The End of the World. Maybe

by Jo Nesbo

“Catastrophe,” the security guard repeated in a sleep-walker-like voice.

  “Which is why,” the king said, “you must call Nømsk Ull right now and ask him to come down here.”

  “Call Nømsk Ull,” the security guard repeated. She picked up her phone, dialled a number, waited a moment and then said in that sleepwalking voice, “Please come down to the reception desk.”

  One minute later, Nømsk Ull, the host of the NoroVision Choral Throwdown, was standing before them.

  “I’m always delighted to meet a fan,” he crooned with that cheesy grin that was so familiar from the programme, and gave the king an ultra-brief handshake. “But I have to run. Vee’re doing a live show right now, and . . .”

  He stopped because the king wouldn’t let go of his hand.

  “Hey, let go. People are waiting and . . .”

  “My dear countrymen,” the king said, and Nømsk Ull looked at him in surprise. “A new year stands ahead of us and suddenly we find that it is time to express our gratitude for the old one . . .”

  Nømsk Ull’s eyelids suddenly looked like they had little weights attached to them.

  “In the live broadcast you’re hosting right now, you will introduce the king, and then the king will address the people of Norway,” the king said.

  “The king will address the people of Norway,” Nømsk Ull repeated.

  “Great, let’s go do it,” the king said.

  LISA, DOCTOR PROCTOR and Mrs Strobe sat around the kitchen table in the little blue house, which was surrounded by snowdrifts at the top of Cannon Avenue.

  “Phew, that suwe was cloath,” Mrs Strobe snuffled, her voice quivering.

  “I’m sure glad you handled the clutch and the gears,” Lisa told Doctor Proctor.

  “It certainly is unfortunate that Nilly and Perry are probably going to be made into waffles along with Gregory tomorrow,” Doctor Proctor replied, running both hands through his unruly, bushy hair and scratching his scalp in despair.

  “It’s mostly my fault,” Lisa said. “It was my plan.”

  “I should’ve stopped it,” Mrs Strobe said. “So I suppose actually it was my . . .”

  “Enough!” Doctor Proctor yelled, and then groaned: “Why does one of us always end up in a dungeon?”

  “Well, I know what Nilly would say about that, anyway,” Lisa said. “‘Give me liberty or give me death!’”

  They all smiled at that thought. But then they all felt even sadder. Then they thought a little more and a little more. Until Doctor Proctor finally said what they were all thinking: “There’s nothing we can do.”

  Mrs Strobe emitted a little sob, bundled herself up in a wool blanket and disappeared into the living room, where she lay down on the sofa and flipped on the TV. They could hear her sneezing over the sounds of choral singing.

  Lisa wanted to sob as well, but she put on her boots instead.

  “I suppose maybe I ought to be getting home,” she said. “True, my folks are hypnotised, but maybe they’re worried about me anyway.”

  Doctor Proctor just nodded silently in response.

  Lisa stepped out into the entryway, opened the front door and was just about to leave when she heard a familiar voice. She stopped immediately. The voice was coming from the living room.

  “My fellow countrymen, it must be said sooner or later: Happy New Year. But let me also add: Thank you for the old year. And now that that’s out of the way, let me wish a speedy recovery to all who will fall ill this year. Especially the elderly, the lonely and all who are at sea. Together we are emerging from a noteworthy year here in Norway in which the chance of rain varied, national folk costumes were sewn, elk were hunted . . .”

  Lisa felt a yawn sneaking up on her, but hurried back to the living room where Mrs Strobe was sitting in front of the TV, snoring. A guy in a red cloak with a white fur collar was staring out of the TV screen with a stiff expression as he droned on in a monotone: “But we have also seen a despot seize power and proclaim himself president.”

  “That’s the king!” Lisa cried. “The king is giving his New Year’s speech on TV!”

  The Strobe Snore stopped suddenly, and Lisa heard the scrape of chair legs in the kitchen. And a second later, all three of them were sitting on the sofa, staring at the TV, their eyes wide.

