

  Even the building reminds her of the past few years: a four-storey red-brick edifice with a flat roof. A lone pair of netless goalposts provide the only entertainment in the tarmac playground. At some point an attempt was made to spruce up the lifeless surface with trees. Most are dead now. Their twigs and branches have turned grey.

  The doors are propped open to let in fresh air, yet it smells familiar, of dust and old linoleum, when she enters. The smell of school. The first person Minoo sees as she steps through the doors is Vanessa Dahl, who’s standing next to Jari Mäkinen, one of the older boys. He’s chatting eagerly to her, but she looks annoyed.

  Vanessa is Minoo’s polar opposite: pretty, loud, bleached-blonde hair, voted sexiest girl in the school in year ten. She’s wearing white hot pants and matching trainers. The lace edge of her push-up bra is sticking out over the neckline of her top.

  Evelina, one of Vanessa’s friends, runs up and jumps on to Jari’s back, throwing her arms around his neck. She holds out her phone and takes a photo of them. When Jari tries to shake her off she clings to him even more tightly, so that her breasts press against his neck. She shrieks with laughter and everyone in the corridor turns to see what’s going on.

  Haven’t they had enough after nine years in the spotlight? Minoo hurries past.

  First lesson is Swedish. Vanessa walks into the classroom with Evelina. Michelle has laid claim to a few seats at the back and is powdering her nose.

  ‘God, I’m, like, totally exhausted,’ Evelina says, and sinks down on the chair next to Michelle.

  ‘Me, too.’ Michelle yawns and examines her face in the mirror of her glittery compact. ‘I look like I’m fucking thirty today.’

  Vanessa sighs. Michelle looks the same as she always does. She just has to hear how great that is a gazillion times a day. Now she adjusts her glistening dark hair and pouts at her reflection.

  ‘You’ve got, like, a five-centimetre-thick layer of powder on your face now. I think that’s enough,’ Vanessa snipes.

  Slowly Michelle lowers her compact and stares at her.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ asks Evelina.

  ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like it,’ Michelle tells her airily.

  ‘Have you got PMS or something?’ asks Evelina. ‘Did you and Wille have a row?’

  ‘Yeah,’ answers Vanessa. ‘We did.’

  It was easier this way. How could she explain what had happened to her this morning? ‘I was invisible for a while this morning – or maybe I just lost my mind.’ Boy trouble, on the other hand, is a language Michelle and Evelina understand. They look relieved. Everything’s back to normal.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Evelina says, and puts an arm around her.

  Michelle nods in commiseration. Vanessa smiles gratefully and asks if she can borrow her makeup.

  A group of boys are sitting at the very back of the classroom listening to hip-hop on a phone. Kevin Månsson is singing along in broken English. Minoo gives an inward smile of contempt.

  She nods at Anna-Karin Nieminen in the front row, but gets no response. As usual, Anna-Karin is hunched over her desk with her tangled dark hair hanging like a veil over her face.

  There’s something heart-wrenchingly hopeless about Anna-Karin. Minoo tried to speak to her a few times last year, but Anna-Karin just pressed herself mutely against the wall as if she wanted it to swallow her up. Her passivity seemed to demand provocation. Minoo feels an almost shameful sense of relief that at least she isn’t that far down the social pecking order.

  She fishes out her maths book. So far she’s understood everything they’ve covered in class, but she’s still nervous. She’s always been the best in the class without much effort, but despite that – or perhaps because of it – her greatest fear is that one day she’ll be exposed as a fraud.

  The bell rings for the start of class and she looks up.

  Max is standing in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee. He’s twenty-four and moved to Engelsfors at the beginning of the summer. Though she can’t understand why anyone would come here voluntarily.

  Max locks the door. Seconds later someone is pounding on it.

  ‘If you’re late, you’re too late,’ Max says, and sets his cup down on the desk.

  ‘Oh, come on! What if you’ve got a good reason?’ shouts Kevin, with the new voice he acquired over the summer.

  Minoo can’t believe she has to put up with Kevin for another three years. Why did he choose natural sciences? In year eight he’d asked if a zebra was a cross between a horse and a tiger.

  Max glances at Minoo as he opens the door. His expression tells her exactly what he thinks of Kevin. It’s as if he knows she’s the only one who can read the look on his face. She’s forced to lower her eyes.

  People usually say they’ve got butterflies in their stomach when they’re in love. That’s not how it is for her. First her wrists tingle. Then her arms go limp and she turns into a rag doll.

  The first time she saw Max an electric shock shot through her hands. How incredibly pathetic to get a crush on a teacher. Especially one like Max: good-looking in the obvious way that girls like Vanessa Dahl find attractive – greenish-brown eyes, curly dark hair and sinewy forearms.

  It’s double maths and Minoo dives headlong into the work she has in front of her. She loves maths. Clear rules. Crystal-clear answers. Right or wrong, no grey areas.

