A Bridge to the Stars

There comes the dog!

  The solitary dog heading for a star.

  Joel knows right away that it's the very same dog. There's no other dog like it, even if it seems to be just an ordinary Norwegian elkhound.

  Suddenly it stops and looks round.

  Just for a moment Joel thinks it's looking straight at him, through the shop window.

  Then it sets off running again.

  Joel rushes out through the back door, trips up on the steps and falls headfirst.

  When he gets to the street the dog has disappeared. The street is deserted. He goes to the streetlight, but there's no sign of any pawprints. No sign of any dog.

  Joel sets off running through the night, and it's started snowing again.

  Back in bed he thinks about the dog he's seen. The dog really was there, he'd seen it. Perhaps a dog heading for a star doesn't leave any tracks behind it.

  His fear gradually fades away. The Old Bricklayer can't know that the bike Joel had ridden into the snow had been pinched. And nobody will be able to find his name peed into the snow. By the time he wakes up the yellow marks will have been covered over. I'll get away with it, he thinks.

  But the dog does exist. And the adventure, the great adventure has begun . . .

  4

  A few days later Joel fell asleep at his desk in school.

  He had no idea how it came about. All of a sudden he was just sitting there with his mouth open, fast asleep.

  It was an RE class, and Miss Nederström was red in the face with anger when she shook him by the shoulder to wake him up.

  She had a patch of eczema on her forehead, just under her hair line. When her face turned red and the spots became white, everybody knew that she was furious.

  'Joel,' she bellowed. 'Joel Gustafson! How dare you sleep through my lesson!'

  He woke up with a start. He'd been dreaming something that vanished the moment he woke up. Something about his father. In the dream Joel had been in a vast forest, looking for him, but that was all he could remember.

  When he woke up he couldn't believe that he'd been asleep. Asleep at his desk?

  'No,' he said. 'I wasn't asleep.'

  'Don't sit there telling me barefaced lies. You were asleep. The whole class could see that.'

  Joel looked round. He was surrounded by embarrassed faces, grinning faces, curious faces.

  Faces that told him Miss Nederström was telling the truth. He had fallen asleep.

  He was ordered to leave the room, and Miss Nederström said she would be phoning his father.

  Joel didn't respond.

  She could find out for herself that they didn't have a telephone.

  He sat on the floor in the empty corridor, eyeing all the shoes lined up against the wall. He thought he might get his own back on all those grinning faces by mixing the shoes up. Or throwing them out into the yard. But he decided not to.

  Instead he took The Secret Society logbook out of his pocket. He'd forgotten to put it in Celestine's glass case that morning.

  He searched through the jackets hanging in the corridor until he found a pen, then started writing.

  'The lookout on the mizzen mast, Joel Gustafson, was so exhausted that he fell out of his crow's nest, but survived without serious injury. After resting for merely a couple of hours, he was ready to climb up the mast once more.'

  What he writes is almost word-for-word something he'd read in a book his dad keeps in his little bookcase, and often thumbs through. That's the kind of thing you put in a secret logbook, Joel thinks.

  Only somebody with inside information can know that it's really about him being thrown out of the classroom.

  It's not good, being sent out like that. Better than wearing glasses or stuttering, but not good whichever way you look at it.

  Joel can put up with his classmates grinning at him. So long as you don't start blushing or crying when you're sent out of the room, you are an important person.

  What is not so good is that Miss Nederström might come and visit them once she discovers that the Gustafsons don't have a telephone. If that happens, Joel might have a lot of awkward questions to answer. His father might start to suspect that Joel goes out at night. He tries to think of a good way of solving the problem, but he can't. There are only bad solutions. Like staying behind after school and knocking on the staffroom door and asking to speak to Miss Nederström, and then apologising and explaining that he'd been awake all night with toothache. It's a bad solution because it's a cowardly way out.

  Joel keeps on thinking.

  Maybe he ought to take the cowardly way out after all. The main thing is that his father shouldn't start getting suspicious.

