I wrapped a towel around me and went to the showers. There was no one there. I guessed the ladies were already in the pool. I put my towel on the hook next to the shower, went in and pressed the button. I quickly soaped up and rinsed myself off. I put my swim suit on and then I held my swimming cap under the shower so it would be easier to put on. Everyone needs to wear a swimming cap in the pool. Another rule. I pushed the cap down over my head, and tucked in all the curls that were sticking out.
As I didn’t have my watch on, I don’t know how long the shower took me exactly. But I would guess around four and a half minutes. Then I walked upstairs to the pool area.
There were actually quite a few people swimming that day.
The pool had been split into a fast lane and a slow lane. They also had a section at the shallow end of the pool, named the Fun Pool, where a couple of younger kids were playing.
I went over to the section labelled Slow lane and got into the water.
But I wasn’t fast enough for the slow lane. So one of the lifeguards came up to me and suggested that I might want to try my luck in the Fun Pool. No way was I going to splash around with a bunch of little kids. So I decided to never come back to the pool.
Magnus is the best swimmer in our town. He dives from the ten-metre diving tower, and he can hold his breath underwater for four minutes and forty-six seconds. And he is really fast. Magnus said that he could help me become a better swimmer. But before we got into the water, I needed more knowledge. Knowledge is power, he said. Magnus watches a lot of TV.
My first lesson was in the kitchen in Magnus’s house. He put on his mom’s reading glasses and asked me, “What do you do when you want to overtake someone in the pool?”
I said I’d never needed to overtake anyone in the pool. He got annoyed. Magnus told me that to learn how to swim underwater, I had to practise holding my breath above water first. I said I didn’t care about swimming underwater. I just wanted to swim faster.
He called me a lousy student. I called him a lousy teacher.
That’s when our lessons stopped.
Who cares about swimming anyway?
But then, a couple of days later, Magnus called me and asked me if I wanted to go to the pool in Stavanger with him. It was a little weird that he offered to help me after I called him a lousy teacher. I guess his mom must have made him. Magnus said that the pool in Stavanger had these general swimming sessions every day from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and he could teach me some tricks.
I really wanted to go, but I was on my period so it wasn’t the best time for the pool. I know there are tampons, but I wasn’t sure I could trust them. I was thinking that I should try using one in the bathtub first. Too bad we don’t have a bathtub.
I told Magnus that I didn’t want to go to the pool with such a lousy teacher and hung up on him. I knew that would make him need a few days to cool off. And by the time he had cooled off, I was done with my period.
I liked the pool in Stavanger a lot better than the one in Haasund. It was a lot bigger and looked a lot newer. I liked the lifeguard a lot better too. He wasn’t really old like the one in Haasund and he had wavy blond hair and he smiled at me when I walked in. The pool in Stavanger also had a giant clock hanging on the wall, so I could check the time if I wanted to. I liked that but I still wished that I had a waterproof watch, because then I would never have to take it off.
Magnus told me that a good breaststroke starts under the water. He said that if I wanted to swim fast, I couldn’t keep swimming with my head above the surface like a Labrador.
Then Magnus started talking a lot. Something about breathing and moving your arms in a circular motion and pushing forward. And something about huge strokes and kicking your legs. I looked at the lifeguard. He was sitting in his chair with his yellow T-shirt and red shorts. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. He probably did.
Magnus offered to hold my hand while I practised kicking my legs. Just then the lifeguard turned around and looked in our direction.
I said, “I can do it myself! You don’t have to help me!” And then I swam out to the deep end of the pool. I tried to focus and remember what Magnus had said. Huge strokes. Move your arms in circular motions. Kick your legs. What did he say about breathing? Then I noticed the lifeguard looking in my direction again and I tried to be cool and not look like a Labrador.
Suddenly, I became very aware that I was in the deep end of the pool. Nothing to hold on to. Not able to reach the bottom.
In the next moments I inhaled a lot of water. I waved my arms frantically. I tried not to breathe in, but for some reason I kept doing it. And I kept swallowing water. The last thing I remember was Magnus swimming towards me faster than I’ve ever seen him swim before. Then I passed out.
When I woke up, the giant clock on the wall showed the time was 4.41. I was lying on the side of the pool and I couldn’t remember how I’d got there. No one was in the water any more, everyone was just standing around, watching us. Watching me. Magnus and the lifeguard leaned over me as I coughed up water from the bottom of the pool.
My nose hurt. My throat hurt. My chest ached. I wondered if they’d had to perform mouth-to-mouth on me. If so, was it performed by the guy with the wavy blond hair?
Or by my cousin?
Magnus looked at me with fear in his eyes and said, “Are you okay?”
I coughed and said in a surprisingly hoarse voice, “You nearly killed me!”
I tried not to cough again because my chest hurt too much.
The lifeguard asked me some questions to make sure I was okay, and I was. Then Magnus and I each went to our locker rooms. I didn’t even shower. I just dried off and got dressed.