  Now and then she looks up to catch a glimpse of Max.

  She remembers what her mother said, that it isn’t good to bottle up your feelings. But there’s no way she’s ever going to tell anyone how she feels about Max. Least of all him.

  When the first lesson is almost over, Max empties his coffee cup, closes his briefcase and leaves the room.

  There’s a ten-minute break. Ten minutes with nothing to do, but be alone and pathetic for everyone to see.

  They’re on the third floor. There’s a corri
dor that leads up to the attic. It’s a dead end and Minoo has noticed that no one use the toilets up there. It’s the perfect place to be left in peace. She hurries up the stairs and turns the corner.

  When she opens the door to the toilets, she is struck by the smell of cigarette smoke. A mirror is smashed. Shards of glass are strewn across one of the sinks. The window is wide open and a girl is huddled on the ledge, smoking.

  She’s wearing a black tank top, a flared knee-length skirt, with pink skulls on a black background, and long white socks. A notepad is propped up on her knees. She’s writing in it intently with a felt-tip pen.

  Only when the door slams behind Minoo does she look up. Her fringe almost covers her eyes, which are rimmed with thick black liner. The rest of her hair is gathered into two wavy pigtails.

  It’s Linnéa Wallin.

  They were in the same class in year seven. Everyone knew that Linnéa’s father was an alcoholic and that her mother was dead. Linnéa was constantly skipping school, until one day at the start of year eight, the teacher had announced that she wasn’t coming back. Rumours floated around that she had gone to live with distant relatives or was dead. Later it turned out that she had been in a home. That sparked more rumours: she had tried to kill herself, her father was a paedophile, she was dealing drugs, she was selling sex on the Internet, she was a lesbian. Since then, Minoo has seen her only with others from the alternative crowd.

  And now she’s staring at Minoo with disappointment in her eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ Minoo says.

  ‘I thought you were somebody else,’ Linnéa says.

  Minoo glances at the smashed mirror.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Linnéa says.

  ‘I didn’t think it was,’ Minoo lies. Her ears turn red as always when she gets embarrassed. She tries the handle to one of the cubicles as coolly as she can. The door’s locked.

  ‘That one seems to be out of order,’ Linnéa says.

  Minoo doesn’t answer. Instead she opens another cubicle.

  She locks the door and rests her forehead against the cool tiles. Through the thin door she hears Linnéa light another cigarette.

  Minoo lets an appropriate amount of time pass before flushing the unused toilet and coming out again. She looks at herself in the mirror as she washes her hands. She glances at Linnéa, and feels a sudden pang of envy. Linnéa is cute and thin but, worse, her skin is clear. Minoo has suffered regular outbreaks of acne since she was thirteen. In year eight, Erik Forslund had asked if she’d been hit in the face with buckshot. Grown-ups always tell you it goes away when you get older. But, like so much of what they say, that doesn’t seem to be true.

  Linnéa interrupts her thoughts: ‘You don’t need to pretend.’

  Minoo’s ears turn bright red again. ‘What?’

  Linnéa has laid aside her book. ‘You only come here to hide, don’t you?’ she says.

  ‘I like to be on my own,’ Minoo mumbles.

  Linnéa smiles inscrutably. They look at each other for a moment.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ she says, waving the cigarette.

  ‘What you do is none of my business.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Linnéa tosses the cigarette into the sink. It fizzes as the lit end extinguishes against the wet enamel. She jumps down from her spot by the window. The pen rolls off her notepad on to the floor, past Minoo and under the locked cubicle door.

  Minoo bends down and looks for the pen beneath the door. The pen is lying in something dark and sticky. Further inside she sees a black cloth bag and a pair of black boots. There’s someone sitting on the toilet seat.

  Minoo stands up so suddenly that she feels faint.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Linnéa.

  ‘I think there’s someone in there …’ It occurs to her that it might be some kind of joke. Maybe the whole thing is being filmed and her ridiculous reaction will be put up on the Net. ‘But I’m not sure …’

  Linnéa goes into the adjacent cubicle and stands on the toilet seat. She peers over the partition. Minoo waits for a reaction but it doesn’t come. The seconds pass, one by one.

  ‘What is it?’

  Linnéa climbs down from the toilet seat and disappears.

  ‘What did you see?’

  No answer. The open window swings in a sudden gust of wind. Minoo goes over to Linnéa. She is leaning with her back against the wall, staring ahead vacantly.

  ‘It’s Elias,’ she says finally.

  Elias Malmgren? Minoo has seen him in town with Linnéa several times. She must mean him. ‘What’s happened? Is he okay or what?’ Minoo asks even though she knows the answer.

  Linnéa drops to her knees and throws up into the toilet bowl. She keeps retching until only thick, clear saliva is left. Minoo stands there, stunned, until Linnéa turns around. Her thick eyeliner has started to run. Their eyes meet and Minoo realises that Linnéa is falling apart. ‘Come on,’ she says, and holds out her hand.

