Then her dad came back in. “Oh, you are watching the alligator snapping turtle,” he said. “That’s a great documentary.”
I said I had to go and ran out of the house and cycled home as fast as I could. I knew it wouldn’t be this easy. Frida was the queen and you don’t mess with the queen without there being consequences.
When I got home, I checked the postbox. It was full of bills and advertisements, but no letter from CAPS.
I went inside and lay down on my bed and hoped that Monday would never come. Oscar came in and curled up at the foot of my bed. He always looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world. And I guess he doesn’t. It must be nice to be a cat.
13
Expecting
Hanna told me once that girls can get free contraceptive pills from the age of sixteen to twenty. It’s no big deal at all. You don’t have to have a gynaecological examination or anything. You can just talk to your doctor about it. Or even the school nurse (who is in every other Thursday) can prescribe them to you. That’s what she told me.
Hanna knew all this but somehow, she got pregnant anyway. I was sitting on a chair in her room and she lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling and she told me that she was pregnant. The thought of a baby growing inside Hanna’s stomach seemed impossible.
“My mom says I need to have an abortion. And my dad of course agrees with everything she says.” Hanna looked at me, and her voice became more intense. “An abortion! Can you believe it?” She looked back at the ceiling and said quietly, “It’s almost seven weeks old already. It has a brain and a beating heart.” She whispered, “It is a life.”
It was weird and grotesque hearing Hanna talking about an abortion. But if she didn’t have an abortion, that meant she would have a baby. At sixteen. And that didn’t seem much better. But I suspected I shouldn’t say that, so instead I said, “Who’s the father?”
Hanna looked at me and raised one eyebrow. “It’s Patrik, you moron! Who else would it be?”
I just wanted to make sure, but I guess you are not supposed to ask.
“Well, what does he say about it?” I said.
“I haven’t told him yet.”
Then she started crying. She put a heart-shaped cushion over her face and sobbed into it like a little child.
I looked around the room. Her Winnie the Pooh clock was ticking loudly on her dresser. It showed the time as
3.40, which was incorrect. The time was actually 3.43. Hanna told me once that her grandfather had given her that clock years ago, not long before he died, and she didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. How could someone with a Winnie the Pooh clock and a bed full of heart-shaped cushions be about to become a mom?
Hanna sat up on her bed and removed the cushion from her face. Her mascara was smudged around her eyes and ran down her face in dark inky lines. Somehow, she seemed to be aware of this without looking in a mirror, as she picked up some tissues from her bedside table and started wiping her face.
She threw the darkened tissues in the bin, picked up some new ones and continued to wipe her face.
A single tear ran from Hanna’s eye, creating a new dark line that slowly made its way down her cheek.
I wanted to tell Hanna that everything was going to be okay, but how could I get her to believe that when I wasn’t sure I believed it myself?
Hanna suddenly started laughing really loud. “I can’t believe you actually cut Frida’s hair,” she said. “That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”
I thought about Frida and how upset she had been.
I didn’t understand how Hanna could laugh about it. I wondered what everyone else at school thought about it. Maybe they were all mad at me now.
“Ruben accidentally broke my mom’s porcelain giraffe,” I said, mostly to change the subject.
“How did she take it?”
I shrugged. “She hasn’t noticed yet.”
Hanna didn’t comment on that. Instead she put both of her hands on her tummy. “I’m thinking of keeping it.” She lay down on her back again and looked at the ceiling. “It will be okay,” she said. “I will be okay.”
I got home at 4.26 p.m. and I saw that someone was waiting for me on my doorstep. It was Ruben. When he noticed me he smiled, making his crooked front tooth appear.
“Your mom said you were out so I decided to wait for you here,” he said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It is.” I smiled.
“Good.”
“I lost your stone,” I said.
At first he looked a bit confused. Then he smiled and said, “Oh, that’s okay.”
“Yeah, I mean it was just a stone anyway.” He stopped smiling and shrugged. “Sure.”
Then he reached inside his coat and took out a really old-looking book. He handed it to me and said, “Look what I got.”
On the cover was a picture of three boys playing Monopoly. They were all wearing white shirts and braces and looked like little men. It was titled 101 Activities for Rainy Days.
“It has a lot of really cool old games in it,” Ruben said. He took out a small pouch from his jeans pocket. “Wanna play marbles?”
We needed a smooth surface to play on, so we went into the garage. I found a piece of chalk and Ruben drew a circle in the middle of the floor. Then he drew a line on each side of the circle and we sat down next to each other.
But the floor was too cold so we got a couple of logs that we keep stacked by one of the walls. We placed them on the floor and sat down.
Ruben started lining up the marbles inside the circle. “Everyone is talking at school,” he said. “About how you cut Frida’s hair.”
I shuddered. “They are?” Nervously I asked, “What are they saying?”
He shrugged. “Just that. That you cut her hair.” “Oh.”
