Sigve seemed calm and not filled with his usual rage. Instead he was actually listening to what I said. And maybe that’s why he believed me.
“I suppose I could have lost it,” he said.
Sigve loses his things a lot.
“Well, thanks anyway,” he said and got up to leave.
“Don’t mention it.”
Just as he was about to walk out of the room he turned around. “Oh, right,” he said. “You owe me a hundred kroner.”
16
Change
Sigve wanted money that I no longer had, so I went around the house searching for loose change. First I went into the living room and turned over the cushions on the sofa. I found a hairpin, two pens and a knitting needle. And under the sofa I found three kroner that I put in my pocket.
Then I went into the laundry room to see if any change had fallen out in the washing machine. In the machine I found a toothpick, a five-kroner coin and a pack of gum that was gooey and gross. I put the coin in my pocket and left the toothpick and the gum in the machine.
It was only 2.44 p.m. so my dad wouldn’t be home from work for at least one hour and fifty minutes. His work hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and his drive home is about eighteen minutes, but he is never home at 4.18. Sometimes there is traffic and sometimes he needs to work longer. He normally comes home from work somewhere between
4.34 and 5.49 p.m. So I decided to check his study. I didn’t want to poke around too much because I was worried that I would move things around and that my dad would see that I had been in there. But I decided that I could check his desk drawers. I imagined that that was a place where people would keep change. I opened up the top drawer. It only contained pens, pencils, Post-it pads and a pencil sharpener.
In the next drawer there was a bunch of papers and on top of them was a stack of old photographs that I had never seen before. I picked up a black-and-white photo of a young man in a suit. He was looking straight into the camera with no smile, kind eyes and curly hair. I turned it around and on the back it said Alfred Sande. That was my dad’s dad. My grandfather. I didn’t know my grandfather had curly hair. I didn’t even know he ever had hair.
I let my fingers run through my own curls. As he had short hair, his curls were probably more manageable than mine.
At 3.21 p.m. Hanna called and said she wanted to talk to me, so I went to her house. When I saw her she looked really happy. I hadn’t seen her smile like that in weeks.
“I have talked to Patrik,” she said. “I am keeping the baby.”
“But what about your mom?” I said. “I thought she decided you should…”
“Should what?”
“You know.”
“I’ve looked into it,” she said. “She can’t force me.” She told me that she and Patrik had a plan. She would tell her mom that she would have an abortion, just to get her off her back for a while. She might even lie and say that she had gone through with the abortion, but she wasn’t really sure if her mom would believe her. “I’ll think of something,” she said. “I just have to make it to week twelve, because then it will be difficult to do anything about it.”
“Why week twelve?”
Hanna raised one eyebrow. “Did your year skip sex education or something?” “What do you mean?”
“It is much harder to get an abortion after week twelve.” Hanna also told me that once Patrik finished his second year of upper secondary school, he would get a placement at a plumbing company and then they could get their own flat.
I didn’t say anything, but it didn’t seem like Hanna needed me to. She closed her eyes and smiled. “What do you think about Emma?” she said. “What?”
“Emma is a nice name for a girl, don’t you think?”
When I got home, my dad wasn’t back from work yet and my mom was taking a nap, even though it was nearly dinner time. I decided to continue my search for loose change. I remembered that I hadn’t checked the dryer, so I went into the laundry room again. But there was no change in the dryer, just a bottle of red wine. The label said, Make Every Day a Holiday. I wondered if I should put the bottle in the kitchen where it belonged, but decided to leave it where it was. My mom would know where to find it. I shut the door of the dryer and went into my room. I reached into my pocket and took out the money I had collected. Together with the money I had in my piggy bank, I had exactly twenty-one kroner.
The next day Hanna wasn’t at school. I looked for her in the toilets behind the gym but she wasn’t there. Then I walked over to her classroom but I couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Are you looking for Hanna?” a voice said.
It was a boy I’d never seen before, but he seemed to know who I was. I nodded.
“She is home sick today,” he said. And then he walked off.
I sent Hanna a text and asked if she was okay. Two minutes and thirteen seconds later she replied, Morning sickness. Sometimes it lasts all day. And she ended it with a smiley face. She made it seem like morning sickness was something that was completely natural for her to have.
A lot of the kids were still whispering about me when I walked back to my classroom. It seemed even worse now that I didn’t have Hanna to turn to.
On my way home from school I saw Frida and some of her friends on the corner of Torg Street and Sentrum Street. I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable walking past them and was considering going back and taking a detour. But Frida had already spotted me. And all of a sudden she started to make her way over. That made me feel uneasy. I thought about what Hanna had said about sticking up for myself: You don’t have to feel tough. You just have to act it.
I quickly reached into my backpack and took out the packet of cigarettes that Hanna had thrown in the bin.
I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. They didn’t make me too dizzy that time. The trick was not to inhale.
