Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  “I thought he would at least have a crown on his head,” whispered Stina.

  Without taking her eyes off the prince, Tjorven said in a low voice, “I suppose he only wears it on Sundays. Oh, how pleased Malin will be!”

  Only then did Tjorven think about Pelle. He would not be pleased about this. In fact he would be furious with them for finding a prince for Malin. And there was Pelle now, and behind him was Malin! Tjorven whispered to Stina, “Now it’s beginning to get exciting.” And they opened their eyes still further, for it was not every day one could see Malin meet a prince.

  It was quite obvious that the prince liked Malin. He looked at her as if he had never seen anything like her before, and Tjorven and Stina exchanged satisfied glances. They felt it was to their credit that Malin was so lovely and so soft and that her hair and dress blew so prettily around her, and now it appeared that the prince had thought of saying something to her.

  “Now he’s beginning to pay court,” whispered Tjorven.

  But the prince was not quite so quick off the mark as all that. “I’ve heard that there’s a general store here on Seacrow Island,” he said to Malin. “Do you know it?”

  Yes, Malin knew it, and she was just going there herself. If he would like to go with her, she would show him the way.

  “Oh, can I look after your puppy while you go?” begged Pelle.

  Enchanted princes were a bore, but enchanted princes who had little brown puppies were easy to put up with. And, besides, Pelle did not know that he was speaking to an enchanted prince.

  “He thinks he’s just an ordinary man,” whispered Tjorven to Stina. “So we needn’t tell him what we’ve done.”

  Still, it felt a little like treason. Tjorven looked at him guiltily, but he did not notice it. For the moment Pelle saw nothing but the little brown puppy.

  “What’s his name?” Pelle asked eagerly.

  “He’s called Yum-yum,” said the prince, “and my name’s Petter Malm.” This last remark was to Malin.

  “Petter—what a name for a prince!” whispered Tjorven and then she took Stina’s hand. “Come on, let’s follow them and see what happens.”

  The prince gave the puppy to Pelle. “All right, you look after Yum-yum carefully while I’m away,” he said kindly. And before Pelle could answer, Malin said, “Oh, I assure you he’ll do that.”

  Then Malin went off with her prince. Tjorven and Stina followed them, giggling, to the shop, and there, to their great surprise, they heard the prince ask for half a pound of hamburger meat.

  “Do princes really eat hamburger?” asked Stina, aghast.

  “No, he probably wants it for his little pigs at home in his palace,” said Tjorven.

  They kept as close to Malin as they could, so that they would hear every word the prince said to her. That he did not want to leave her was obvious.

  He and Malin stood for a long while outside the shop, talking. He said that he had rented a little cottage on Great Island, and now he had borrowed a boat and was out sailing. But he would soon be coming back to Seacrow Island, he said, for the shop they had there was really a very good one.

  “A good shop, oh yes!” said Tjorven to Stina. “And a good Malin too, eh?”

  At last Malin said she could not stay talking any longer and then the prince said good-bye. He walked backwards, as if he wanted to look at her for as long as possible, and he swung his paper bag and said, “Well, I’m off with my hamburger, but I’ll be back when I’ve eaten it, and I eat quickly, and mind you’re standing on the jetty then, looking like a lovely summer day.”

  “Did you hear that?” said Tjorven. “That’s what’s called princely talk, you know.”

  “We’ve got another frog in the well now,” Pelle said to Malin when he went to bed that evening. “I found one in Petter’s boat and he said I’d have to take it away because frogs don’t like sailing.” Pelle sat up straight in bed and went on, “He likes animals just as much as I do. And he’s a scientist. He looks after animals all the time and finds out everything about them. I want to be something like that when I grow up.”

  Pelle, who had always said he was going to be nothing at all, had now suddenly heard that there were professions which tried to find out everything about animals. And it was like letting a flood of light into a great darkness, for silently Pelle, seven years old, had been worrying about his future. How were things to go for him, who didn’t want to do anything when he grew up? Now he wanted to do something and he felt relieved.

