The Story of the Blue Planet

by Andri Snaer Magnason

  “Oh, I hate rain,” whined Elva.

  “Me too,” said Magni dejectedly.

  “You don’t get a belly full of butterflies in the rain,” muttered Brimir.

  The kids waded through the mud and slush on the beach to Jolly-Goodday’s where he lay under the flower-patterned parachute, using it as an umbrella.

  “It’s really intolerable when you’re innocently flying along and the clouds suddenly cover the sun. It’s highly dangerous. You could simply crash to the ground and be smashed to pieces,” said Hulda. She was quite furious.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We can’t have rain getting out of control and taking everyone by surprise! Rain is boring!”

  “Down with rain! Down with rain!”

  Jolly-Goodday thought long and deeply.

  “I think I can fix this, dear kids, and it shouldn’t cost much.”

  The children brightened up.

  “How?”

  “Look at the clouds in the sky.”

  They all looked down at their feet.

  “Look at the clouds, kids, don’t be silly.”

  “But they’re so unexciting, we can’t be bothered to stare at them anymore,” said Brimir. “We want to fly, that’s exciting!”

  “But what do the clouds look like?”

  The children gawped listlessly up into the sky.

  “Why don’t you tell us instead? We don’t want to look at clouds. We want to fly higher than the clouds.”

  “Shall I tell you what I think?” asked Jolly-Goodday. “I think the clouds look like little woolly lambs that have come here to pee on you,” he said as he burst out laughing.

  “Ugh, what disgusting lambs,” said the children. “Just as well they don’t poop on us too.”

  “But how does one get rid of these pesky lambs?” asked Jolly-Goodday.

  “You scare them away,” said Hulda grinning.

  “And what are lambs scared of?”

  “They’re scared of the big bad wolf!” shouted Brimir.

  “That’s right!”

  Jolly-Goodday took a large fat cigar from his back pocket and lighted it. He sucked and blew, sucked and blew, coughed and blew, and a horrid cloud of smoke came from his ears. His nose smoked like a factory chimney. His mouth was like an exhaust pipe. The smoke rose up in the sky and gathered in a black and ominous cloud. The cloud grew bigger and bigger and became uglier and uglier. When the cigar was burned to ashes Jolly-Goodday looked proudly up into the sky.

  “Well, how do you like it?”

  “The ugly black cloud?” asked the children.

  “How do you like the wolf!”

  The children looked thunderstruck up into the sky and saw that the black cloud was just like a big, fierce wolf. Jolly-Goodday waved his arms and cried:

  From the sky came the most terrifying growl they had ever heard. It was like a thousand thunderstorms, and from the wolf’s eyes and mouth shot streaks of lightning. The wolf raced across the heavens and swallowed a few lamb-clouds in one big bite.

  The clouds fled in all directions and hid themselves behind the horizon so that the sky was once again clear and blue.

  After that not a single cloud was seen in the sky apart from the black one, which ran like a wolf round the horizon making sure that no cloud ever came over it.

  “Hooray,” shouted the children. “If Jolly-Goodday hadn’t saved us we would have been bored to death in the rain.”

  “Is the wolf dangerous?” asked Hulda.

  “Not unless you fly bleating like a lamb through the sky in a white woollen sweater.”

  “Could it swallow the sun?”

  Jolly-Goodday made no answer.

  “How … how much does the wolf cost?” asked Brimir.

  “Oh, nothing at all really,” said Jolly-Goodday, “maybe just a little more youth.”

  “You need more youth?”

  “I need just a teeny-weeny drop more, hardly enough worth mentioning. Within 10% of usable youth.”

  “We don’t really understand this % stuff.”

  “How do you collect youth?” asked Arnar the thinker.

  “Are we really interested in listening to some boring vacuum-cleaner-techno-baloney?” asked Jolly-Goodday. “You don’t need to understand. Can’t you see that the sun’s shining and the sky is clear and blue?”

  “Hooray,” shouted the children and they flew off into the air.

