I loved you, Yoji.
Ever since—you know when. I only had eyes for Yoji. You were all I wanted in the whole wide world. What a shame it wasn’t meant to be.
Bye-bye.
Ahhh. But what was going to happen to me now, falling up into the sky?
The Forest
Morning comes early in Hadetbra.
My father and mother leave for work before dawn. My older brother, Olle, hops up just as they are going—he has soccer every morning at school. He eats his breakfast and then heads off to practice, kicking the ball all the way. So I am quite alone by six o’clock when I finally rouse myself. In point of fact, the mothers and fathers in the other two houses in Hadetbra also leave for work before dawn, so the children who are left behind get out of bed and gather for breakfast. We all agree that the meal tastes better when we eat together. We refer to our little group as an “eating club,” and we like to think it is a very grown-up sort of gathering, just the sort of thing our parents would do if they didn’t have to hurry off to work. We call it the Hadetbra Morning Eating Club.
The members of our little club include Hejdanatt and Adju, the sisters who live next door on one side, and Nulla and Inte, the brothers on the other, their little sister Nej, and me—I’m Kerstin. Nulla and Inte love soccer too, and I’m sure they would like to be on the team with Olle, but they are both terrible sleepyheads and seem to prefer to stay in bed hugging their pillows rather than get up early to kick the ball with the boys at school.
Today again, our mothers left breakfast for us, and we brought what they had made and gathered to eat it at one table. But today was just slightly different. Usually, we eat at Nulla and Inte’s house, since they have the biggest family and the biggest table. But today the sky was so very blue, and the clouds were racing across it in such wonderful shapes, that it was hard to stay indoors. Someone suggested we have a picnic, so we carried the table out to the garden and had our breakfast in the open air.
And what a lovely breakfast it was! So lovely I found myself wondering why we didn’t do this every day. The sausages and milk and eggs were even more delicious than usual—perhaps they were delighted to be set outdoors too. The goat cheese dissolved softly on my tongue, the wonderful flavor rippling through my mouth. Cheese this fresh and soft is better eaten just as it is, rather than spread on bread. Everyone seemed to be enjoying it. Nulla had piled a ridiculous mound on a slice of toast, more than he could possibly fit in his mouth, and when he tried, he planted the end of his nose in the pile. As I watched, quite appalled, his little brother Inte reached out for the cheese to repeat the trick. So I slapped his hand. I shudder to think how our meals would deteriorate if I weren’t here to counter the bad influence of Nulla and Inte. But I suppose all boys have their naughty side. Which is why we girls have to keep an eye on them. When I told them they mustn’t play with their food, Hejdanatt chimed in to say that it was a waste of perfectly good cheese. And Adju and Nej had to add their own two cents after her.
Today was a wonderful, wonderful day—the first day of summer vacation. As soon as we had finished our breakfast, Nulla and Inte began looking around for something to do. It was, they said, much too much trouble to go all the way to school to play soccer. How about swimming in the river? Or having an adventure in the forest? Perhaps we should go tease Lorna’s dog. Or go hunting for insects. The boys tossed out ideas one after another.
Now that we had finished our meal, we girls needed to decide what we wanted to do as well. Adju and Hejdanatt and Nej all looked at me. Since the weather was so fine, I was in favor of going to the river or the woods to play with the boys. Still, I knew that Adju didn’t like to join in their games since she thought they could get too rough. Her older sister, Hejdanatt, on the other hand, was as rough and competitive as they come.
I told the boys that they mustn’t go into the Western Forest.
Of course they wanted to know why.
Because, I explained, a terrifying monster had recently made its home there.
As I might have foreseen, this news only excited their curiosity. “What kind of monster?” Nulla wanted to know.
“The kind that snatches children and cuts them up into little pieces,” I told them.
Inte was properly frightened now, but Nulla’s eyes sparkled. “And then eats them?” he wanted to know.
“Apparently not,” I told him. “The monster takes them deep into the forest, all in pieces, and leaves them alone to die ever so slowly.”
At this last bit of information I finally detected a look of fear in Nulla’s eyes.
A moment later, however, the boys were busy with their silly games. They pinched each other’s arms and cheeks, apparently conducting experiments to see how much it might hurt to be cut up by the monster.
First Nulla took the skin near Inte’s elbow between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a hard squeeze.
Ouch, ouch!
Inte conceded immediately, apparently in real pain.
Then it was Nulla’s turn.
Inte chose a particularly soft spot on his upper arm and squeezed as hard as he could.
