enough to organise this inferno.
Multi-coloured lights flashed across the darkened room. Sweets and popcorn were scattered all over the floor, and infants dressed as monsters were running around chasing one another while Markoolio sang that song about heading for the mountains to drink and screw. Goran peered into the darkness, trying to spot his daughter so that he could take her home.
He had to walk around before he found her sitting on a chair by the wall. She had thick black kohl all around her eyes, and her mouth looked oddly swollen. From the corners of her mouth ran painted-on trickles of dried blood. Her hands were resting on her knees.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Shall we go home?’
Teresa looked up. Her eyes shone bright within their frame of black. She got up and Goran held out his hand. She didn’t take it, but followed him out to the car.
It was a relief to close the car door. The sound was muted and they were alone. He glanced at Teresa, sitting in the passenger seat staring straight ahead, and asked, ‘So did you have a good time?’
Teresa didn’t reply. He started the car and pulled out of the school car park. When they were driving along the road, he asked, ‘Did you get any sweets?’
Teresa mumbled something in reply.
‘What did you say?’
Teresa mumbled something again, and Goran turned to look at her. ‘What’s that in your mouth?’
Teresa parted her lips and showed her fangs. A cold shudder ran down Goran’s spine. For a brief moment he thought she looked genuinely horrible. Then he said, ‘I think you could take those out now, sweetheart. So I can hear what you say.’
Teresa removed the teeth and sat there with them in her hand, but she still didn’t say anything. Goran tried again.
‘Did you get any sweets?’ Teresa nodded and the best follow-up Goran’s weary brain could come up with was, ‘Were they nice?’
‘I couldn’t eat them.’
‘Why not?’
Teresa held out the fangs. Goran felt a stab of pain in his chest. A dot of sorrow grew and grew, pressing against his ribs. ‘But sweetheart, you could have taken them out. So you could eat your sweets.’
Teresa shook her head and said nothing more until they had parked on the drive at home. When Goran had switched off the engine and they were sitting in the darkness she said, ‘I told Mum I didn’t want to go. I
The Svensson family lived in a new house on what had been agricultural land before it was carved up. A narrow strip of conifers and deciduous trees separated them from their nextdoor neighbour. Among the trees were two big rocks, or rather boulders, lying side by side in such a way that a cave a few metres square was formed at their base. The autumn before Teresa turned ten, she had begun to spend more and more of her free time there.
One day at the end of September when Teresa was sitting in her secret room setting out an exhibition of different-coloured autumn leaves, something blocked the light from the entrance. A boy of her own age was standing there.
‘Hi,’ said the boy.
‘Hi,’ said Teresa, glancing up briefly before returning to her leaves. The boy stayed where he was without speaking, and Teresa wished he would go. He didn’t look the way people usually looked. He was wearing a blue shirt, buttoned right up to the neck. Teresa tried to concentrate on the leaves, but it was difficult with someone standing there watching her.
‘How old are you?’ asked the boy.
‘Ten,’ said Teresa. ‘In a month. And a week.’
‘It was my tenth birthday two weeks ago,’ said the boy. ‘I’m seven weeks older than you.’
Teresa shrugged her shoulders. Boys always had to boast. Sorting out the leaves, which had absorbed her completely only a moment ago, suddenly seemed childish. She scraped them into a heap but couldn’t leave while the boy was standing there blocking the opening. He looked around and said with a certain amount of gloom in his voice, ‘I live here now.’
‘Oh, where?’
The boy nodded in the direction of the house on the other side of the trees. ‘There. We moved in yesterday. I think this is our garden. But you can use it if you want.’
‘I don’t think it’s up to you to decide.’
The boy looked down at the ground, took a deep breath and let out the air in a long sigh. Then he shook his head. ‘No. It’s not up to me to decide.’
Teresa didn’t understand what kind of boy this was. At first he had seemed boastful, and now he was standing there looking as if somebody was about to hit him. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Johannes.’
Teresa thought that was quite a safe name. Not like Micke or Kenny. She got up and Johannes moved so that she could get out. They stood facing one another. Johannes swirled the leaves around with his toe. He was wearing a pair of trainers that looked almost new. Teresa said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask what my name is?’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Teresa. I live here too. There.’ She pointed at her house. Johannes looked at the house, then carried on poking at the leaves with his foot. Teresa wanted to go home, but in some strange way she felt as if she ought to look after Johannes. There was something about that shirt that looked so uncomfortable. She asked, ‘Shall we do something?’
Johannes nodded without making any suggestions, so Teresa went on, ‘So what shall we do, then? What do you usually do?’
Johannes shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not much.’
‘Do you like board games?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you play Chinese checkers?’
‘Yes. I’m really good at it.’
‘How good?’
‘I usually win.’
‘So do I. When I play my dad.’
‘I usually win when I play my mum.’
Teresa went inside and fetched the game. When she came back Johannes had crawled into the cave and was sitting there waiting for her. She didn’t like him sitting there. That was her place. But she remembered her father saying that those rocks were actually on the neighbour’s property, just as Johannes had said. So she couldn’t really chuck him out. But she could move him.
‘That’s my place,’ she said.
‘So where shall I sit?’
Teresa pointed to the back wall of the cave. ‘There.’
When Johannes got up, Teresa saw that he had been sitting on her pile of leaves. He scooped them up in his arms and tipped them out in his designated place, then gathered them together and patted them down before sitting on them. Teresa was still annoyed with him for moving into her cave, so to tease him she said, ‘Are you frightened of getting your trousers dirty?’
‘Yes.’
The direct answer disarmed her and she couldn’t come up with anything else to say, so she put the board on the ground and sat down opposite Johannes. In silence they picked up the plastic counters and placed them on their spots. Then Johannes said, ‘You can start because you’re the smallest.’
A wave of heat spread over the tips of Teresa’s ears, and she snapped, ‘You can start because it’s my