  “Petter does really interesting work,” he declared. “Malin, guess what he does. He has fastened little radio sets onto some seals, to find out what they do under water and where they swim to and all that. . . .” Then he suddenly threw his arms around Malin. “But, oh, Malin, if only I could have a puppy! It’s all right with Yoka, but he has to sit in his hutch all the time. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to have a puppy like Yum-yum, who followed me wherever I went!”

  “I would like you to have a puppy too,” said Malin. “But you must make do with Yoka for the time being.”

  “And with Bosun and Tottie and Moses,” said Pelle.

  Bosun was still the world’s most wonderful dog to Pelle and when he had arrived at Seacrow Island this time Bosun had welcomed him with loud barks. He knew who was the world’s greatest Pelle too and nowadays he followed him everywhere. Sometimes Moses did too and sometimes even Tottie. Pelle wandered about like an animal tamer and when Tjorven saw it she became violently jealous, not because Moses followed Pelle, but because Bosun did. Then she would throw herself on the neck of her dog and roll around with him, saying, “Bosun, you are my own soppy little dog, you know that, don’t you?” And Bosun would look at Tjorven as if he thought, Little Bumble, I want nothing better! And immediately he would leave Pelle to follow Tjorven again, but then Moses would come floundering along and push in between them.

  Moses had become quite spoiled lately and sometimes even Tjorven thought he was a nuisance. One evening she had been stupid enough to take him up on her bed, and after that he would not sleep in his sleeping box any more, only on Tjorven’s feet. It was no good trying to push him off the bed because he always climbed up again. Tjorven would try to push him down.

  “We lie there, pushing each other the whole night,” she said, and her mother shook her head. “That seal ought never to have been allowed in the house!”

  But nowadays Moses liked to swim in his pool and since Johan and Niklas and Teddy and Freddy had nailed up a fence around it, Tjorven could keep him shut in there whenever, for some reason or other, she wanted to move around freely without a baby seal floundering along behind her.

  But Moses still demanded a great deal of her time and attention and love, and when she played with the baby seal Bosun went off and lay down by the steps of the shop. Especially if Pelle was nowhere about. Especially if Pelle was sitting down on the jetty and playing with Yum-yum, which he often did.

  If you live on Great Island, it is absolutely necessary to visit Seacrow Island pretty often, for that’s where the shop is. And if you have a little brown puppy you have only to lay to at the quay and Pelle Melkerson will come rushing down to play with it. And when Pelle Melkerson is playing with the puppy, he answers every question without even noticing that he is answering.

  “Where’s Malin today?” you ask, for example.

  “She’s sitting on the steps at home, cleaning herrings,” says Pelle Melkerson.

  Or: “She’s off swimming with Teddy and Freddy.”

  Or: “I think she’s in the shop.”

  And when you have found out what you want to know, you leave your puppy in Pelle Melkerson’s care and rush away to meet Malin quite by accident, and every time you get to know her a little bit better. And every time you become a little bit more in love. More in love? As if that were possible! As if it had not happened the very first time you’d seen her, standing here on the jetty.

  One Wednesday in June, a never-to-be-forgotten Wednesday
, Petter Malm found Malin in the shop, and not only her. He found a seal. Amazing though it may sound, he found a baby seal crawling around on the floor, playing with two little girls. So Pelle Melkerson had not been boasting when he had said there was a tame seal on the island.

  The shop was full of people and Moses was enjoying himself. He bit at all the trousered legs, especially Tjorven’s, and she defended herself, laughing. “No, Moses, stop, or Mummy will say that you mustn’t be let loose!”

  “Is that your seal?” asked Petter with a smile.

  “Yes, of course,” said Tjorven.

  “Then I don’t suppose you want to sell him?”

  “Not on your life,” said Tjorven. “Anyhow, what do you want a seal for?”

  “Not me,” said Petter, “but my institute.”

  Insti . . .? What strange words princes used.

  “A zoological institute where I work,” the prince declared, and Tjorven was no clearer about it even then.

  “Work!” she said afterwards to Stina. “What lies he must be telling. Princes don’t have jobs. But I suppose he wants Malin to think he’s an ordinary man.”