I met Magnus outside and he said, “Don’t tell my mom I almost killed you.”
I said, “Don’t tell my mom I almost died.”
As we were about to leave someone yelled, “Hey! Hey you, wait up.” I turned around and saw that the lifeguard was walking towards us. I wondered what he wanted. Maybe he was going to tell me that he was glad I was okay. And maybe he hoped I would come back soon. He looked at me with clear blue eyes, searching for the right words.
Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Next time, you might want to try your luck in the Fun Pool.”
9
Still Alive
We don’t get much snow here in Haasund during wintertime. Mostly we just get a lot of rain. And frost. So I was excited when it started snowing the other day. I watched it from my bedroom window. It came down slow and gentle and covered Thorstein Street like a white blanket. I hoped that it would stay for a while, but I knew that it wouldn’t, because Sigve had already told me that it would melt the next day and he’s always right about everything.
At 2.47 p.m., Magnus came over. He was carrying his Converse messenger bag, so I guessed he’d come straight from class. I showed him into the living room but he didn’t sit down. He just went around the room picking things up and looking at them for a little while, before putting them back in place. He acted like it was the first time he had been to our house.
“How’s it going?” he said as he picked up one of my mom’s porcelain birds from the shelf above the TV. “Fine,” I said.
He fiddled with the bird in his hand and I was nervous that he would break it. My mom loves her porcelain figurines.
“Will you stop messing with that?” I took the bird from his hand and put it back between the giraffe and the polar bear.
“Hey, thanks for not dying the other day,” Magnus said.
“Don’t mention it.”
Magnus laughed. “Seriously though, I am glad you are okay.” He shrugged. “You’re like a little sister to me, you know.”
I just smiled, because I’m really glad Magnus isn’t my brother. If he was, he would hate me.
“Hey, check this out.” Magnus took out his phone and showed m
e a photo of a really old-looking orange moped. “It’s a Vespa Bravo. An original one from 1982. Isn’t it cool?”
It looked like a piece of junk.
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“My mom said I could have it. As an early birthday present.”
“But you already have a bike.”
“But I want another one.”
Then Sigve came in. He said a quick hello to Magnus before turning to me. “I know that you know,” he said. “When are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
As usual, I had no idea what he was talking about. So I kept my mouth shut, hoping the mystery would be revealed if I just let him keep talking.
“If you are planning on telling them, why don’t you just do it? What do you want? Money?”
I kept staring at him. His icy blue eyes were locked on mine. He didn’t blink. Neither did I. Then Sigve reached into the back pocket of his jeans and took out his wallet. He fished out a hundred-kroner note and held it out to me.
“This is it. I am not giving you any more. Take it or leave it.”
I didn’t know what I was leaving, so I took it. Then Sigve said a quick “See you later” to Magnus, before going back down to the basement.
“What was that about?” Magnus asked.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Secret?”
I nodded. It was so secret that I didn’t even know myself.
“What is he up to these days anyway?” Magnus wanted to know. “I hardly ever see him any more. I haven’t even seen him around school or on the train in weeks.”
Magnus and Sigve both attend upper secondary school in Bryne, which is the closest city, and they have to take the train to get there. They are not in the same class though, because they are doing different courses.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Like anyone tells me anything.
Magnus stuck around for a while, and we watched TV and drank blueberry squash. My cat Oscar was playing with some dead flies on the window sill. “That’s the only type of fly that cat will ever catch,” Magnus said. “Man, he’s fat!”
At 3.29 p.m. Magnus got up from his chair and said, “I better get going.” Before leaving the room he turned and did a two-finger salute, like a scout or something. “Catch ya later.” He can be really corny sometimes.
Shortly after he left, the doorbell rang. I sighed to myself as I got up to open the door. What did Magnus forget this time?
But when I opened the door it wasn’t Magnus who stood on my doorstep.
It was Ruben.
“Hello, Malin,” he said.
“Hello,” I said.
Ruben didn’t say anything else; he just stood with his hands in his pockets and looked at his shoes while he kicked a little stone around.
“Do you want to come in?” I said.
Ruben looked at me and smiled, revealing his crooked front tooth.
“Okay,” he said.
We went into the living room and Ruben took a quick look around. He walked over to the side table and picked up a candlestick. He weighed it in his hand a little before putting it back.
What is up with people and their need to pick stuff up and put it down?
Ruben moved over to the shelf where my mom keeps her porcelain figurines and picked up the giraffe.
“You’ve got your sling off,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“That must be nice.”
“Yes.”
Ruben turned the giraffe upside down like he was in a shop, checking its price or something. “Hey, Malin, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
Ruben was turning the giraffe around and around. It looked like it was performing somersaults in Ruben’s hands. “I’m just curious, you know. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to…”
But he didn’t get to finish his sentence, because suddenly the giraffe slipped out of Ruben’s hands. It plunged to the floor, and hit the parquet with a thud. The neck broke in half as soon as it hit the floor. Ruben looked at me. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” “It’s okay, it wasn’t really important or anything.”