“I don’t get what the big deal is, her hair still looks good.” He paused. “I mean, if you like that kind of hair, that is. I think curls are better.”
I felt him looking at me, but I kept staring at the marbles in the circle. My cheeks were burning and my fingers felt like ice.
Ruben held up a slightly bigger marble. “Do you want to go first?”
I shook my head. “You go,” I whispered.
We took turns shooting the big marble at the ones inside the circle. I didn’t do too badly, but Ruben was a lot better at it and he won.
After the game, Ruben said, “So why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Cut Frida’s hair.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. It was too dumb.
I looked at him. “Why did you try and burn down the garage that time?”
Ruben thought for a while. “I think it was mostly two things. One was that my mom said that I couldn’t get Titanfall 2 for my Xbox and I was mad at her.” “And the other?”
He looked at me. “I had never seen a garage burn before.”
And that’s when Ruben kissed me. All of a sudden he just leaned in and quickly gave me a peck on the lips. His lips were cold, but the kiss felt warm. I didn’t get the chance to follow the instructions from Google, because it was over just as soon as it started. My cheeks felt flaming hot and I held my icy hands up to my face to try and cool it down.
Then suddenly the garage door started opening. The sound startled us and we both jumped to our feet. My dad was home from work. Ruben and I quickly collected the marbles so that he wouldn’t drive over them with his car. I said goodbye to Ruben and went inside with my dad. For dinner we were having roast pork. As we all sat down at the table, my mom asked me if I could get her a carving knife from the drawer.
Sigve threw his hands up in the air. “Wow, are you crazy?” Then he got up from his seat. “I’ll get it. I think we all know that it is not safe to let Malin handle sharp objects.”
“Stop it,” my mom said. M
y dad sighed. “Let’s just eat.”
I didn’t care what anybody said. All I could think of was Ruben and how for a brief moment his cold, soft lips had touched mine.
14
Fortunes and Misfortunes
It was a Sunday, which meant that the next day was a Monday. That’s usually how it goes, but this time it was a little bit different. This Monday was my first day back at school after being suspended and I was feeling anxious.
I was in the living room, watching an interview with Vanja Haraldsen, one of the Norwegian Idol contestants. They asked her what she did to relax. She said that when she was a child she used to watch cartoons, but now she would normally have a glass of red wine. My mom does relax a lot after drinking wine so it could be true. But I am too young to drink and too old for cartoons.
Then my mom came in and announced that we were all going out for lunch.
There are only two things that are open in Haasund on Sundays. Holberg’s shop and the Chinese restaurant, Haasund Kina Kjøkken. We don’t really have many family outings when there is no special occasion, so I was a little surprised to learn that we were all going out for Chinese food together. Even Sigve came along, and he is usually too cool to hang out with us in public.
As we walked to the restaurant, I decided that I wanted to try the Peking duck. I had never eaten duck before.
Everything in Haasund Kina Kjøkken is either red or gold, except for the chairs and tables, which are black. At least, I think the tables are black. They are always covered with red tablecloths, so I’m not sure. On the walls are framed pictures of some Chinese writing, and on the counter sits one of those Chinese lucky cat figurines that waves. I read somewhere that these figurines are actually from Japan, so I have no idea why we call them “Chinese lucky cats” or why they would have them in a Chinese restaurant.
We were the only ones in the restaurant, but we still had to wait to be seated. As we stood in the doorway and looked at the empty room, my dad sighed loudly several times and kept checking his watch. “Maybe we should just go,” he said.
I looked at my mom to see if she agreed, but my mom said, “Calm down, Leif. We are not in a rush.”
And then the man came over and smiled and showed us to a table near the window. He gave us four menus and asked what drinks we wanted. I asked my mom if I could order a Coke and she said yes. While we waited for our drinks, I asked my mom if I could order the Peking duck and she said yes to that as well. I didn’t know what was going on, but I liked it. My mom picked up the menu and started flipping through the pages. This is the only place we go to for special occasions – sometimes for birthdays and sometimes for Mother’s Day, but never on a regular Sunday. Sigve and my dad always order the same – fried rice with chicken and vegetables – so they didn’t need to look at a menu. While we waited, no one was talking. Sigve was playing with some chopsticks in the sugar bowl and my dad was tapping his foot so hard that the table was shaking. I couldn’t see my mom’s face because it was hidden behind the menu.
The man brought us our drinks and asked if we were ready to order, but my mom said that we needed a couple more minutes. The man smiled and nodded and walked away. Then my mom put down the menu and said that she had some news that she wanted to share with us. My dad stopped tapping his foot and cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair, like he was the one who had news to tell.
My mom said, “It was actually the reason I suggested coming here today.”
Sigve put down the chopsticks. “I also have something to share,” he said. “Can I go first?”
My mom glanced at my dad before turning to Sigve. “Of course you can.”
Sigve looked at the table. He picked up one of the chopsticks and circled it around the tablecloth. “I’ve got a job at the Coop in Bryne. On the checkout.”
