Nothing (9 page)

There was something eerie about how calm she was. Nevertheless, it was like it was rubbing off on the rest of us. What was to happen was a necessary sacrifice in our struggle for the meaning. We all had to do our bit. We had done ours. Now it was Jon-Johan’s turn.

It’s not like it was that bad.

When Jon-Johan again let out a loud wail,
Hussain lifted up his arm that had just had its plaster cast removed and said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only a finger.”

“Right, it’s not going to kill you,” said Huge Hans from on top of Jon-Johan’s stomach, and forced Jon-Johan’s right hand to open.

“And if it didn’t hurt,” Anna-Li added quietly, “there wouldn’t be any meaning in it.”

————

The knife grated deep into Jon-Johan’s finger with a suddenness that made me gasp. I looked up at my green wedge sandals and took a deep breath. For a second everything was quiet. Then Jon-Johan screamed louder than I’d ever heard anyone scream before. I covered my ears, and still it was unbearable.

Four times Sofie had to go at it with the knife; with Jon-Johan thrashing around so much she had a job getting a clean cut. The third and fourth times I watched. It was actually quite
fascinating to see how the finger turned into threads and stumps of bone. Then everything was blood, and it was just as well Pretty Rosa had been sent outside, because there was lots of it.

It took an age, and then it was over.

Sofie slowly got to her feet, wiped the knife with a handful of sawdust, and then thrust it into the post like before. She wiped her hands on her jeans.

“That’s that,” she said, and went back to look for the finger.

Lady William and Maiken applied a rudimentary dressing to Jon-Johan’s hand, Holy Karl brought his trailer forward, and when Jon-Johan’s legs collapsed beneath him, Huge Hans carried him out and put him into it.

Jon-Johan was sobbing so much he could hardly breathe, and there was a large, brown, evil-smelling stain at the seat of his pants.

“Remember, it’s your turn to decide next!”
Otto shouted to cheer him up, even though there was no one left to be next.

Unless he was thinking about Pierre Anthon.

————

Holy Karl got his pedals going, and the trailer drew briskly away with the whimpering Jon-Johan.

I don’t know what would have happened if Jon-Johan hadn’t told on us. What did happen was that the police turned up at the sawmill before we had any chance to get Pierre Anthon out there.

————

We were still there when they came. All of us.

What they later wrote to our parents was that besides twenty seemingly unmoved seventh graders, they had found a foul-smelling heap of strange and macabre content, including the severed head of a dog, a child’s coffin, possibly with
contents (so as not to interfere with evidence, the coffin hadn’t yet been opened), a bloody index finger, a desecrated Jesus statue, the Dannebrog, a snake preserved in formaldehyde, a prayer mat, a pair of crutches, a neon yellow bicycle, etc.

It was the etc. we found insulting. Like they could reduce the meaning to etc.

Et cetera. And so on. And more of the same that needn’t be mentioned by name, at least not at the present moment.

We were given no chance to object. What a commotion there was.

————

No one saw any reason to take into consideration the fact that it was only eight days before Christmas.

Most of us were grounded, some were given a sound beating, and Hussain was again sent to the hospital where Jon-Johan had also been admitted. They were the lucky ones; they got to share
a room and talk. The only thing I could do was lie in bed and stare at the wall and the striped wallpaper right from when the police took me home and gave the letter to my mother on Saturday afternoon until I was allowed to go to school on Monday morning with orders to come straight home. And that was only the start.

At school we got hauled over again.

We were hard and unyielding. Or rather, almost unyielding: A few started crying and saying they were sorry. Henrik Butter-up started sobbing and said it was all the rest of us who were to blame and that he had never wanted to be a part of any of it. Especially not the business about the snake in formaldehyde.

“Forgive me. Forgive me,” Holy Karl wailed, so we all began to feel bad, so much that Otto eventually had to pinch him hard on the thigh.