  They went higher and higher until they became little black dots in the clear blue sky. The whole island echoed with the shouts of children’s laughter, which drowned even the noise of the screeching terns and wailing gulls. Sometimes a wondrous cry could be heard when they saw something new and amazing. Sometimes sighs of happiness could be heard when the children tasted delicious fruits that grew on the tallest trees, which they had never been able to reach before Jolly-Goodday had taught them to fly.

  The scent of flowers filled the air. But soon a strange smell began to be borne on the wind. Wherever the children went they could smell the disgusting stink.

  The Strangest Stink

  “What is that stink, kids?” cried Jolly-Goodday from where he sat on the beach. He was lathered in suntan lotion and slurping a cold drink to keep himself cool.

  “What stink?” asked the children innocently.

  “It’s not like the smell from a volcano, more like a mixture of rotten eggs and smelly feet,” said Jolly-Goodday and grimaced. “Has someone just farted?”

  The children looked all around.

  “Oh, now I remember,” said Magni, “it’s farting season for the hippos.”

  “And the zebras air their toes at exactly this time of year,” added Brimir.

  “Are you trying to fool me, kids? It’s impossible to breathe here.”

  Jolly-Goodday sprayed himself with an after-shave, which was so strong that flies dropped dead all around him.

  There was a long silence.

  “Actually we are fooling you,” said Elva as she floated like a bee around a cherry tree in full bloom. “It’s so boring to wash ourselves in the waterfall.”

  “The butterfly powder could be washed off,” said the children, “so we’ve stopped having baths.”

  “Aren’t you suffocated by the stink?” asked Jolly-Goodday, holding his nose.

  “If we fly fast enough the wind blows the stink away,” said Elva as she whizzed past.

  “My dear kiddies, it’s the easiest thing in the world to fix this stink.”

  “Do you know a way to do that as well?”

  “I know the answer to everything,” said Jolly-Goodday. “Follow me to the waterfall.”

  The children glided in the direction of Fairmost Falls, hovering over Jolly-Goodday like seagulls as he walked along the path to the waterfall, which fell with a tremendous roar into a canyon. The children were overwhelmed when they felt the power of the waterfall. The roar was so loud it was difficult to hear anyone speak. A huge rainbow formed as the sun shone through the waterfall’s misty spray.

  “Just look at how depressing this is, kids,” shouted Jolly-Goodday, looking down into the immensely deep canyon.

  “What?” shouted the children surprised.

  “A whole waterfall going to waste, of no use to anyone.”

  “But it’s beautiful,” exclaimed Elva.

  “It’s a childish waste of time to stare at waterfalls. Now watch carefully.”

  Jolly-Goodday rolled up his sleeves and took out a hammer. He beat the rainbow in the canyon from all directions and battered it into the shape of a little ball. He stirred into it all the waterfall’s misty spray and its loud roar, and created a brown gooey mess, which he then thrust into an aerosol can. Rainbowless, roarless, and mistless, the waterfall trickled feebly into the canyon like a runny nose.

  “What have you done?” whispered the children, listening to the silence.

  “I made a magic stuff out of the roar, the spray, and the rainbow, so you’ll never need to wash yourselves again,” said Jolly-Goodda
y, and he shook the aerosol can before spraying the stuff over the children.

  “Magic stuff?”

  “This is Teflon® wonder stuff, which makes you so slippery that dirt and mud can never stick to you.”

  “So we’ll never stink again?”

  “Not while you’re coated with Teflon® wonder stuff.”

  “Will we ever need to bathe in the waterfall mist?”

  “Try lying in the mud,” said Jolly-Goodday.

  The kids rolled around in the mud but the dirt fell off them immediately. The children took the most disgusting filth they could find, full of dog-poop, rotten bananas, dead flies, and tiger pee, and threw it at each other. It made no difference. The filth ran off them. Their hands, nails, and bottoms were spotlessly clean. They were so spick-and-span that there wasn’t even a whiff of smelly toes about them anymore.