  “Hallvard Tenorsen’s goal is not to create a better life for you, my fellow countrymen,” the king said. “His goal is to create chaos and provide his baboons with breakfast. The truth is this: His real name is Yodolf Staler, and he is from the moon. He has hypnotised you through televised choral singing programmes, but there will be no more of that. For now we – my fellow countrymen, and all those who are at sea – are going to put a stop to Yodolf Staler. The Danes are our friends, and I urge you to lay down your arms immediately . . . Or as a matter of fact, you should instead turn your weapons on Yodolf Staler and his companions. And especially Butler Åke, that base, treasonous sneak of a butler.”

  “Excellent!” Doctor Proctor whispered. “He’s doing it! It’s just so . . . so . . .”

  “It’s the king. He’s just doing his thing,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes a little to suggest that the king’s New Year’s address was rarely thrilling.

  “But . . . but, was it in time?” whispered Mrs Strobe, anxiously. “Are we going to have time to save Gregory and Nilly? There’s only a few hours until dawn . . .”

  “I’ve got it!” Lisa said.

  “What have you got?” Doctor Proctor asked.

  “Marching-band music. The answer is marching-band music.”

  “Really?” Mrs Strobe asked.

  “Of course,” Lisa said. “We just have to drum up a band. Can you guys play anything? It doesn’t matter what! Quick!”

  “I can play a little piano,” Mrs Strobe said. “I used to, anyway.”

  “Uh . . .” Doctor Proctor said, “I can play Frère Jacques on the recorder.”

  “We need more musicians,” Lisa said. “We need to hit the streets and recruit. And then we need a conductor . . . We need . . .”

  MR MADSEN WOKE with a start. His doorbell was ringing. He discovered that he had fallen asleep in his recliner, and the TV was just playing static. The last thing he remembered before he fell asleep was choral singing. “Norway is good, Norway is best.” Something like that. Very catchy, actually. Mr Madsen stuffed his feet into his slippers, buttoned up his marching-band-uniform jacket and shuffled over to open the door to his apartment.

  There were three people out in the hallway. A girl who was puffing, a panting man in swim goggles, and a wheezing woman with an astoundingly long nose.

  “We have to form a band,” the girl said. “And we need to practise a song before the sun comes up!”

  Mr Madsen adjusted his aviator sunglasses and stared at them blankly: “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Lisa.”

  “Lisa?”

  “I play in your band!”

  “Band?” Mr Madsen thought for a second and then said, “Ugh, marshing band music is boring.”

  The girl sighed and turned to the woman with the purse. “He’s hypnotised. Can you . . . ?”

  The woman nodded, raised her hand and slapped it against the door. The smack was so loud that it reverberated down the stairwell. Mr Madsen blinked in confusion and saw Lisa, that professor chap, and Mrs Strobe, the teacher from his school, standing before him.

  “Wh-where am I?” He turned and gazed into his apartment. On the floor there was a smashed flower vase, and the vertical hold on the TV needed to be adjusted.

  “Say ‘cheese,’” Lisa said.

  “Cheese,” Mr Madsen said. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ve been unhypnotised,” Lisa said, grabbing her band director by the hand and pulling him along. “And now you’re going to help us ring every doorbell on Cannon Avenue!”

  DOCTOR PROCTOR WAS standing on a pear crate looking out over the crowd assembled in the glow of the streetlight right in the middle of Cannon Avenue. Everyone wa
s there: commandant Mama, commandant Papa, Nilly’s mother and sister and Mrs Thrane with Trym and Truls. Some of them were only wearing dressing gowns and pajamas, others were wearing thick down-filled parkas, some were in choral performance robes and some were in uniforms with rifles, more than ready to shoot themselves some Danes. But they had all heard the king’s speech, and now they had just listened to Doctor Proctor, who filled them in on what was going on. Whether or not they believed him was another matter. The expressionless faces before him didn’t give anything away.

  “We need to start a rebellion,” the professor said. “And we need to rescue Gregory and Nilly.”

  “Why?” someone in the crowd shouted. “Why should we risk our good health and our lives for a dwarf and a frog?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Doctor Proctor said, sounding a little stronger now. “And because we can.”

  “Really?” someone else yelled, sounding skeptical. “So what’s your plan, then?”