“I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again,” whimpered Frederik, and held his back so straight in his chair that it looked like he was standing at attention.
At least until Maiken thrust the sharp end of a pair of compasses into his side.

Sofie looked scornfully from one renegade to the next. She herself was completely calm. And when Eskildsen, after having bawled us out for thirty-eight minutes solid, hammered his fist into his desk and demanded to know the meaning of it all, it was she who replied.

“Meaning.” She nodded, as if to herself. “None of you has taught us any. So now we’ve found it ourselves.”

Sofie was sent up to the principal right away.

Rumor had it she simply repeated the same words to the principal, even if he did give her a detention and bawl her out so it could be heard all the way down in the schoolyard.

When Sofie came back to class again, there was a strange light in her eyes. I studied her for a long time. Apart from a slight blush at the top of her cheeks by the edge of her hairline, her face was pale and unflinching, maybe with a touch of
coldness, but also with a touch of fire for something. Without knowing exactly what, I knew that the fire was something that had to do with the meaning. I decided I wasn’t going to forget it, no matter what happened. No matter that the fire wasn’t something that could be added to the heap, or that I was ever going to be able to explain in any way to Pierre Anthon.

————

At recess we stamped around, discussing what we were going to do.

It was cold, our hats and gloves were no use after only a short while, and the tarmac in the schoolyard was covered by a thin layer of slush that made our boots wet and unpleasant on our feet. But we had no choice; part of our punishment was that we no longer were allowed to spend recess indoors.

Some thought we should tell the whole story and make it clear that it was all Pierre Anthon’s
fault and then return everything to where it came from.

“Then they might let me raise the flag again,” Frederik said hopefully.

“And I could go to church,” added Holy Karl.

“Maybe it would be the best thing to do.” Sebastian looked like he was already looking forward to going fishing again.

“No!” exclaimed Anna-Li, surprising us once again. “If we do that, then none of this has mattered one bit!”

“And nothing’s going to bring Oscarlittle back, is it?” Gerda added angrily, and she was right. Oscarlittle had succumbed to the first night of frost on December 3.

“Poor Cinderella.” Elise sighed at the thought of the dog having died in vain.

I said nothing. It was midwinter, and there was no good to be had of green wedge sandals at this time of year.

So far most of us were sticking together. There
was full support for Sofie when she spat at the ground in front of Holy Karl’s blue boots.

“Scaredy-cats!” she hissed. “Are you really going to give in that easily?”

Frederik and Holy Karl scraped coyly at the tarmac with their heels. Sebastian shrank some.

“It’s just that we’re in so much trouble, and we did do things we’re not supposed to,” Frederik ventured cautiously.

“Isn’t that the meaning we’ve got out there at the sawmill?” Sofie looked Frederik straight in the eye and stared until he lowered his gaze and nodded. “If we give up the meaning, all we have is squat.”

Squat! Zilch! Nothing!

“Are we agreed?” She looked around at the rest of us, more afire than ever before. “Isn’t the meaning more important than anything else?”

“Of course it is,” Otto said, and took the opportunity of giving Frederik a hard shove, so hard he almost made him fall.

The rest of us nodded and mumbled our agreement. Sure it was, of course, and it couldn’t be any other way. For that was how it was.

“There’s only one problem left,” Sofie continued. “How are we going to show Pierre Anthon the heap of meaning?”

She didn’t have to explain what she was thinking. The police had cordoned off the sawmill and the heap of meaning to protect the evidence. And we were all grounded.

The bell sounded, and we were unable to discuss matters further until the next recess.

It was Sofie herself who provided the solution to the first part of the problem.

“With a bit of luck we can get round the cordon,” she said. “There’s a skylight at the side of the building facing away from the road and the entrance. The police aren’t guarding there. If we can get hold of a ladder we can get in that way.”

Being grounded was trickier. Few of us felt inclined to challenge the wrath of our parents right now.

