Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  “Who’s Björn?” asked Niklas while they waited, watching the motorboat coming nearer and nearer.

  Teddy waved to the man in the boat. He was a sunburned young man with a pleasant rugged appearance. He looked like a fisherman, because the boat he had was the type that real fishermen used.

  “Hi, Björn,” shrieked Teddy, “you’ve come at just the right time! He’s our schoolmaster,” she explained to Niklas.

  “Do you call him Björn?” said Johan in surprise.

  “That’s his name,” Teddy assured him. “We’re friends with him, of course.”

  The boat slowed and came in toward the rock on which the children stood.

  “Here’s your old boat,” yelled Björn and threw the line to Teddy. “Just how do you tie up these days?”

  Teddy laughed. “In lots of different ways.”

  “Oh, is that so?” said Björn. “Well, I don’t think you should use this last way again. You can’t be sure I’ll always come along to pick up all your lost things.” Then he added, “Get off home immediately! There’s a fog coming up and you’ll have to hurry if you want to get home before it.”

  “And what about you?” asked Freddy.

  “I’m going to Har Island,” said Björn, “otherwise I could tow you.”

  And then he left them and they heard the dunk, dunk, dunk of the motorboat disappearing in the distance.

  If Bosun had been there they would have set off immediately, and then Melker would not have needed the tranquilizers that evening. But life consists of great and small events and they hang together as closely as peas in a pod. And one single little fish can cause a great deal of bother, forcing grown men like Melker to take tranquilizers.

  It was not so small, that little fish. It was a tough old fish weighing about two pounds with which Bosun on his wanderings round the island had become acquainted. The acquaintanceship consisted of glaring at each other for just over an hour, Bosun on a rock on the shore, the fish in shallow water close by. Bosun had never before met such a glance as he now got from those cold fish eyes, and he could not drag himself away from it. And the fish looked as if it was thinking, Don’t go on staring, you big idiot. You’ll never frighten me. I’ll stay here as long as I like!

  But many precious moments were wasted with that fish. It was a long time before dog and children and fish and nets and bathing suits and knapsacks were at last collected into the boat. Meanwhile, the fog rolled closer and closer. Huge, formless banks of fog came in from the sea and the children were not far from their island before they sat wrapped in fog as if in a damp, gray, woolly blanket.

  “It’s like a dream,” said Johan.

  “Not the sort of dream I like,” said Niklas.

  Somewhere, far away, they heard the tooting of a foghorn. Otherwise, all was silent. Whether Niklas liked it or not, it was as silent as a dream.

  Lost in the Fog

  AT HOME on Seacrow Island the sun was still shining and Melker was painting garden furniture. The furniture had once been white but now the paint was peeling and gray. “How unfair!” he complained to Malin. “It ought to be fixed up immediately.” And, after all, nowadays painting was so easy. No need to mess with brushes and paint. You only needed a handy little spray—and besides it was so quick, he added.

  “You think so?” said Malin.

  On their arrival she had asked Nisse Grankvist at the shop to refuse to sell Melker various things he might ask for, but which he ought not to be allowed to have.

  “No scythe, no ax, no crowbar,” she had said.

  “Crowbar?” said Nisse, laughing. “Surely he can’t do himself any harm with a crowbar?”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you had lived with him for almost nineteen years,” Malin replied. “Oh, well—give him a crowbar if he wants it, but be sure you have plenty of first-aid kits in the shop, that’s all.”

  However, she had forgotten to say anything about paint sprays so Melker stood there now, happily spraying a garden chair.

  Tjorven had given up her job as Söderman’s maid after two hours of long and faithful service. Now she, Pelle and Stina were crowding around Melker. Painting in that way looked like fun. All three would have loved to help him with it.

  “No,” said Melker, “this is my toy. It’s my turn to enjoy myself for once.”

  “Are you a spray painter, Uncle Melker?” asked Tjorven. Melker let a cascade of white flow over the chair.

  “No, I’m not, but a handyman must be able to deal with anything.”