  Doctor Proctor swallowed. “The plan, my dear friends . . . the plan is . . . now I’m sure you’re eager to hear it . . .” He flashed his teeth in an awkward grin. “Which is quite reasonable of course, because it’s a good plan . . . a brilliant plan . . . a plan that makes all other plans sound rather poorly planned out in comparison. It’s the mother of all plans if you, uh . . . heh, heh . . . know what I mean . . .”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “The plan I’m talking about is the very plan we have planned to implement in order to liberate no less than Gregory and Nilly. Isn’t that a good plan, don’t you think?”

  It was so quiet that you could’ve heard a pin fall in the snow. Until a shout pierced the silence:

  “What exactly is the plan, you scarecrow?”

  Doctor Proctor smiled quickly. “One second, technical difficulties.” He leaned over to Lisa: “What’s the plan again?”

  “To drum up a band and practise a song.”

  “A heck of a plan,” Doctor Proctor said, straightening back up, taking a deep breath and shouting, “THE PLAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN . . .” before suddenly pausing to lean down to Lisa again.

  “Which song and why?”

  “Just tell them what I said.”

  Doctor Proctor straightened up again and said, “IS TO DRUM UP A BAND AND PRACTISE A SONG!”

  For a second the crowd looked stunned. Then a roar of laughter erupted. Mr Madsen cleared his throat several times and adjusted his glasses. “Now now, people. This is serious business. I will be conducting.”

  “Who’s General Numskull in that weird military uniform?” someone hollered.

  “Is he blind?” a boy asked his father.

  More laughter.

  “Oh my God, what kind of song are you talking about?” Nilly’s mother yelled.

  “What kind of song?” Doctor Proctor repeated softly.

  “A pop song,” Lisa said, looking over to the east. Was the sky already starting to get lighter there at the bottom of the black edge of night?

  “A POP SONG!” Doctor Proctor announced to the crowd. Which responded with the loudest wave of laughter of the day so far. Mrs Thrane, who was standing at the very front, with tears of laughter in her eyes, managed to choke out, “You’re just crazy. You don’t really mean to say in all seriousness that a pop song can save the world?”

  “Who’s with us?” Doctor Proctor cried.

  Lisa looked out over the crowd, but to her dismay she saw only heads being shaken and could almost hear every single member of the crowd thinking, I don’t think so. Then there was a small motion at the back of the crowd. Lisa could see now that two people were pushing their way through, towards the pear crate. One was carrying a big tuba, wearing patches over both eyeglass lenses, and was easy to recognise: It was Janne, the tuba player from band. But the other one was a pale girl with a frightened look on her face, which was just visible under the tufts of hair sticking up after what just might have been one of the worst haircuts of all time.

  “Beatrize?” Lisa gasped in disbelief. She only just barely recognised the stooped girl, who didn’t look anything like the cutest girl in the class as she stood there in the snowy street. “What happened to you?”

  Beatrize’s voice was just a whisper: “When the other girls got unhypnotised by the king’s speech, they came over to my house. They said I had tricked them into joining the Norway Youth. Then they yanked me out onto the street and did this.” She pointed at her head.

  “That’s terrible. Poor you!” Lisa said, appalled.

  “I’m sorry for all the dumb, mean things I did.” Beatrize sniffled, her eyes full of tears: “C-c-can I join the band again? Please?”

  Lisa glanced over at Mr Madsen, who nodded imperceptibly in response.

  “Anyone who wants to,” Lisa said, “can be in this band. Do you understand, Beatrize?”

  Beatrize gulped, stared at the ground and nodded that she understood. Lisa put her hand on the shoulder of the former cutest girl in class. “Did you bring your saxophone?”

  Beatrize looked up, smiled through her tears and held up her instrument case.

  “Hey!” someone in the crowd shouted. “You haven’t answered the question! A pop song can’t save the world, can it?”

  Lisa looked at Doctor Proctor, Mrs Strobe, and Mr Madsen. Then all four of them turned to face the crowd and replied in unison:

  “Yes it can!”