  “Thanks to the great Teflon® wonder stuff, you are so slippery that you can’t even hold hands or hug each other,” said Jolly-Goodday with a big smile. His teeth were as white and straight as a row of sugar cubes.

  The children tried to hold hands but couldn’t get a grip, they were more slippery than salmon, slimier than eels. They tried to hug each other, but no matter how hard they squeezed each other, no one could hold onto anyone. The kids burst out laughing, however, because they could still fly: the butterfly powder was under the magic stuff of course!

  “Wow, you’re not only the funniest man in the world but also by far the cleverest,” said Brimir.

  “How much does the Teflon® wonder stuff cost?”

  “Oof, not much, just a small dash of youth in addition.”

  “Just a few %?” asked the children.

  “Yes, just a very few % in addition.”

  The children realized it wasn’t really expensive to pay with a little youth from the enormously deep well in order to do without having to bathe themselves in the cold waterfall spray.

  “Hooray for Jolly-Goodday!”

  Now everything was really perfect for the children on the island and they danced in the blue sky. They could fly whenever they wanted, the sun shone all day, the sky was clear and blue, and they were coated with Teflon® wonder stuff, which kept them squeaky clean.

  “And now you’re ready for the flying competition of the century!” cried Jolly-Goodday. “More speed! More excitement! More fun!”

  “Hooray,” shouted the children. “Now we’re really going to have a good time!”

  The Great Flying Competition and into the Blue

  Jolly-Goodday took a loudspeaker and blared out:

  “The great flying competition is about to begin. Now we’ll really find out who’s the best on the island!”

  The children looked at Jolly-Goodday in amazement.

  “But everyone’s the best at something.”

  “But the one who’s the best at flying is the very best of all, and now it’s time for the flying fun competition!”

  “I pick Hulda,” said Brimir.

  “No, no, there’s no fun having people in teams,” said Jolly-Goodday. “Let’s have everyone against everyone else instead. The one who reaches the highest is the best of you all. Off you go!”

  The kids shot up into the air shouting and screaming. Elva and Magni were equal in first place and zoomed like jet fighters straight up into the sky, but a black and white flock of terns jabbed them back down to the ground. Arnar the thinker then took the lead, but he collided with a gaggle of geese and crashed to the ground with them. Brimir and Hulda were soon, by far and away, flying the highest.

  “I must get above her,” thought Brimir, and with difficulty climbed just a fraction higher than Hulda.

  They were now the only ones left in the competition and were soaring at a fearful height. The land below seemed tiny and the children on the ground were no longer even little dots, indeed the lakes and forests were like little blue and green spots.

  They had reached higher than the jabbing terns, higher than the gliding gannets, higher than the soaring swans, and finally even higher than the eager eagle. They had reached as high as the butterfly powder would allow them and they would have been dead level if Brimir’s hair hadn’t stood on end.

  “Ha, ha! Tough luck! I win! You lose!” called out Brimir triumphantly.

  Hulda’s cheeks burned red. “Hair doesn’t count.”

  “Ha, ha! Sure it does. Sour grapes!”

  “I wished I could get much higher than you,” shouted Hulda.

  But Hulda had forgotten that she had an amazingly beautiful wishing stone. As soon as she had spoken the stone changed into an ordinary gray pebble and Hulda shot far up into the sky. Brimir managed to grab hold of her belt as they zoomed even higher at a tremendous speed.

  “Cheater! I won, I’m the best!” cried Brimir.

  “No, let me go! I won!”

  Brimir bit Hulda’s foot hard and she tore out a large chunk of his hair. And that’s how they fought in the sky, propelled by the power of the wishing stone, higher and higher.

  “Traitor!” shouted Brimir. “You destroyed the wishing stone.”

  “Idiot! I could make any wish I wanted.”