  “Are you a handyman, then?” asked Tjorven.

  “Yes, he is,” Pelle assured her.

  “Yes, I am,” said Melker. “A really handy handyman, even if I say it myself.”

  At that very moment, one of Pelle’s wasps arrived, and as Melker had already been stung once, he swished at it with the spray to fend it off. No one ever knew exactly how it happened. Melker’s misfortunes almost always remained mysteries, but Malin in the kitchen heard shrieks and rushed to the window. She saw Melker standing with his eyes shut and his face completely covered with paint. Handyman that he was, he had spray-painted himself, and his face was white all over. Like Matilda, thought Tjorven, and had a good laugh to herself, but Pelle cried.

  In fact, there was not much the matter with Melker, as he had had enough foresight to protect his eyes by quickly shutting them, and he kept them shut as he staggered toward the kitchen door to get Malin to help. He felt around with his hands and stuck out his face as far as he could, partly so that the color would not drip down on to his shirt and partly so that Malin could see immediately which part of him needed attention this time.

  Then he bumped against a tree, an apple tree which the cheerful carpenter had apparently planted there just for the love of it. Melker loved apple trees too, but his cries of pain were now the angriest and wildest that Malin had ever heard.

  Pelle cried harder than ever and Stina had begun to cry too, but when Tjorven saw Uncle Melker’s creamy white face, now garnished with small pieces of moss, she was sensible enough to run behind the house, for she felt a great burst of laughter welling up in her throat and she did not want to make Melker more upset than he was already.

  When Malin had cleaned Melker up and given him some ointment for his eyes, he wanted to cut down the apple tree.

  “There are too many trees around here,” he shouted. “I’ll go to Nisse’s and buy an ax.”

  “No, thank you,” said Malin. “I want to have a little peace and quiet now.”

  Alas, she did not know how little peace and quiet she was going to have that day.

  It began when Melker suddenly missed Johan and Niklas.

  “Where are the boys?” he asked Malin.

  “Out on the island, as you well know,” said Malin. “But I think they ought to have been home by now.”

  Tjorven heard this and pursed her lips angrily. “I think so too. Stupid Teddy and Freddy. They ought to have been home with Bosun before now, but I suppose it’s difficult for them because of the fog.”

  Melker had decided to wait a few days before going on with his painting. Now he stood on the steps of Carpenter’s Cottage, blinking in the sun. In spite of the ointment, he felt as if his eyes were full of gravel.

  “What nonsense is that about fog?” he said to Tjorven. “The sun is shining so brilliantly it’s making my eyes smart.”

  “Here, yes,” said Tjorven, “but beyond Little Ash Island there’s a fog as thick as porridge.”

  “Yes, Grandpa says so too,” Stina informed them. “And Grandpa and I know everything because we listen to the radio.”

  It took about two hours before what Malin called “Melker’s great quake” broke out. It happened exactly as it always did.

  Malin knew that her father was a courageous person, how courageous only she really knew, for she had seen him in various crises in his life. Others perhaps thought of him only as the weak, sometimes absurdly childish Melker, but beneath his outward personality there was a
nother, one that was strong and entirely unafraid, that is to say in everything concerning himself.

  “But as soon as it has anything to do with your children, you are absolutely absurd,” said Malin.

  That was when he stood and wept over Johan and Niklas. But before he had got to that stage he had been to Nisse and Marta in the shop three times.

  “It’s not that I’m worried,” he had assured them with his shy smile when he went in the first time. “Your children are used to the sea, so I’m not worried about them,” he stated the second time, “but—Johan and Niklas out in this thick porridge!” he said, for now the fog had reached Seacrow Island and it frightened him.

  “My children are out in exactly the same porridge,” said Nisse.

  The third time Melker came over to the shop, Nisse laughed, and said, “What do you want me to do?”

  Melker smiled his shy smile. “As I said . . . it’s not that I’m worried, but don’t you think it’s about time to warn the Coast Guard?”

  “Why?” asked Nisse.

  “I’m so terribly worried,” said Melker.