Frida approached me and said, “I just wanted to tell you something.” I looked at her.
“I forgive you,” she said. “You know, for cutting my hair. I forgive you.”
I blew out smoke from the side of my mouth. “You do?” “Sure. I think I have to be the bigger person. It can’t be easy for you, with your mom and all.”
Now that was a really weird thing to say, because my mom was fine.
“Seriously.” She held out her hand. “Truce?” And so the Devil shook the hand of a civilian. I just didn’t know which was which any more.
17
Friendship
During the week Hanna kept not showing up at school due to being sick. Sometimes she would come in later, or leave earlier. And sometimes she just wouldn’t show up at all.
She did tell me once that she wouldn’t always be around to protect me. Maybe this was what she meant.
When the bell rang for our lunch break at 11.03 a.m., all the kids immediately gathered in their groups as usual. After I had eaten my ham and cheese sandwich, I decided to go and get some fresh air. I stood on the steps in front of the main entrance and watched the kids in the courtyard. They were all in their regular groups too. The kids who like football in one group. The kids who skateboard in another.
Then I saw Ruben. He was crossing the courtyard, heading in my direction.
When he saw me he stopped and smiled.
“Hello, Malin,” he said.
“Hello.”
“What’s up?” I shrugged. “Nothing.”
I noticed that someone had put up a poster about the prom on the main door.
“Are you going to the prom?” I said.
“Probably,” he said. “I guess if everyone else is going, I will too. I mean I think these kinds of things are a bit silly.”
“But you supported Frida’s campaign.” Ruben looked confused. “What do you mean?” Then someone opened the front door and called Ruben’s name. It was one of his friends.
“I’ve
got to go,” Ruben said. “We should hang out again soon.” “Okay.”
“If you want to.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you have something in your hair,” Ruben said. He reached out his arm and let his index finger and thumb slide down a lock of my hair. He held up a tiny bit of white dust to show me what he’d removed, before throwing it away.
Then his friend called him again and Ruben said, “I will talk to you soon,” and went inside. Through the glass door I watched them walk away. I waited to see if Ruben would turn around and wave at me. He didn’t, but I guessed it was still okay. After all, he had already said, “I will talk to you soon,” which can be counted as a goodbye.
Suddenly, I heard someone calling my name. It was Frida and she was waving me over to her group.
I decided to go over to her. I was on good terms with Frida at the moment and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Hey,” Frida said.
“Hello.”
“How’s it going?”
“Good.”
“So why are you not with that friend of yours?” Norunn said. “The one with all the mascara and the grey beanie hat.”
“She is not in school today.”
“I haven’t seen her in ages,” Julie said.
“She has been sick a lot.”
“Sick?”
“I think it is morning sickness. Sometimes it lasts all day.”
Norunn and Julie let out a slight gasp and they all quickly exchanged looks.
Frida was grinning. “What did you say?”
I didn’t answer. “She’s pregnant?”
I didn’t say anything and Frida and her friends didn’t ask any more questions. They just smiled. And then the bell rang.
When I got home, from school the door was locked so I figured no one was home. I let myself in and as soon as I grabbed the door handle, Oscar jumped out of a bush and came running towards me. He always seems to know when we are home.
After I fed Oscar I sat down at the kitchen table and started on my homework. Just as I was about to finish up my English work I heard a coughing sound coming from my parents’ bedroom. I went and opened the door to see who it was. My mom was lying in bed, sleeping. I figured she had another headache, because she does take naps in the middle of the day when she gets them. I closed the door as gently as I could so that I didn’t make any noise.
At 4.46 p.m. my dad came home from work. He walked into the kitchen carrying today’s post.
“Hello,” he said, and started to go through the envelopes he held in his hands. “Hello.”
“Where is your mom?”
“She is taking a nap.”
“Really?” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
“All right,” he said. “I will tell Sigve to pick up Chinese food on his way home from work.”
“What’s in the post?” I said.
“Mostly bills, I think. Why do you ask?”
“I am waiting for the letter from CAPS.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“What do you mean?”
My dad looked at me. “We are not going to talk to strangers about our stuff. It’s nobody’s business.”
18
Hardship
The next day a lot of kids were gossiping and whispering in my school. But this time it wasn’t about me. They all seemed to be talking about a girl from the tenth grade. The one with the leather jacket and the grey beanie. The one who was pregnant.
“What did you do?” Hanna was blocking the entrance to the toilets behind the gym. She stared at me with dark eyes and she didn’t blink. “What do you mean?”
“You told them. You told everyone.”
“Told everyone what?”
“That I am pregnant, stupid. What else?” Her words cut like a razor blade and she looked like she wanted to kill something.
I looked at the ground. “But I didn’t.” “Apart from Patrik, you were the only one who knew. You must have told someone.”