  THERE WAS NO longer any doubt. Day was dawning. And when the sun rose, it was as if it was curious to see what was going on in this little big city. So it peeked up over the horizon and saw that some thing was happening in the rear courtyard in the middle of the snow-covered Royal Park that surrounded the palace. So the sun climbed higher into the sky to see. And from there it shone right onto a teeny tiny freckled face – wouldn’t you know it? He was standing in the Royal Palace’s rear courtyard, and next to him was a pale, greenish, grimacing face. Soldiers were arranged around them, and right in front of them stood an enormous shiny machine that the sun – if it hadn’t known better – would have thought was an enormous behemoth of a waffle iron. And the sun hummed along to the song rising from the palace’s rear courtyard on this morning: “Honeydew – You are the melon, I dream of you . . .”

  NILLY FELT THE warmth on his face from the sun’s rays, which had just peeked over the edge of the stone wall.

  “Seems like spring is coming early this year,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “Yeah. It would just be so typical if this summer turned out to be a really nice one, too,” Gregory sniffled, yanking at the handcuffs that held his arms behind his back.

  Nilly felt a wave of heat hit his face. “Ah, the sunshine feels so good,” he said, without opening his eyes.

  “That heat isn’t coming from the sun,” Gregory said softly.

  Nilly opened his eyes. And from where he stood, on a chair, he was looking straight down into the black mouth of the waffle iron, which had just been opened. It sizzled with glistening grease flowing between the enormous steel teeth.

  “Don’t be scared,” a voice behind them said. They turned. Yodolf Staler had camouflaged himself as Hallvard Tenorsen and was wearing a green uniform and a cap with a visor that had a red band around it. “There are international rules for the treatment of prisoners of war. And in them it says that waffle irons can only be used for cooking waffles. And I – Yodolf Staler – am a man who follows rules. Which is why you will not be just tossed into the waffle iron any old which way . . .”

  A sigh of relief could be heard coming from the soldiers. And a tremulous voice that whispered, “Thank God . . .”

  “Who said that?” Yodolf growled, spinning around. The soldiers leaped to attention, staring straight ahead without moving so much as a nose hair.

  “Is there someone here who wishes to object?” screamed Yodolf.

  No response.

  “What was that?” Yodolf bellowed.

  The soldiers glanced at each other uncertainly, and
a couple of them tentatively shook their heads. And then a few more. And finally they were all shaking their heads so eagerly that you could hear the brushing sound of hundreds of crew cuts rubbing against the insides of hundreds of uniform collars.

  Yodolf eyed his soldiers with suspicion before turning back to Nilly and Gregory. “Where was I?”

  “We’re not going to be made into waffles . . .” Nilly said, concentrating on not losing his balance on the flimsy, unstable chair.

  “I didn’t say that,” Yodolf said. “I said that you wouldn’t be tossed into the waffle iron any old which way, since the rules say that waffle irons can only be used for making waffles. So . . . Göran!”

  A soldier behind Yodolf stepped forwards. He was holding a fire hose. And Göran had been a little sloppy with his camouflage, because Nilly could see his hairy baboon hands sticking out of his soldier’s uniform. Nilly followed the hose with his eyes, back to where it disappeared into a tent that was standing in one corner of the courtyard and serving as a field kitchen.

  “So we’ll make you into waffles first,” Yodolf said. “Proceed, Göran!”

  And in a soldierlike fashion, Göran turned on the fire hose, which immediately started spraying something thick and yellow. The cascade hit Gregory so hard that he jumped back two steps.

  When Gregory was covered in the yellow, dripping fluid, it was Nilly’s turn. Nilly closed his eyes and stuck out his tongue when the liquid hit him. It tasted like waffle batter.

  “Now you’ll taste even better,” Yodolf laughed. “Could I get two volunteer soldiers to toss them into the waffle iron?”

  Göran responded, “Yes, yes! Pain! I want—”

  “Not you, Göran. One of the human soldiers.” Yodolf stared at the soldiers. But none of them moved. It was so quiet that the only thing that could be heard was the music: “Honeydew – Knowing that breakfast will be with you . . .”

  “Okay,” Yodolf said. “Then you and I will do it, Göran. Turn and face the waffle iron, prisoners.”

  Nilly turned, blinking waffle batter out of his eyes. Then a songbird landed in a tree above the red-hot, smoking waffle iron and started singing. I guess it came home a little too early, Nilly thought, looking around at all the snow. But it was sitting there in the top of the pear tree, singing about spring coming a little early and combining with Agnes’s voice.