  Petter patted Moses. “I bet he’s a good playmate,” he said.

  And he himself played with Moses until he had to leave, which strangely enough, happened exactly when Malin had finished her shopping. “I’ll carry your basket to Carpenter’s Cottage, even if you don’t ask me in for tea or coffee or something,” he said to Malin.

  “I’ll ask you in for a cup of tea,” said Malin, “kind soul that I am. Come along!”

  Just at that moment Westerman came out of the shop and shouted to Petter, “Sir, can I have a word with you?”

  Petter turned when he heard the rough, rather thick voice, and saw who was calling him: a very coarse-looking man of wild appearance.

  “What do you want?” Petter asked, surprised.

  Westerman moved away from Malin, so that she would not hear what they were saying. “I was in the shop when I heard you say you would like to buy that seal,” said Westerman as politely as it was possible for a wild man to speak. “Actually it’s my seal, to tell the truth. I found him out on the island. How much could one get for him?” He edged up close to Petter and stared at him eagerly.

  Petter drew away. He did not want to do any business about seals just now. The only thing he wanted was to catch up with Malin and he said hastily, “Oh, well, a couple of hundred crowns perhaps—but I can’t decide on the price. And besides I must know first of all who the seal really belongs to.”

  “It belongs to me,” Westerman shouted after him.

  And that was exactly what he said to Tjorven when she and Stina came out of the shop with Moses at their heels.

  “Listen, I want my seal back,” said Westerman.

  Tjorven stared at him without understanding. “Your seal! What do you mean?”

  Westerman looked a little awkward and spat as far as he could, to show that he was not in the least embarrassed. “I mean just what I say. You’ve had him long enough now, and he’s my seal and I’m thinking of selling him.”

  “Sell Moses? Are you mad?” shouted Tjorven.

  But Westerman explained to her. Hadn’t he said that she could have the baby seal only until he was big enough to be of use?

  “You can go to blazes with all your lies,” yelled Tjorven. “You said I could have him altogether! You said that!”

  Westerman must have been ashamed somewhere in his greedy soul, and that made him more abrupt than ever. There was no need for him to ask Tjorven’s permission, he said. He was free to sell his own seal and it was going to be sold and there was nothing more to be said about it, as Westerman needed the money badly. If Tjorven would not see reason he would go and talk to her father.

  “I’ll do that myself, anyhow,” retorted Tjorven, crying from vexation.

  “Stupid!” said Stina, kicking out at him with her thin little leg as Westerman went off.

  “You wait till I talk to Nisse,” he said.

  Tjorven stood gasping with rage. “Never,” she shouted. “You won’t ever have Moses!”

  Then she began to run. “Come on, Stina, we must find Pelle.” She could not speak to Daddy and Mummy just now, because the shop was full of people, but in time of need Pelle was a person one could turn to. Tjorven knew that. He must know of this dreadful thing that was going to happen.

  Pelle shook his head dolefully. “Talking to your father won’t do any good,” he said. “You can never prove that Westerman promised that you could have Moses altogether, and then Uncle Nisse won’t know what to do.”

  Stina agreed. “Well, then, he’ll have to go and ask Aunt Marta.”

  But Pelle shook his head again. There was only one way, he said, and that was to hide Moses somewhere where Westerman could not find him.

  “Well, where?” asked Tjorven.

  Pelle thought for a moment and suddenly he knew. “In Dead Man’s Creek,” he said.

  Tjorven looked at him full of admiration. “Pelle, do you know what?” she said. “You think of better things than anyone else.”

  Pelle was right. Of course he was right. Mummy and Daddy must not be involved in this. If Westerman went to them afterward and asked for Moses, they would be able to answer quite truthfully, “We don’t know where he is. Look for yourself!” And that would be difficult for Westerman. Oh, how difficult it would be!

