by Arne Svingen
My cell vibrates on silent, and even though it’s not great timing, I answer it.
“Hi, it’s John Jones.”
“Oh, hi.”
He clears his throat.
“I just wanted to say that it would be nice if we could still go for that bike ride.”
I’m about to tell him that I’ve just learned to ride, but instead I parrot him like an idiot: “Bike ride?”
“Or something else.”
“Or something else?”
“Yes, hang out, you and me. Even though I’m not your dad. I just thought that it might be nice.”
I don’t answer.
“It’s quite all right if you don’t want to,” he adds.
There’s a faint humming on the line. The voices and sounds around me. The seconds tick by.
“I understand,” says John Jones, the man who’s not my father.
Nice. The word shouts out somewhere in my brain.
“It was nice knowing you,” he continues, and I expect to hear a click on the other end at any moment.
“Nice,” I say loudly.
“What?”
“I said nice.”
“Oh, right. Yes, it was . . . nice.”
“You can never be my dad.”
“I know.”
“But it would be . . . nice if we could maybe be friends.”
“I like going to cafés and the movies and theme parks.”
“I think I do too. But I kind of haven’t done it much.”
“I’ve never been to that amusement park Tusenfryd, either. Maybe we could bike there. I’ll call one day. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Break a leg in the show.”
“Thank you.”
There’s still hope for today. It might still go down in the history books as something not completely hideous and awful. The kind of day you remember when you’re sitting in the old folks’ home. If you try really hard.
Class B get a standing ovation for their part of the show. Then the Class A-ers do their turns one by one. There’s juggling, magic, dancing, music, and yoyo tricks, and August and his buddies get everyone howling with laughter. The whole time I’m sitting backstage on the edge of a table, watching the others getting nervous just as they go onstage, then coming off again happy. The teacher’s on fire with this crazy grin on his face that beams success. We’re a whole league above Class B.
“That was such fun,” Ada says, out of breath, when she comes over after she’s danced.
“I didn’t see you,” I admit, and am a bit worried that she’ll tell me that I’m self-centered.
If she said that, I’d just say it was true. Of course I should have watched her and given her heaps of compliments when she came off the stage. What kind of a friend am I?
“I once read somewhere that nerves make you more alert and energetic,” Ada says. “People who make a fool of themselves onstage don’t have that extra charge going through them. You are a bit nervous, aren’t you?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“It’ll be fine.”
And then I see that Ada’s got makeup on. I haven’t noticed until now. Her lips are extra red and there’s something dark around her eyes. Her skin looks more matte than usual. It’s like looking at a picture of a more grown-up Ada. Girls are frightening. Fantastic and frightening.
“Five minutes to go,” the teacher says to me as he jogs past on his way over to Bertram, who is about to go onstage.
Ada sticks close as the seconds fly by. When the teacher says “one minute,” I don’t know where the other four went.
I stand up. It’s going to happen. Now. I try to breathe normally. And then I realize: I’m nervous. Everything’s going to be all right. I am clear and alert.
Before I get to the stage, the teacher comes over and says: “Bart, we’ve got a problem.”
My final chapter (don’t worry, I don’t die)
The others crowd around Bertram and slap him on the back with great admiration. Two girls from the class are onstage singing a Beyoncé song on playback. The teacher towers over me, talking. I’m not sure I understand what he’s saying. But I know what it means.
“So what do we do now?” he asks.
As if I know how to solve a stage crisis.
“Eh, I don’t know,” I say.
The curtain won’t close. The janitor was meant to fix it ages ago. The mechanism has been sticky for years. It had to happen sooner or later. And now the curtain won’t budge.
“Okay, okay, okay,” the teacher says, rubbing his face. “We can resolve this.”
The girls onstage are singing the last verse.
“Should we stand together onstage?” Ada asks. “I don’t mind.”
The whole class is gathered around me. They were supposed to go out on the stage as I sang. One after the other. The cherry on the cake. Everyone’s looking at me.
I swallow a brick.
There’s applause from the audience. The girls bounce offstage. My vision is blurred; the others are just a shapeless mass. But my voice is clear when I say: “I’ll go onstage.”
Ada clasps my hand.
“Alone.”
She lets go.
“Are you sure?” the teacher asks in a strangled voice.
“Do you want to stand here and discuss it?”
“Play the music!” he shouts, before he mumbles: “And may the Lord be with us.”
Someone hands me a microphone. I mount the three steps onto the stage, and seeing all the people in the audience is a bit of a shock. Their eyes are glued to me. I spot Grandma in the front row. She gives me a strained smile and clasps her hands, as if she’s praying to the teacher’s Lord that I won’t shame the family for all eternity.
The music flows out of the speakers and I know that I mustn’t think that something might go wrong. If I do, I’ll only drive knives into the ears of the audience.
Too late. I’ve already thought it.
There’s no point in closing my eyes. I’ve seen all their peering eyes. Fortunately, a couple of spotlights come on and I’m blinded. A few more bars, and then glorious sound will emerge from my mouth.
Suddenly I see Dad. Not John Jones, but my real dad. He’s sitting on his own in the auditorium waiting for me to start singing. Dad sends me an encouraging smile. His hands aren’t folded. He’s totally calm.
Of course I can sing for Dad.
I take a deep breath. And then I open my mouth.
* * *
I’m lying on a floor. I look up into a spotlight. There are sounds all around me. Someone takes hold of me. I’m lifted up, even though all I want to do is stay lying on the floor. The safe, solid floor.
Dad’s disappeared. The auditorium is full of other people again. They’re all standing. Is that so they can see what’s happened? Did I faint? Did I ruin everything?