  Linnéa grabs it and scrambles to her feet. She looks around wildly.

  ‘We have to get somebody,’ Minoo says.

  Linnéa stares at her. She shakes her head. ‘We can’t leave him.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Minoo says, immediately regretting it.

  ‘We have to get him out.’

  ‘We’re going to,’ Minoo says, and wonders how she’s managing to stay so calm.

  Linnéa runs out the door and the window slams shut in the cross draught. For a brief moment, Minoo becomes aware of the smell before the window blows open again. It’s a smell she’s never come across before, but she instantly realises what it is. It’s the smell of death. But she can’t think about it. Not now.

  She looks towards the cubicle. So much blood.

  She feels the panic creeping up inside her when she sees the razor-sharp shards in the sink.

  Minoo jumps when the door is thrown open. The school caretaker enters, holding a toolbox. He’s in his forties and has a shock of greying hair. His ice-blue eyes are wide open and staring straight at her. He mumbles something unintelligible, sets down his toolbox, and rummages around in it.

  Linnéa returns and goes up to Minoo and takes her hand again, gripping it convulsively. A moment later the principal arrives.

  Minoo has seen Adriana Lopez only once before, when the new students were welcomed to the school. She looks between thirty and forty, with a short bob and fringe. She is wearing a knee-length black skirt and a white blouse with all of the buttons done up. Attractive but stern. Not a principal to whom you would take your problems, Minoo senses.

  ‘Girls, you can’t stay here,’ she says.

  ‘I’m staying,’ Linnéa says.

  The principal meets her gaze. ‘Leave, now,’ she says.

  ‘We’re staying,’ Minoo says.

  The caretaker takes out a screwdriver. It’s easy to open these doors from the outside. Presumably they were designed to be so. Linnéa moves closer to Minoo and squeezes her hand even harder. ‘Don’t look,’ she whispers.

  And Minoo wants to shut her eyes. She wants to leave. But instead she stands there wide-eyed as the door swings open.

  The caretaker turns away and the principal gasps. Minoo can’t move. The shock is like ice surging through her body.

  Elias’s head is pitched back and his eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. His arms are hanging limply at his sides. His right hand is still holding a big shard of the shattered mirror. There is a wide gash in his left arm.

  Minoo and Linnéa put their arms around each other. It just happens. Minoo isn’t the type to hug people, and senses that Linnéa isn’t either. Right now, all they need is to feel the closeness of somebody else, someone alive.

  Far away, in the real world, she hears sirens approaching.

  4

  NEARLY ALL THE students are gathered in the playground. They’re crowded together, jostling for space. The conversations are fervent but hushed. No one knows who’s died, but there are rumours floating around that it’s Elias Malmgr
en. The teachers have sent everyone home, but clearly nobody’s planning to leave until the corpse is carried out.

  The corpse. Rebecka shudders. She and Gustaf are standing outside the front entrance. He’s standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her.

  ‘Promise that nothing will ever happen to you,’ she says, in a low voice.

  Gustaf hugs her a little harder and puts his lips to her ear. ‘I promise,’ he says. He kisses her cheek.

  Sometimes Rebecka still can’t believe they’re together. Gustaf has always been the most popular boy in school. The one whose name gets scribbled in the margins of girls’ notebooks over and over again in class. Rebecka had been one of those girls, but she’d never thought he’d notice her. She’s never stood out as anything special. It had almost given her a sense of security to be so sure that she would never get Gustaf. Local football star. A year older. Handsome as a Hollywood actor and almost as far out of reach.

  But then at the year-nine spring ball, everything had changed. They’d kissed. And a week later, the night after term had ended, they’d kissed again. Rebecka had had two bottles of cider and was just drunk enough to have the courage to ask, ‘Are we together now?’

  ‘Of course we are!’ he’d answered, and flashed his wonderful smile. ‘Of course we are!’

  Over the summer, her life had changed completely. Everyone knows who Rebecka is now. But, above all, she has changed. It almost scares her, how dependent she’s become on Gustaf. He’s so beautiful. She never tires of looking at or kissing him.

  She is more torn over having become ‘someone’. She feels as if the rug could be pulled out from under her at any moment. She can see it so clearly in front of her – how one day everyone will realise that she’s not particularly smart, funny or pretty. More than anything, she’s afraid of the day Gustaf realises that.

  A collective gasp runs through the throng of students as the school doors open and the paramedics emerge, carrying a covered stretcher. As they move towards the ambulance, the crowd closes in behind them. Students crane their necks, trying to catch a glimpse of the person lying under the sheet. The paramedics lift the stretcher inside and close the doors. Then they walk calmly to the front of the ambulance and climb in. The sirens whine. Presumably to clear people out of the way, Rebecka guesses. There’s no reason to hurry when you’re transporting a body.