Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  But then Tjorven appeared in front of her, as wet as a mermaid.

  “Guess who’s fallen into the sea!” said Tjorven.

  Stina gazed at her silently. She did not know that falling into the sea was something to boast about, but when she saw how triumphant Tjorven looked, she said, “Guess who will fall into the sea on Sunday!”

  “Not you, at any rate,” said Söderman. “If you do I’ll send you straight back to town when the Melkersons go.”

  The Melkersons had brought Stina with them when they came. They had come out for a few days’ spring visit, for Melker continued to believe that one could not have the whole of Carpenter’s Cottage standing empty when one had paid for it. And besides, never was Seacrow Island more beautiful than at this time of the year, when the birches had their first tender leaves and the whole island was a sea of white anemones.

  “Oh, my goodness, our Swedish spring!” Melker would say. “It’s cold and bare, but it’s so beautiful that it pulls at the heartstrings!”

  Tjorven certainly felt that the spring was cold. She was shivering and now she wanted to go home and get dry clothes. But as she passed the jetty of Carpenter’s Cottage, Uncle Melker was sitting there in his boat, working away at the old motor, so Tjorven stopped.

  Melker liked talking to Tjorven. “It’s the most amusing thing I know,” he confided to Malin. “It’s a pity you can’t hear us. Our conversations are really interesting. But we talk best when we’re alone.”

  They had an interesting little conversation now as Melker tinkered with his motor. “Uncle Melker, I fell into the sea,” said Tjorven, but Melker only grunted. He was tugging at the starting rope and he had probably been at it for a long time, for his face was red and his hair was sticking up in all directions.

  “You haven’t got the knack, Uncle Melker,” said Tjorven.

  Melker looked up to her as she stood there on the jetty and gave a little smile. “Oh, haven’t I?”

  “No, you must jerk it like this,” said Tjorven and showed him what he should do, with a smart movement of the arm.

  “Listen, I’ll jerk you unless you go away,” said Melker.

  Tjorven blinked, surprised at such an ungrateful answer. “I thought you would be pleased if I helped you.”

  Melker turned around and went on with the motor. “Yes, I am glad—very glad—very glad indeed,” he assured her and pulled the rope in time with his words. But the motor only muttered phut, phut and then stopped.

  Tjorven shook her head. “I’m sure you’re a handyman, Uncle Melker, but perhaps you don’t understand motors. Wait a minute and I’ll show you!”

  But Melker roared, “Go away! Go and jump into the sea again or go and play with Pelle. Go on!”

  Tjorven looked hurt. “I will go and play with Pelle, but I must go home first and change my clothes, you realize that, don’t you?”

  Melker nodded agreement. “Do that! Put on everything you have! Preferably two or three bodices, buttoned up behind!”

  “Bodices!” said Tjorven. “We aren’t living in the Stone Age.”

  That was what Teddy always said about anything old-fashioned.

  Melker did not hear her, for now the motor had begun to say phut, phut again. He looked beseechingly at it, but in vain. When the motor had said its last phut, it fell absolutely silent.

  “Uncle Melker, do you know what?” said Tjorven. “I hope you’re better at writing books, because you’re no good at this. Where is Pelle, anyhow?”

  “With his rabbit hutch, probably,” roared Melker, and then he folded his hands in an attitude of prayer. “I pray to God that he is at his rabbit hutch and that you will go to join him there.”

  “Why do you want God to be at the rabbit hutch?”

  “Pelle!” roared Melker. “It is Pelle who is supposed to be at the rabbit hutch, and then you, above all, you!”

  “No, you said that you prayed to God that He would be at the rabbit hutch,” Tjorven began. But Uncle Melker looked wild and so, to calm him, she said quickly, “It’s all right. I’m going now!”

  Melker’s prayer had been heard. Pelle was at his rabbit hutch and Tjorven went to find him when she had changed her clothes. Yoka had been given a fine hutch. “Made by Melker with his own hands,” Melker boasted when it was finished. Pelle had helped him, although Melker had warned him, “You will only bang your fingers.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Pelle. “Tjorven will hold the nail.” Melker had never thought of that.