  When the bell rings and the lesson is over, Joel decides to take the cowardly way out. He is responsible for the secret society, and he doesn't want to run the risk of not being able to find that solitary dog.

  When he knocks on the staffroom door after school, Miss Nederström believes every word he tells her. Instead of saying he had toothache, he says he had stomach ache. If you have toothache there is a risk that you might end up having to go to the dentist.

  'It's good that you have come to explain,' she says. 'Now we can forget all about it. But you do understand that I was very cross when I noticed that you were asleep, don't you?'

  'Yes, Miss,' says Joel.

  Slush is sloshing all round his boots as he walks home.

  One day it snows, the next day it thaws.

  Joel hopes that spring will soon be here, but he knows it could just as easily turn very wintry again. The first year he started school, it snowed on the last day of term at the beginning of June. He remembered having holes in his shoes and snow melted inside them, and he burst out sneezing when Miss Nederström asked him a question.

  Joel is not sure whether or not he dares to walk past the cycle shop. Maybe it will be obvious from looking at him that he'd been out that night with The Flying Horse? Or perhaps he might faint as he walks past?

  He's scared of fainting, even though he's never done it. But he often imagines collapsing in a heap when he's said something that isn't true, or done something he ought not to do.

  What frightens him most of all, though, is that he might give himself away. That he might stop outside the shop and shout that he was the one who borrowed the red bike one night when he discovered that the back door was unlocked. There's nothing that scares Joel more that him being unable to stop himself doing something. Not being responsible for his own actions.

  He stops outside Leander Nilson's bakery and looks at the window. It's not the cakes he's examining, but his own reflection. In amongst all the buns and cakes is a mirror, and he can see his face in it.

  Not that there's all that much to see. He has his woolly hat pulled well down over his forehead, and his scarf above his chin. But although he can only see his eyes, his nose and his mouth, he feels he can see his whole face even so.

  He's not pleased with what he sees.

  What is worst is that he thinks he looks like a girl.

  He can't make up his mind why. Besides, nobody has ever told him he looks like a girl. He's the only one who thinks he has a face like a girl's.

  The only bit he thinks is good is his nose. It's not too big and not too small. It's straight, doesn't have any lumps and it's not turned up. There's no chance of it snowing into Joel Gustafson's nose.

  He'd prefer to exchange the rest of his face. Green eyes are nothing worth having. His mouth is too thin and his left ear juts out. His hair is black but it ought to have been fair, or at least brown.

  He also has a crown over his forehead which makes his hair stand up like a fan after it's been cut. His father cuts his hair, and he always clips it too short.

  You ought to be able to choose for yourself what you look like, he thinks. Go through some photographs and say: 'That's how I want to be!'

  What annoys him most of all is that he doesn't look like his dad at all. That must mean that he takes after Jenny, his mother.
>
  It's not good, looking like somebody you've never met, because that means you can't work out what you're going to look like when you grow up. He pulls his hat still further down over his forehead, so that he can only see with one eye.

  If we lived by the sea I'd be able to go down to the shore and look out for ships, he thinks.

  A year ago, when he was ten, it was never difficult to go down to the river and pretend it was the sea. Now that he's eleven, that's only occasionally possible. It gets more and more difficult to imagine things.

  He pulls his hat down over the other eye as well. Now he can only see out through the gaps between the threads. He's caught his face like a fish in a net.

  He decides to go down to the riverbank and see if the snow has melted around his rock. He pulls his hat back up and breaks into a run.

  He tries to think about why it's getting more and more difficult to imagine that the river is really the sea, but it's not easy to think when you're running.

  He takes a short cut through Bodin's timber yard, and hears all the squeaking and whistling from the saws. Then he slides along the ice that always forms in the spring on the hill down towards the bakery. Once he's passed the bakery there's only the long slope down to the riverbank left. The snow is deep there, and he has to trudge through it. Once he's come that far, he suddenly finds it easier to use his imagination. It's not so difficult once all the buildings and people have been left behind.