  “There’s no reason to be,” said Nisse. “The Coast Guard can’t see in this fog either. And anyhow what can have happened to the children? The fog will lift by degrees and the sea is absolutely calm.”

  “Yes,” said Melker. “I only wish I were.”

  He went down to the jetty full of misgivings and when he saw the gray, formless fog rolling toward him in waves, he was seized with panic and shouted at the top of his voice, “Johan! Niklas! Where are you? Come home!”

  But Nisse, who had followed him, slapped him kindly on the shoulder. “Now, look here, Melker, you shouldn’t come to live out here among the islands if you’re going to take it like that. And it doesn’t improve matters to stand here thundering like a foghorn. Come on, we’ll go home to Marta and get some coffee and cake. What do you say to that?”

  But Melker was as far away from coffee and cake as anyone could be. He looked at Nisse with desperate eyes. “Perhaps they’re still out there on the island. Perhaps they’re sitting in one of the boathouses, all warm and comfortable. Do you think that’s possible?” he asked.

  Nisse said it could well be. But just then a motorboat glided alongside the jetty. It was Björn and he dispelled the hope that the children were on the island. There were no children on the island, he said, for he had just passed it a few minutes ago and had looked to see.

  Then Melker went off, muttering to himself. He did not dare to speak because he was afraid they would hear the tears in his voice. He said nothing when he went in to Malin either. She was in the sitting room with Pelle, and Pelle was drawing. Malin was knitting and the old clock on the wall was ticking softly. The glow from the stove lit up the room, which was one large pool of absolute peace.

  How calm, how quiet, how peaceful, and how wonderful life could be, thought Melker, as long as one did not have two children in peril on the sea. He sank down on the sofa with a heavy sigh. Malin looked at him curiously. She knew exactly what was happening and in due time the great quake would arrive. He would need her then, but until then she kept quiet and went on knitting.

  Melker no longer noticed her. Neither her, nor Pelle. They were neither of them anything to him. Just now he had only two children and they were fighting for their lives far out at sea. He saw them in his mind’s eye much more clearly than he saw Malin and Pelle, and they behaved in different ways all the time. Sometimes they were lying half dead of hunger and cold in the bottom of the boat, crying for their father with feeble voices. Sometimes they were in the sea and were trying with their last strength to crawl up onto a little rock. They hung on with their fingers and shouted wildly for their father. And then came an enormous wave—where it came from he couldn’t say for the sea was dead calm, but come it did—and tore the children from the rock. Then they sank, their hair floating like seaweed below the water. Oh, why can’t children stay three years old all their lives, and sit quietly in their playpens so that there is no need for all this worry!

  He heaved one heavy sigh after another. Then at last he became aware of Malin and Pelle and realized that he would have to pull himself together.

  He looked at Pelle’s drawing and saw that it was a horse, but a horse that looked exactly like old Söderman. In ordinary circumstances Melker would have laughed, but now all he said was, “You draw very well, Pelle. And you, Malin? What are you knitting?”

  “A pullover for Niklas,” said Malin.

  “He’ll be very glad to have it,” said Melker, but he swallowed quickly, for he knew, of course, that Niklas was at the bottom of the sea and would not need a pullover ever again. Niklas, his own son. He remembered the time when Niklas was two years old and had fallen out of the window. Even then Melker had realized that such a lovely child could not live long! But no, it was Pelle who had fallen, he suddenly remembered, and he looked almost angrily at poor Pelle, whose only fault at that moment was that he was not at the bottom of the sea.

  Now Pelle was an intelligent child and understood more than Melker or even Malin realized. When he had sat for a good while, listening to the sighs his father heaved at regular intervals, he put away his drawing. He knew that sometimes grown-up people needed comfort and so without a word he went to Melker and flung his arms around his neck.

  Then Melker began to cry. He clasped Pelle violently to him and wept silently and desolately with his face turned away so that Pelle could not see.

  “Everything will be all right,” said Pelle soothingly. “I’m going out now to see whether the fog has lifted a bit.”