  “Why do you always bang your thumb?” asked Tjorven when Melker had got in two bangs, one after the other.

  Melker sucked his thumb. “Because you, my little Tjorven, are not holding the nail for me.”

  But it was a fine rabbit hutch when it was finished. One which would be fun for a rabbit to live in, thought Pelle. He was so happy that he seemed to shine when he brought Yoka from Jansson’s farm and put him in his new home.

  The whole thing was placed behind the lilac hedge in a protected corner where Pelle could sit by himself and be the world’s happiest rabbit owner. The hutch was made of wire netting and had a door with a catch at one end, so that he could take Yoka out if he wanted to hold him in his arms. Yoka had his own little house at the other end—a box with a round hole in it.

  “You can sleep in there when it rains and turns cold,” Pelle explained to him.

  He was sitting with the rabbit in his arms when Tjorven arrived. Together they fed him and Pelle explained to Tjorven the art of looking after rabbits, as she was to take care of Yoka when Pelle went back to town.

  “And I’ll never forgive you if you don’t feed him properly,” said Pelle. “And you must make sure he doesn’t run away.”

  But Pelle ought to have seen to this himself, for before he had finished speaking Yoka jumped out of his arms and ran away through the lilac hedge. Pelle and Tjorven quickly ran after him. So did Bosun, with a little bark.

  “Now then, Bosun, you are not to touch Yoka,” shouted Pelle anxiously as he ran. It was the stupidest remark Tjorven had heard for a long time.

  “Bosun never touches anyone, you ought to know that by now. He just thinks we’re playing.”

  Pelle was ashamed, but he had no time at that moment to beg Bosun’s pardon. Now he had to get hold of Yoka.

  Behind Carpenter’s Cottage Malin, Johan, and Niklas were beating blankets and when Yoka arrived Johan threw a blanket over him. Yoka squirmed under the blanket, which billowed like an angry sea. But out came Yoka finally and with three happy jumps he had disappeared around the corner.

  It was Stina who caught him. She was sitting there with Hop-ashore Charlie when she saw Yoka rush past. She had caught him by the time Tjorven and Pelle arrived, breathless.

  “How clever of you to catch him,” said Pelle. He sank down on Stina’s front steps with Yoka in his arms and looked at him as tenderly as a mother looks at her newborn child. “It’s nice to have your own animal,” he said. Tjorven and Stina agreed.

  “Especially a raven,” said Stina. And then she said triumphantly, “He can say it now!”

  “Say what?” asked Tjorven.

  “He can say ‘Go to blazes!’ I’ve taught him.” It was obvious that Pelle and Tjorven did not believe her and Stina grew angry. “Just wait! You’ll hear! Charlie, say ‘Go to blazes.’ ”

  The raven put his head on one side but remained silent. But after Stina had talked with him for a long time he let out two small croaks. Only someone with a lively imagination could have turned it into “Go to blazes” but Stina had a lively imagination.

  “Did you hear?” she said joyfully.

  Tjorven and Pelle laughed, but Stina said, “Do you know what I think? I think that Charlie is an enchanted prince, because he can talk.”

  “Go on,” said Pelle. “Have you ever heard of a prince who said ‘Go to blazes’?”

  “Yes, this one,” said Stina and pointed at Charlie.

  In the fairy tale that she had just told her grandfather, ther
e were no less than three enchanted princes. They had been turned into a wild pig, a whale, and an eagle, so why couldn’t a raven be an enchanted prince?

  “No, it’s only toads who are enchanted princes,” said Tjorven.

  “That’s all you know,” said Stina.

  “It’s true. Freddy read it to me. It was about a princess who kissed a toad and then he became a prince—bang—just like that!”

  “I’ll try that some time or other,” said Stina.

  Pelle sat laughing. “What would you do with the prince if you had one?” he asked.

  “He could marry Malin,” said Stina.