  In the old days, hundreds of years ago, the village on Seacrow Island lay by a creek on the island’s west side. But once, when Sweden was at war with Russia, the Russians had come and burned the whole village. After that the inhabitants of Sea-crow Island had built their new houses for safety’s sake on the opposite side of the island. Now nothing of the former village was left except for a few very old gray boathouses edging the little creek, where once fishing boats and trawlers had lain by the jetties and where the ancestors of the present village people had put their nets out to dry on the bare rocks. Now there were no ships there except one old deserted trawler, which had found its last anchoring place in the creek. The children called it Dead Man’s Creek, and dead it certainly was—silent and dead. There was a strange stillness over the place, and Pelle sometimes went there on his solitary wanderings. He would sit for hours, leaning against a sunny boathouse wall watching the dragonflies hovering softly in the breeze and counting the rings in the water when some fish or other moved below the smooth surface.

  Dead Man’s Creek was a place full of peace and dreams for Pelle. But there were some people who thought the stillness was terrifying, almost ghostlike. It was easy to imagine that the blackest of secrets were hidden in the deserted boathouses, and people very seldom went there. No one would look for Moses here. In a boathouse in Dead Man’s Creek he would be safe.

  Tjorven had a little cart in which she pulled Moses if she had a long way to go with him and hadn’t the patience to wait for him as he crawled along, and now they had a long way to go. So they put him into the cart with all the herrings that Stina had managed to beg from her grandfather.

  The secret four, who were kicking a ball about behind Carpenter’s Cottage, saw them setting out, and Teddy shouted to Tjorven, “Where are you going?”

  “We’re only going for a little walk,” answered Tjorven. “No, Bosun, you had better stay at home,” she said, when the dog came toward them. A walk usually meant long wanderings through fields and woods and it was something Bosun could never resist, but he stopped when Tjorven told him to. He stood still for a long time, looking after her, Pelle, and Stina, with Moses in his cart. Then he went back and lay down in his usual place beside the steps. His head sank down on his paws and he looked as if he was asleep.

  A winding, half overgrown road led to Dead Man’s Creek and Westerman’s farm lay about halfway there. As they could not take the cart over a field, they had to go past the house with Moses. It was dangerous, but unavoidable.

  “If he sees us that will be the end,” said Tjorven as they passed Westerman’s gat
e. “He’ll take Moses away. Please, Cora, keep quiet!” This last remark was made to Westerman’s dog, who was standing inside the hedge, barking. All they needed was for Westerman to come out to see why Cora was barking.

  “Yes, that would be the end,” agreed Stina.

  Westerman did not appear. Only his wife was there, standing with her back to them, hanging up washing on a line outside the house, and happily for them she had no eyes in the back of her head.

  They also went past Westerman’s field where Stina’s grandfather kept his sheep, and Stina called to Tottie. He came immediately, thinking that he was going to be fed.

  “Oh, I was only coming to say hello to you and to see that you were all right,” said Stina.

  Moses enjoyed riding in his cart all the way to Dead Man’s Creek and apparently thought he was out on a little joy ride, but when he was suddenly put into a strange boathouse he began to understand that this was an underhanded trick and he did not intend to put up with it. He uttered one of his angry squeals and it sounded horrible in the empty stillness of Dead Man’s Creek.

  “Moses, you’re making such a noise that it can be heard over the whole island,” said Pelle reproachfully.

  All three of them sat on their heels around the baby seal in the darkness of the boathouse, stroking him and trying to get him to understand that all this was for his own good.

  “It’s only for a little while, you know,” said Tjorven. “It will all turn out all right some way or other, and then you can come home again.”

  How it was to turn out all right Tjorven could not for the life of her see, but most things seemed to sooner or later and no doubt this time would not be an exception—she hoped.

  And so Moses gradually settled down with his mouth full of herring.

  “You’ve never lived in a better boathouse,” said Tjorven. “You’ll be very happy here.”

  “Although it is horrible here,” said Stina, shivering. “I feel almost as if there were ghosts about.” There was a strange semidark daylight in the boathouse that she did not like, but the sun came through cracks in the wall and she could hear the water lapping outside. “I’m going out for a minute,” she said, and opened the heavy door, which groaned as she pushed it. Then she disappeared.