  It had not—rather the opposite. But Pelle found a stone down on the shore, a little brown stone which was absolutely round and smooth. He showed it to Tjorven, who was out in the fog too. It was thrilling, magical weather which she liked, though less so when she had no Bosun at her side, since he was somewhere out in that thick gray porridge.

  “Perhaps it’s a wishing stone,” said Pelle. “Just hold it in your hand and wish, and then your wishes will come true.”

  “If you believe in it,” said Tjorven. “Wish that we had two pounds of candy and then you’ll see.”

  Pelle giggled. “You must wish for something proper if you wish at all.” And he held the stone in his outstretched hands and wished as solemnly and properly as he could. “I wish that my brothers will come home soon from the wild ocean!”

  “And Bosun too,” said Tjorven. “And Teddy and Freddy, but as they’re all in the same boat there’s no need to wish specially about them.”

  It was evening now, but not like the usual June evenings. Everything was dull and unnatural from the dense fog over all the rocks and islands, all the channels, and all the boats, which were creeping along slowly, sounding their foghorns. And there was fog over the children’s little boat, which ought to have been back at its own jetty by now, but which was not.

  “There came three ships a-sailing,” sang Freddy.

  “I can’t see a single one,” said Teddy, resting on her oars. “I’ve never seen so few boats about. How long have we been rowing, do you think?”

  “Oh, about a week,” said Johan. “That’s what it feels like anyhow.”

  “But it will be fun to get to Russia,” said Niklas. “We’ll soon be there, I should think.”

  “I should think so too,” said Teddy, “considering how we’ve rowed. If only we had kept a straight course we would have passed our jetty by two o’clock and been right up in Jansson’s cow meadow by now.”

  All four laughed loudly. They had laughed a great deal during the last five hours. They had rowed and rowed and shivered, argued a little, eaten their sandwiches, sung, shouted for help, rowed and rowed, and hated the fog and longed to get home, but still they had laughed quite a lot. It was Melker who was being shipwrecked at this moment—not the children.

  But now evening had come and it was becoming more difficult to laugh. They shivered more than ever and grew hungrier and hungrier and saw no end t
o their misery. This fog was unnatural. An ordinary June mist ought to have cleared long ago, but this one was lasting, holding them in a gray, ghostlike grip as if it could never let them go. They had taken turns at the oars to keep themselves warm, but it no longer helped and it seemed useless to row when they didn’t know where they were going. Perhaps they were going farther and farther out into the open sea with each stroke of the oars, and the thought frightened them. The sea was certainly calm, but if this fog, which they hated so much that they would have liked to tear it to pieces with their bare hands, were ever to lift, it would need wind. And if a strong wind blew up and they were far out to sea in a little boat, there would certainly be nothing to laugh at.

  “The whole of this archipelago is absolutely littered with islands,” said Freddy, “but do we bump into one of them? Don’t you believe it!”

  They longed to feel firm ground under their feet. One little island was all they wanted. There was no need for it to be particularly large or beautiful or at all wonderful, said Teddy. They would not mind if it were an ugly, scrubby little island as long as they could go ashore and make a fire and perhaps find out where they were, and get some sort of roof over their head. And perhaps someone quite extraordinarily kind would even come to meet them, bringing hot chocolate and cake.

  “She’s going crazy!” said Johan.

  But they enjoyed going crazy about food. They all began to imagine plates piled with steak and pork chops.

  “And perhaps a little mushroom omelette,” suggested Freddy. They were all enthusiastic about the mushroom omelette, even Bosun, it seemed, for he gave a little bark. He had said nothing the whole time and probably disapproved of this adventure, as any wise dog would, but he lay in the bottom of the boat, silent and patient.

  “Poor Bosun!” said Freddy. “He’s hungrier than all of us because he has a much bigger tummy to be hungry with.”

  They had shared their sandwiches with him, and when their sandwiches were finished they had offered him raw fish, but he had refused it.

  “I’m not surprised at that,” said Johan. “I’d rather starve than eat raw fish.”