  Brimir and Hulda were now dangerously high in the sky. If a gust of wind hadn’t blown them sideways they would certainly have flown far out into space and been lost, or made a hole in the ozone layer and been burned by the sun. The gust of wind blew them a very long way. They were blown over the high mountains and the narrow gorges, and finally far out to sea. But Brimir and Hulda did not see any of this because they were quarreling and squabbling, screaming and scratching, punching and pummelling. It was not until much later that they looked down and noticed that they couldn’t see the island anymore. Below them was nothing but an endless ocean with whales and sharks, and in the distance a glint of unknown mountains, valleys, and clouds.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” cried Brimir. “We’ve been blown off into the blue.”

  “Blue? Where is this blue anyhow?”

  “Oh, shut up, Hulda!”

  “Oh, shut up yourself, Brimir, you jerk,” said Hulda. “You just had to go and grab me.”

  “And I had to go and give you the wishing stone.”

  The children became silent as they were blown even further along. They were blown so far from the nailed sun that it became a red spot above the ocean in the west.

  “Look!” said Brimir suddenly.

  “What,” said Hulda irritably.

  “The sun is setting.”

  “So what.”

  “I’d forgotten how beautiful the sunset is,” said Brimir.

  Hulda said nothing, but Brimir noticed how she watched the sun set, how it was reflected in her eyes. The power of the butterfly powder only works in sunlight, however, and they had now been blown over to the other side of the planet. It was pitch-black there because the sun could only shine on one side of the planet at a time. Underneath the darkness lay a land with forests and lakes.

  “Oh, no! We’re falling!” shouted Brimir.

  “Oh, I don’t want to die,” wailed Hulda.

  They were falling fast. The wind whistled through their hair. The land approached with growing speed. They were now lower than the eager eagle, lower than the soaring swans, lower than the gliding gannets. They were now so low that they landed on the ground with a crash.

  Wind-cold Wolf-trees

  In a dark forest a weak sound could be heard from under the bushes.

  “Hulda! Hulda! Are you all right?” Brimir felt his way with his hands. “Hulda, where are you?”

  “I’m here, Brimir.”

  Her voice echoed in the gloom. When his eyes had gotten used to the darkness he could see where Hulda was hanging from a tree.

  “Shall I help you down?” asked Brimir.

  “I can manage by myself. Leave me alone!”

  A great cracking sound could be heard as Hulda tumbled from the tree. Brimir hovered anxiously over her.

  “Are you okay?”

 
“Leave me alone. It was the easiest way to get down.”

  Brimir was silent, but he saw that Hulda had hurt herself. They were in a forest, but the trees were bare and leafless. The wind whistled through the naked branches. The sky was full of clouds.

  “What shall we do?” asked Brimir. “We’re lost.”

  “We? Are you going to follow me? I don’t need you.”

  Brimir remained silent and looked sadly at Hulda.

  “But we’ll never find our way in this darkness,” he finally said.

  “I’m going to wait until morning,” said Hulda. “I can fly home when the sun comes up.”

  Hulda sat down under a tree and covered herself with a pile of faded leaves. Brimir walked dejectedly to another tree, rubbed together two sticks and lit a little fire with some dry twigs. In the fire’s glow he saw Hulda shivering with cold.

  “Don’t you want to warm yourself by my fire, Hulda?”

  She made no reply.

  And that’s how they sat waiting for daybreak. Hulda shivered and Brimir sat by the fire. The night was unbelievably long. Brimir was starving but no fruit could be found on the trees and there were no animals in sight. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

  When Brimir woke up the sun had still not risen. Nonetheless he felt as if he’d slept long and well. After pondering this for a short while, his face suddenly turned deathly pale.

  “Hulda!”

  “What now; you jerk!”

  “I don’t think the sun’s going to rise.”

  “Talk about being pessimistic! Of course the sun will rise.”

  “Haven’t you forgotten something, Hulda? We let Jolly-Goodday fix the sun over our island so there’d be everlasting day.”

  “Oh, no,” said Hulda. “And now we’re on the other side of the planet in endless night.”

  “Which means we’ll have to walk all the way home.”

  “Don’t you think Jolly-Goodday will save us? He always saves the day and the kids must be getting worried about us.”