  The snow he is trudging through is a desert. Vultures are circling over his head, waiting for him to collapse with exhaustion and be unable to get up again. He's all alone in the desert, and in the far distance is his rock. If only he can struggle as far as that, he'll be able to survive . . .

  Suddenly, he stops dead.

  There's a boy he's never seen before sitting on his rock.

  He's completely motionless, and he's looking through a telescope.

  Joel crouches down in the snow.

  This is the first time anybody has ever encroached on Joel's rock.

  Who is he?

  Joel is quite sure he's never set eyes on him before. He's a stranger, unknown.

  Why is he sitting here by the river? What is he looking at through the telescope? Where has he come from?

  Joel cowers down in the snow like a scared rabbit, not taking his eyes off the unknown boy for a moment.

  There is a clattering noise from up on the bridge. The gates close and a goods train comes chugging along through the trees. The smoke from the engine's chimney puffs up into the sky, as if it's the trees that are breathing. The unknown boy aims his telescope at the train.

  Joel can see that he's about his own age. Possibly slightly older. Instead of a woolly hat he's wearing a peaked cap with ear flaps.

  But what has he got on his feet? They look like tennis rackets. Snowshoes!

  The stranger is wearing snowshoes!

  Joel has never seen any snowshoes before, only read about them in one of his father's books.

  He presses himself down deeper into the snow, even though he's starting to feel cold.

  Who is that boy sitting on his rock?

  At that very moment the stranger turns round and looks straight at Joel.

  'What are you lying there for?' he asks? 'Did you think I hadn't seen you?'

  Joel couldn't think of anything sensible to say. He'd thought he was invisible, lying there in the snow. The boy on his rock has been looking through his telescope all the time, after all. How could he possibly have seen Joel?

  The unknown boy jumps down from the rock and starts walking towards Joel on his snowshoes. Joel notes that what he has read in his father's books is true: when you are wearing snowshoes, your feet don't sink into the snow.

  The boy stops in front of Joel.

  'Are you thinking of staying there for good?' he says.

  Joel still couldn't think of anything to say. Besides, the unknown boy is speaking with a peculiar accent. And he's smirking. Smirking non-stop.

  'Who are you?' Joel asks eventually, standing up.

  Although they are the same height, Joel looks like a dwarf, up to his knees in snow.

  'I moved here today,' says the boy. 'I didn't want to, but I was forced to.'

  Joel brushes himself down as he thinks.

  'Where do you come from?' he asks.

  'That doesn't matter,' the boy answers. 'I shan't be staying here anyway.'

  Joel notices that the boy with the snowshoes is red-eyed, as if he'd been crying.

  Joel suddenly loses control over himself. He says something he hadn't intended to say at all.

  When he hears the words spurting out of his mouth, he regrets them right away: but it's too late by then.

  'Those of us who live here don't sit down by the river and start blubbering,' he says.

  The unknown boy looks at him in surprise. Joel wonders if he might be about to get beaten up. The boy in the snowshoes looks strong.

  'I haven't been sitting here crying,' says the boy. 'I rubbed my face with my glove. I forgot that I am allergic to wool. That's why my eyes are red.'

  Joel thinks he understands. There is a girl in his class who starts sneezing whenever anybody smelling of dog comes into the room. It must be the same thing.

  'My name's Ture,' says the boy with the snowshoes.

  Then he walks off, as if he's not the slightest bit interested in knowing that Joel is called Joel.

  Joel watches him go, walking straggle-legged over the snow.

  Whoever he is, he can keep away from my rock, he thinks. If he comes back here again I shall have to think up some way of scaring him off.

  He trudges up the slope, stepping in his old footprints.

  Snowshoes and a telescope, he thinks. Who is he?

  The next day Joel looks round to see if there is anybody new in the school, but he can only see the familiar faces in the playground. As soon as lessons have finished Joel hurries down to the river again.