“Maybe we could glue it back together?” We went into the kitchen and I got the tube of glue from the big drawer with all the junk. Then we sat down at the table and I put a little glue on each piece of the giraffe. It was a pretty clean break so it was easy to stick the two pieces together, but when I let go, the top part started to slide off the bottom part so I had to grab hold of it. “Guess I have to wait until the glue dries before letting go,” I said as I held the two pieces together.
“Maybe it needs more pressure,” Ruben said and gently put two of his fingers on top of mine. His skin was warm and my hands started to tremble a little and I was worried that we would drop the giraffe again.
“Try now,” Ruben said after a couple of seconds and removed his fingers. I let go of the giraffe and the pieces seemed to stay together.
“I think I will leave it on the table until I’m sure that the glue is completely dry,” I said. “Do you want a glass of blueberry squash?” My mom always offers drinks to her guests.
“Okay,” Ruben said.
I poured two glasses of squash and then we drank it while watching the glue dry. The giraffe didn’t look half bad, but I noticed that I had used a little too much glue. It lay around its neck like a transparent life preserver. Maybe it wouldn’t be noticeable from a distance? “Is there any more squash?” Ruben said.
After we finished our drinks, I put the giraffe back on the shelf. I pushed it a little further to the back and moved some of the other figurines in front, hoping the giraffe would be less noticeable. Then we watched a couple of episodes of The Ranch, and we both laughed in the same places. At 4.48 p.m. my dad came home and wondered who the hell had finished all the blueberry squash.
Ruben looked a little nervous and said, “I think I better go.”
I said he didn’t have to, and explained that my dad yelling is no big deal at all, really. But Ruben wanted to go anyway so I showed him to the door.
As he was about to leave he suddenly paused for a minute. “Malin,” he said. “The thing that I wanted to ask you earlier…” “Yes?”
“Why did you shoplift at Holberg’s? I mean, you seem nice. Not like some of the other girls in your class. So I was just wondering… Why did you do it?”
“Frida Berg tricked me into it,” I said. “She can be a bit mean sometimes.”
“A bit mean?” Ruben laughed. “She is The Devil.”
10
The Devil
The Devil’s plan to collect signatures failed. Not because I refused to sign the petition, but because Principal Skogen said that the trip to the museum had already been paid for. He said that the only way we could have a prom was if the students paid for it themselves. So the Devil and her sidekick started a fundraising campaign to earn money.
At recess I saw her standing with her legs crossed, holding a jar full of change, talking to a boy. The boy was Ruben Oftedal. He had his cap down over his eyes and his hands in his pocket and he was smiling while he was saying something I couldn’t hear. Why was Ruben talking to the Devil?
Frida threw her head back, laughing. I am sure she laughed for several seconds, but I forgot to keep track. What could he have said that was so funny? Frida touched his shoulder and said something back, and he smiled. It felt like a tiny person was punching my stomach from the inside.
Then Ruben raised his hand to say goodbye and walked over to his friends, who were sitting at the skating ramp. Frida waved back to him. Then she caught my eye, and started walking towards me. Frida never used to talk to me at all. Lately, she had been approaching me a lot. Wanting something. As she came closer I could see that the jar was labelled Prom.
“Do you want to support our campaign?” She smil
ed her usual smile, while tilting her head slightly to the side.
“You should if you want to be nominated for prom queen.” I didn’t say anything. I had to think. “Ruben already contributed.”
Why would Ruben do that? Maybe he liked her now? Most boys liked Frida.
“If I were you, I would make a contribution.” She looked over at the skate ramp. “Boys like prom queens, you know.”
I thought about this. “So if I give you money I will be nominated?”
Frida shrugged. “Maybe. The more you contribute, the bigger the chance of getting nominated.”
I looked over at Ruben, who now was having a play fight with one of his friends. His green eyes were still hidden under his cap as he struggled to keep his friend from pushing him off the ramp.
“But, hey it’s up to you,” Frida said and turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I said.
I watched Ruben push his friend back. Even though he was smiling, he was too far away for me to see his crooked tooth. Then I gave Frida the hundred-kroner note that Sigve had given me to keep a secret I didn’t even know.
Frida smiled and said, “You are way prettier than all the other girls in our class so you’ll probably win the title too.”
It’s weird talking to Frida. She smiles and sounds friendly, but something doesn’t feel right. Like if someone were to give you a compliment while kicking you in the leg. I guess that’s what talking to the Devil feels like.
The morning after, just before school started, I met Hanna in the toilets behind the gym. I told her what had happened.
“You did not give that witch money?” Hanna looked at me with disbelief. Her eyes looked sore, like she hadn’t got enough sleep.
“She said she could get me nominated for prom queen,” I said.
Hanna raised one eyebrow and said, “Malin…” “Yes?”
The Unpredictability of Being Human Page 4