“No. But I was talking to Frida and…”
“Frida? Are you being serious?” she scoffed. “Of all the people to talk to about anything, you decided that Frida was a good option?” I didn’t answer.
Hanna shook her head. “I really don’t know if you would do something like this on purpose, or if you are just that stupid.”
Then she walked away. But she didn’t walk back into the building. She rushed across the courtyard and through the main gate, leaving school grounds.
I definitely didn’t do it on purpose. So I guessed that meant I was stupid.
At lunch break I went to the courtyard and took out the encyclopedia I had in my bag. I half-heartedly flipped through the pages. It felt lonely to be on my own again. Hanna had been away from school a lot lately, but this time she wasn’t gone because she was sick. She was gone because she was mad at me, and that felt different.
I saw Ruben standing by the bike racks. He was laughing and talking to his friends. I wondered if I should go up to him, but he seemed busy. “Do you like him or something?” I looked up. Frida and Julie were standing next to me. “What?” I said.
Frida nodded towards Ruben. “Ruben. Do you like him?” “No.”
This wasn’t entirely true. Normally I don’t tell lies, but her question threw me and the answer just fell out.
“I think he likes you,” Julie said. And then they walked off.
How could she know? Both of them always seemed to know everything.
I didn’t feel like going straight home after school so I walked over to Magnus’s house instead. He finishes class early on Thursdays.
Magnus said he had something to show me in the garage. He opened the door and pointed at an orange moped. It was the one from the picture he had shown me a while back.
He stroked the moped with his hand and continued down over the seat. “Check out the great condition it’s in.” I looked but I couldn’t see what he saw. To me, it still looked like a piece of junk.
“It’s going to need a bit of work before I can ride it though,” Magnus said. “Guess how much it was?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” “Only 2500 kroner.”
I couldn’t believe that he had paid that much for it.
“Which is good news for you too,” Magnus said.
“Why?”
“My mom said that since it was so cheap, I could also have a new phone.”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin black smartphone, and held it out for me to see. It looked exactly like the one he had before.
“Which means that you can have my old phone.”
“But I already have a phone.”
“Yes, but this one is better.”
We went inside and Magnus put my SIM card into his old phone – my new phone – and connected it to Wi-Fi. We downloaded some apps – Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat – and some games – Jelly Splash, Wordfeud and Candy Crush.
Magnus handed me the phone and I put it in my pocket.
“Hanna is mad at me,” I said.
“Your friend?”
I nodded. “She thinks I told everyone that she is pregnant.” “Is she?”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Then why does she think you did?” I shrugged. “I only told Frida that Hanna wasn’t in school because of morning sickness, but I didn’t say she was pregnant.”
Magnus frowned. “I don’t know if you can have one without the other.”
A while back Magnus had told me that everyone screws up sometimes. But I seemed to be the only one who did that these days.
“How do I make it better?”
“I think all you can do is apologize and hope that she understands that you didn’t mean to hurt her. If you are true
friends, eventually she will forgive you.”
Magnus asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner and I looked at the time. It was 4.49 p.m. already, which surprised me. I’m usually very good at keeping track of time. I said, “I think I’d better go.”
When I got home, I could hear my dad’s loud voice as soon as I stepped into the hallway. He sounded really mad this time.
I peeked inside the living room. I saw my dad was standing by the coffee table, shouting at Sigve. I couldn’t see my mom anywhere, but that didn’t surprise me. She hardly ever gets involved in the heavy things any more.
“You are going back to school next year!” my dad yelled.
“Why?” Sigve sat in one of the armchairs, looking completely chilled.
“Why? So you can get a proper education and a decent job.”
“I like my job.”
“You like it now! What if you wake up in ten years and wish you had an education?”
“Then in ten years I will get an education.”
“For fuck’s sake!” my dad yelled and punched the wall.
Immediately he covered his right fist with his left hand and let out a muffled scream. “Now look what you made me do.”
I backed out of the house and closed the door behind me. Then I went into the garage and sat down on a chair and played some games on my new phone. I also sent Hanna a text to say that I was sorry, but she didn’t reply.
19
Physical Education
Of all the subjects we have in school, PE is my least favourite. I especially dislike any sports that involve a ball. I always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the few times that I am in the right place, I don’t know what to do with the ball. I have conveniently “forgotten” my PE kit a lot this year. They can’t make you do PE if you don’t bring a change of clothes. In fact, I have left my kit at home so many times that my teacher, Haakon Krag, told me that if I missed one more class, he would have to fail me.
We have PE every Tuesday and Thursday in the fourth and fifth periods. This Tuesday we were playing volleyball. Haakon picked out Gjermund Moen and Vegard Gudmestad as team captains, as per normal. The rest of the class lined up against the wall while they picked their teams. One by one, I watched Kjetil, Sivert, Frida, Julia and the others being chosen.
The Unpredictability of Being Human Page 7