  As soon as he passes the bakery he can see somebody sitting on the rock in the distance.

  Once again he trudges down the slope, cursing inwardly because he doesn't have any snowshoes.

  'I thought it was you,' said the unknown boy as Joel comes wading up through the snow.

  'That's my rock,' says Joel, and he can feel his voice shaking with anger. 'Nobody else is allowed to sit on it, only me.'

  'Do you have a title deed?' asks the unknown boy, with a grin.

  Title deed? What's that? wonders Joel.

  'If you own a rock you have to have a title deed,' says the boy. 'A certificate of ownership, with an official stamp. You have to have that.'

  'It's my rock,' says Joel angrily.

  His voice isn't shaking any more. He's just angry now.

  The boy suddenly jumps down from the rock and Joel feels sure there's going to be a fight. If the rock is his, he will have to defend it. But instead the boy undoes the straps fastening the snowshoes to his boots.

  'Would you like to try them?' he says.

  Joel looks at him. Is he being serious?

  'That rock is mine,' he says again.

  'I've no intention of taking it off you,' says the boy. 'Are you going to try the snowshoes or aren't you?'

  Joel fastens the straps round his boots.

  It's a remarkable feeling, being able to walk on the snow. It makes him twice as tall. If I have a pair of snowshoes on, I'm as big as a grown-up, he thinks.

  'They were very good,' he says as he returns them. 'They really were very good.'

  'What else are you called, besides Joel?' the unknown boy suddenly asks.

  How on earth does the stranger know that he's called Joel?

  'Gustafson,' he replies. 'But how do you know my name's Joel?'

  'It's carved into the rock,' says the boy. 'It must be you if you say the rock belongs to you.'

  Joel had forgotten that. Scratching his name into the rock last autumn, with a rusty old nail.

  'What about you?' he asks. 'Apart
from Ture?'

  'Swallow. But I'm a nobleman and so I'm called von Swallow. Ture von Swallow.'

  'Eh?' says Joel. 'Surely nobody can have a name like that? And why don't you go to school? Why have you moved here? Where the hell do you live?'

  'My dad's the new district judge,' says Ture. 'We live over the courthouse. I don't need to go to school because it's in the middle of term. Dad fixed that. I'm working at home. But I start school in the autumn. Or so they think. I'll have run away by then. It's not possible to live here. So I shall run away.'

  He takes off one of his gloves and checks his watch.

  'In one week, three days, seven hours and nine minutes from now I shall run away,' he says. 'Just in case you're interested.'

  Joel gapes at him.

  Not that he has his mouth wide open. It's an invisible mouth inside him that's gaping.

  He's never heard a lie like that before. First the boy with the snowshoes claims that he's a nobleman and is called Swallow. Then he says he's going to run away and gives the exact time. Joel would never be able to think up a lie like that. The boy with the snowshoes must be somebody pretty special.

  'Why?' he asks. 'Why are you going to run away just then?'

  'Because there's a train leaving for Orsa at that time,' says the boy with the snowshoes. 'Because Dad will be busy with the sessions then. Nobody will notice me carrying out my suitcase. There's a lot of stuff I need to take with me. That's why it's important that nobody sees me. I could really do with somebody to help me carry it. Maybe you could do that?'

  'Of course I could,' says Joel. 'I've thought about running away as well.'

  What a lie, Joel thinks. He lies so convincingly that it almost seems true.

  'Show me something exciting,' says the boy. 'If there is anything exciting to show round here.'

  Joel trudges after Ture, who is taking big strides on top of the snow.

  Perhaps he'll give me his snowshoes if I help him to run away, Joel thinks.

  That's not true, of course. But still . . .

  They get as far as the bakery, and it's starting to get dark already.

  Out of the blue, Joel knows what he is going to do.

  'There is a secret,' he says. 'But it's at night. Only at night. Maybe you'll be asleep then?'