“Oh, well that’s nice,” my mom said.
“I’ve had it for six months. Full-time.”
“What are you talking about? You are still in school.”
“I haven’t been for a while. And I am not going back.”
“The hell you are!” my dad kicked in.
“Wouldn’t make a difference,” Sigve said. “I’ve missed so much school already, they won’t let me take any of my exams.”
Everyone became quiet. The Chinese cat from Japan kept waving its paw like nothing had happened. Then my dad hit his fist on the table so hard that my mom’s glass of fizzy water got knocked over, and then he got up and walked out the door. The waiter rushed over to clean up the mess and my mom ordered a glass of wine.
And then my mom took a picture of me and Sigve where it looked like we were having fun and uploaded it
to Facebook. Sigve asked my mom what her news was, but she said she didn’t want to talk about it without my dad. And then she ordered fried rice with chicken and vegetables for everybody. It didn’t really matter because I wasn’t really hungry any more. I kept thinking that I had to go back to school the next day and I didn’t feel ready to face everyone. I asked my mom if I could stay home from school just one more day, but she said no. I told her that I really could use one more day of rest because I had a bit of a sore throat, but she said no again.
After we had finished our meal the waiter brought the bill on a plate together with three fortune cookies. I opened one of them and took out the little note and unfolded it. It said, Things will get worse before they get better.
My dad never came back to the restaurant, so after my mom had paid the bill the three of us walked home. I was angry with my mom for not letting me stay home from school, so I gave her the silent treatment the rest of the day. I guess it would have been more effective if she had noticed.
15
Back to School
Haasund Lower Secondary School looked the same as it always had. Not that it should have looked any different. After all, it was only five days since I’d last set foot in those halls.
Before I went in, I stood by the bike racks and watched all the kids walk up the steps and through the entrance. They were joking and laughing like it was just another day.
Everything looked the same, but somehow it felt different. Then I started to worry that class would start before I made it to my desk, so I hurried past the courtyard and through the door.
It looked the same on the inside as well. Except for one thing. There were posters on the walls with pictures of Frida, Julie and Norunn with a headline that said, Vote for your favourite prom queen. So the prom was happening after all.
I sat down at my desk just as the bell rang. We were having Norwegian class with Trude Fjell and she said that we were going to analyze a short story named “Karen”. That included finding underlying themes and metaphors, which I don’t really understand or see the point of doing.
Like that poem by Inger Hagerup, where it says something about how when it is time to take your final boat trip you have to leave all your luggage behind. Trude said that this meant that when you die it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how many things you own. What matters is what kind of a person you were. I think that if this is what Inger Hagerup meant, she should have just said so.
After we read through the story, we had to answer some questions. Like, What sort of parallel stories do we find within this story? and, What does the wind symbolize? These kinds of tasks don’t have any real right or wrong answers. Still Trude will normally tell me that I am doing it wrong and I find it very confusing.
I spent the rest of the class doodling in my notebook.
I looked over at Frida. She seemed to write a lot. She is usually very good at these things.
At recess I went to the toilets behind the gym to meet Hanna. She still goes there to hang out sometimes, even though she doesn’t smoke any more. Hanna told me that she was working up the courage to tell Patrik about the baby. I didn’t know what to say to that so I asked her about the prom in
stead. She said that it was to be held at the end of March. Apparently, after I cut Frida’s hair, people gave her a lot of money. And now Frida and her friends can have their dream ball. So it seemed like something good came out of this whole thing.
“She should be thanking you,” Hanna laughed. On my way back to my classroom I noticed that some kids were talking but when I approached they stopped and just stared at me. As I walked past them I heard someone whispering, “She is such a weirdo.”
It was a new feeling to have people talk about me. But it was also quite a new feeling to have a friend to meet up with. So going to school that day made me feel bad, but also good.
When the final bell rang I stayed in my seat until everyone else had left the room. Then I got up and slowly made my way out the door. Hanna was waiting for me in the courtyard and we cycled home together without saying much. On Egeland Street we parted ways and I waved to her before she disappeared around the curve.
When I got home, Sigve was sitting at the kitchen table drinking chocolate milk. He was wearing red Coop work clothes.
“I thought the Coop in Bryne had a blue uniform?” I said.
“I work in Haasund now.” He pointed at the milk carton. “Do you want some?” “Okay,” I said.
I sat down at the table and he poured me a glass. I couldn’t remember the last time my big brother and I were in the kitchen drinking chocolate milk together.
Then Sigve said, “Thanks for not telling Mom and Dad about my job, but I actually could use my access card back.”
“What access card?”
“It’s no big deal, I am not mad. They gave me a new one and everything. It’s just that if I don’t give the other one back they will charge me for it.”
“I didn’t take it. I didn’t know anything about your job.”
“Then where’s my card?”
“I don’t know.”
The Unpredictability of Being Human Page 6