  Tjorven thought this an excellent suggestion. “Then she wouldn’t have to be absolutely unmarried any more.”

  They could not have thought of anything to annoy Pelle more. “To blazes with all your enchanted princes,” he said. “Come on, Yoka. Let’s go.”

  Tjorven and Stina looked after him for a long time.

  “He doesn’t want Malin to get married ever,” said Tjorven. “Perhaps it’s because he hasn’t got a mother.”

  Stina grew serious and she wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. “Why is his mother dead?” she asked.

  That was not easy to answer. Tjorven meditated. She did not know why people died. “I guess it’s like that hymn,” she said at last. “It just happens that way.” And she sang to Stina:

  “All the world’s an isle of sorrow,

  Here today and gone tomorrow.”

  “It’s very sad, isn’t it?” said Stina.

  Pelle put Yoka into his hutch and then had a lovely evening all by himself, devoted entirely to spring ditches. He loved spring ditches; there was so much to look at, insects and plants of many different kinds. But almost the most amusing part of a spring ditch was to try to jump over it and see if he could do it in one jump. Sometimes he did not make it, and so Pelle was covered with mud right up to his forehead when he returned home that evening.

  By that time Melker was sitting in Carpenter’s Cottage kitchen with the motor, which he had taken to pieces, in front of him on the table. He meant to adjust it so that it would never say phut, phut and nothing more again, and he thought that perhaps a thorough cleaning would improve it. But, strangely enough, all the little nuts and screws had a habit of disappearing just when he needed them and Melker became just furious each time it happened.

  “Have you been eating my screws?” he asked Johan and Niklas, who were hanging round the table, looking on, and after a couple of these unfair remarks Johan said, “Come on, Niklas, let’s go to bed. Daddy can stay here and look after his screws by himself.”

  And as soon as they had gone, Melker found what he had been looking for.

  “Why, here’s the little fellow I’ve been looking for,” he said.

  Just at that moment Pelle came in, covered with mud and very tired, and Malin said, “And here’s another little fellow I’ve been looking for—but what a sight you are, Pelle!”

  So it was not only the motor that was cleaned in the kitchen of Carpenter’s Cottage that evening. Malin got out the big tub, put Pelle in it, and began a real scrubdown.

  “You needn’t bother about my ears,” muttered Pelle. “I washed them on Saturday.”

  But Malin answered that she wouldn’t be held responsible for such ears as Pelle’s. “Aunt Marta might be coming for coffee tomorrow and if she saw your ears—”

  “Malin, couldn’t you—let’s wait and see if she’s really coming first,” suggested Pelle.

  Malin turned, laughing, to Melker. “Are all little boys as dirty, do you think? Were you like this when you were little?”

  Melker sat surrounded by his screws, humming contentedly. “I have got the right knack. . . . Tjorven will soon see. . . . Dirty? Me?” Then he said, “No, I was a very clean little boy, I remember.”

  Pelle looked dreamily at his father over the edge of the tub. “Yes, of course you were a clean little boy, Daddy.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?” asked Melker.

  “Because you were so good in every way. You always did as you were told and your reports were always so good. You never told lies or did anything wrong.”

  “Did I say that?” said Melker, and laughed loudly. “Then I must have begun to tell a few fibs in my old age.”

  Afterward, when he was sitting on Malin’s knee wrapped up in a big towel, Pelle remembered Stina’s silly suggestion about the enchanted prince that Malin was going to marry. He looked at her searchingly, wondering if she was sorry that she was “absolutely unmarried,” as Tjorven put it.

  There had been great news as soon as they had come out to Seacrow Island this time. Björn had got engaged to a girl on one of the other islands and Pelle had anxiously asked Malin if she was sad. But Malin had laughed and said, “No, it was the best thing that could happen, and I told him so at Christmas.” But still it was not altogether certain that she liked being “absolutely unmarried”!

  “There—my little motor’s finished. Absolutely clean,” said Melker, and screwed in the last screw as he sang. “She works perfectly now. I’ll show you.”