Everyone is moving their hands in a way I’ve seen a thousand times before. Are they clapping for me because I’m alive?
“You did it, you did it!” the teacher shouts too loudly in my ear.
Did what?
The rest of the class are standing around me onstage. They bow. I lower my head and just about fall to the floor again, but someone holds me up. Grandma is whooping like she’s at some rock concert. It’s embarrassing, but great at the same time.
We leave the stage, then go back on again. The teacher doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s crying. And when we finally file offstage again, he gathers everyone around him.
“You know what? This is . . . this is the best . . . the very best thing that has ever happened to me as a teacher. And it’s thanks to all of you,” he says in a voice that’s barely recognizable.
And then he hugs me. Only me. For a long time.
I gently try to extract myself and then take a few steps back from the teacher, who dries his tears on his sleeve. Ada comes over, grinning.
“Don’t think anyone’s gotten to smell the teacher’s armpits before,” s
he says.
“Ada,” I start, then stop. “Did I . . . sing okay?”
“You sang better than you did on the stairs. Surely you could hear that yourself?”
“I . . . I can’t remember singing. I only remember Dad sitting in the auditorium. All on his own.”
“You know what, Bart? Life’s never dull around you.”
Ada drags me out into the auditorium. People I don’t know come up and say nice things.
“Just enjoy it,” Ada whispers in my ear. “Superstar for a day.”
Outside in the dark, a shooting star passes, or it might just be a plane or a UFO. It doesn’t matter.
* * *
I go up the stairs with Grandma, who has been complimenting me all the way home. There’s someone sitting outside our door. Grandma grabs my arm.
“Careful,” she whispers.
I think I recognize the man in the torn T-shirt with his head on his knees. It is not possible to see whether he’s breathing or not. I pull myself loose and go over.
“Geir? Geir?”
His head shoots up and he looks at me with bloodshot eyes.
“You all right?
“Are you all right?” I ask, bending down toward him.
“Well, been better.”
“Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?
“Not the place for me.”
Grandma is standing behind us with a furrowed brow.
“Do you want to come in?”
“Bart,” I hear Grandma say, but I ignore her.
“You can’t sit out here,” I continue.
“No, got my place just down the hall. I’ll be fine now. Just wanted to give you this.”
He holds a plastic bag out to me. I open it and see there’s a black case inside.
“Don’t need to open it. It’s my old man’s watch. A Rolex Oyster Chronographic Antimagnetic from 1952. Engraved on the back.”
“But why are you giving it to me?”
“’Cause it’s worth a lot of money.”
“But . . . don’t you need the money?”
“That’s the whole point. If I sell it, the money’ll go to some damn dealer. I can’t . . . bear the thought that that watch just becomes heroin money. You can sell it, and then you and your mom . . . and maybe your grandma too . . . you can move away from here. You shouldn’t live here.”
“But I can’t . . .”
Geir tries to get up.
“Give me a hand. Body’s a bit stiff.”
I hold Geir under the arm, lose my balance, and just about fall on top of him. Eventually I manage to pull him to his feet. He sways a bit.
“I don’t know what to say,” I stammer, looking in the bag.
“Don’t need to say much. Thanks’ll do.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Don’t turn out like me.”
“I promise.”
He staggers off down the hall.
“Who is he?” Grandma asks.
I haven’t thought about it before now, but there is really only one way to describe Geir. “He’s my best friend.”
* * *
Sometimes you just have to make big decisions in life. I don’t know if this is one of them. But I’m going to stop boxing. I haven’t got another 9,960 hours of boxing in me.
I must have sung for around 500 hours in the bathroom, and somehow 9,500 hours of singing sounds like much less. There’s a small window in the bathroom. I’m going to open it tomorrow when I’m singing.
I sit by Mom’s bed at the hospital and look at her sleeping. She makes horsey noises and turns her head a little. When she wakes up, I’m going to tell her about the show. But I’m dreading telling her about the watch. She’ll probably say that we have to give it back, and I know that she’s right. On the Internet it says that collectors in other countries would pay at least 500,000 kroner for it. What if I were to pay Geir back when I’m grown-up? If he stops taking heroin now, he could probably live until he’s eighty.
My cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I leave the room and see that it’s Ada.
“This is Bart’s live voicemail,” I say.
“Hi. What’s up?”
“I’m at the hospital. Mom’s asleep.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Better.”
“That’s good. I was just wondering if you wanted to go to the movies tonight?”
“Maybe.”
“I thought I could get one of those two-seater sofas at the Colosseum. The ones at the back. There are still some left for six thirty.”
Ada with all the teeth has a boyfriend. He lives somewhere else. He’s older. She used to talk about him a lot.
“Yes, we . . . we could do that.”
“Good, let’s do that, then.”
“It’ll be . . .”
“Yeah, won’t it? I’ll order the tickets now. Bye.”
I stand there in the middle of the hospital corridor and realize that I’ve grown a little. None of my clothes fit anymore.
It happens.
I just didn’t think it would happen to me.
Arne Svingen is one of Norway’s most prominent writers for children and young adults. He has also written several novels for adults, radio plays for Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, and graphic novels. The Ballad of a Broken Nose has been translated into eight other languages and was awarded the Norwegian Ministry of Culture’s Best Young Adult Literature Prize.
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Simon & Schuster • New York
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authors.simonandschuster.com/Arne-Svingen
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MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sangen om en Brukkt Nese copyright © 2012 by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS
English translation copyright © 2016 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Originally published in Norway in 2012 by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag as Sangen om en Brukkt Nese
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ISBN 978-1-4814-1542-2 (hardcover)
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