  It was in Pelle’s bathtub that the motor was to show whether it worked perfectly or not. It did. It worked so perfectly that the water sprayed out on all the walls and Melker, who was leaning over the bathtub, had the first wave, straight in the face.

  “Oh dear,” said Melker. And then he added hastily, “Malin, I’ll dry it all up for you.”

  But Malin said she was thankful to have the whole kitchen washed down so unexpectedly and that she did not mind drying it up at all. “Just let Pelle go to bed first. Are you cold?” she asked him, when she saw Pelle standing there, shivering.

  “I’m as cold as an Eskimo,” said Pelle, and he was cold even when he got into bed. “I think you must have aired my blankets too much,” he said. “It’s dreadfully cold!”

  “Change the subject,” muttered Niklas sleepily.

  Pelle lay still in his narrow bed, trying to warm up a little patch for himself. “It would be nice to have a warm rabbit in my bed,” he said.

  Johan stuck up his head. “A rabbit, did you say? That’s just like you,” he said, sinking back onto his pillow and immediately falling asleep.

  Pelle lay awake. He was anxious about Yoka, so anxious that he could not sleep. Just think if there was frost tonight and Yoka was shivering in his hutch. He himself had begun to get warm and it seemed unfair that rabbits should have only small, cold boxes with a little hay in which to sleep.

  Pelle sighed a few times. At last he could stand it no longer. He got out of bed and climbed onto the ladder outside the window, left there after one of Melker’s many roof expeditions. He clambered out into the chilly spring evening and ran with chattering teeth to his rabbit hutch. No one saw him when he got there or when he came back with Yoka in his arms. No one except the fox perhaps, who was out on a little evening walk around Seacrow Island.

  Yoka was by no means as grateful as Pelle had expected. He struggled wildly when Pelle tried to put him into his bed. That was no place for a rabbit to sleep, he thought, and he took a wild leap.

  Malin and Melker were down in the sitting room when they suddenly heard a shriek from above. They hurried upstairs and found a terrified Niklas, sitting up in bed and trembling in every limb.

  “There are ghosts up here,” he said. “A horrible furry ghost jumped on me.”

  Melker patted him soothingly. “That’s what’s called a nightmare. There’s no need for you to be frightened.”

  “Some nightmare,” muttered Niklas. “He jumped right on my face.”

  But under Pelle’s eiderdown, held tight in his arms, lay the little nightmare, only waiting for the next opportunity to get up and play ghosts again.

  When the whole house was asleep, Pelle climbed out into the night again and put Yoka back into his hutch.

  “I just can’t have you in my bed,” he said.

  Soon a new spring day dawned over Seacrow Island—a day wh
ich no one would ever forget. For it was on this day that Moses came to the island and started a whole chain of events. Moses was a baby seal that Westerman found out on the island, caught in a net, and brought home with him to Seacrow Island, as he knew that the sea eagles attacked deserted baby seals.

  “Westerman is the biggest mischief-maker on this island,” Marta would say. Now and then quarrels broke out in the shop when the islanders were collected there and it was always the same—it was always Westerman who started it and kept it going. He was a restless soul. “Like water swirling around stones,” his wife would say. “And he simply doesn’t realize it,” she explained to anyone who would listen. He was a fisherman and a hunter and he hated any other sort of work, although he had a farm, which his wife mostly had to look after. It was hard work and she grumbled sometimes. He often had money troubles too and he always went to Nisse Grankvist at the shop for help. But lately Nisse had refused. He did not want to lend money to someone who never paid when he should.

  Tjorven was standing on the jetty when Westerman came back from the island that morning and she shouted with excitement when he put down a complaining little baby seal, with black, damp eyes, in front of her. It was the sweetest thing she had ever seen. “Oh, how sweet he is,” exclaimed Tjorven. “Can I pat him?”

  “Certainly,” said Westerman, and then he said something quite unbelievable. “You can have him if you like.”

  Tjorven stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “You can have him—if your father and mother will let you, of course. I’ll be only too glad to be rid of him. You can feed him until he’s big enough to be of some use.”