“Perhaps we could ask Pierre Anthon to go out to the sawmill alone and take a look for himself,” Richard suggested.

“He’d never do it,” Maiken said. “He’d think we were out to trick him.”

I had an idea.

“What if
Tæring Tuesday
ran a story about us and the heap? Then he’d be sure to get curious and go out there himself.”

“How are we supposed to get them to run a story about us?” Otto sneered. “The police are keeping it all secret because of our names and our age.”

“We call the paper ourselves and pretend we’re outraged townsfolk who’ve heard about the desecrated Jesus, et cetera.” I chuckled at the thought.

“Just don’t say et cetera when you call them!” Gerda shouted, no doubt thinking about
Oscarlittle lying all stiff in his cage in the middle of the heap.

“I’m not going to make the call!”

“Who else?”

We looked at one another. I’ve no idea why they all ended up looking at me, but I guess that’s what comes of not keeping your mouth shut.

Keeping your mouth shut. Keeping it locked. Don’t say ____ .

I could have swallowed my tongue.

————

That afternoon I wasn’t alone in the house for even a moment. The same again the following day. But the third day was perfect: My brother was at a soccer game, and my mom was going out to the store. No sooner had she cycled out of the driveway than I made straight for the telephone in the kitchen and pushed the number.

“
Tæring Tuesday
,” said a sharp female voice.

“I’d like to speak to the editor, please,” I said,
mostly because I didn’t know who else to ask for. I’d put a blouse over the receiver. It wasn’t enough.

“Who should I say is calling?” asked the female voice, rather too inquisitively.

“Hedda Huld Hansen.” It was the only name I could think of in a hurry, even if I did regret it right away, since this was supposed to be anonymous. Still, it wasn’t my name but the wife of the priest’s, so why should I care? At least now I was being put through to the editor.

“Søborg speaking,” he announced in a deep, resonant voice.

The voice was a comfort. It sounded kind and gentle, like my granddaddy’s, so I went whole hog.

“Hedda Huld Hansen here. I’d like you to treat this in the utmost confidence, but I do believe it to be a matter
Tæring Tuesday
ought to take up.” I drew my breath heavily, as if something was preying on my mind. “I’m sure you’ve heard
about some of these dreadful goings-on at the church. First there was the business of the vandalism at the churchyard, with two gravestones being stolen, and then there was our very own Jesus on the Rosewood Cross being taken from the church, and on a Sunday at that.” Again I took a sharp breath, making a hollow, rushing sound. “What I am certain you do not know, however, is that these national treasures have now been recovered. Together with the coffin of a small child, what’s more, with contents, who knows, and a snake in formaldehyde, and a neon yellow bicycle, and” — I lowered my voice — “a dog with its poor throat cut, and a dead hamster, a bloody index finger, and much more besides. Including a pair of green sandals.” I couldn’t help mentioning the sandals, even though it probably wasn’t wise. Fortunately, the editor didn’t pay it any mind.

“How very appalling.”

“Indeed. Shocking, don’t you think? Out at the disused sawmill. And they say there’s a group
of children who have been collecting all these, what are we to call them, objects, with the idea of finding meaning. Indeed, there’s supposed to be some kind of heap of meaning out there!” Again I drew breath sharply through my teeth, almost whistling.

The editor repeated his view that this certainly was an appalling matter, but unfortunately he had no one to put on the story at the moment, what with Christmas coming up. Before concluding the conversation, however, he made sure that the disused sawmill Hedda Huld Hansen was referring to was the one on Tæring Markvej on the outskirts of the town.

I think he believed it was all just a made-up tale, but still I hoped it had made him curious enough to put a journalist onto it. To be on the safe side, I called Sofie. It was perhaps a good idea to keep a lookout for anyone coming by the sawmill.

————

There was a Christmas party at school (which we were excluded from attending), then came the day before Christmas Eve (and now our parents’ hearts finally started to thaw), then it was Christmas Eve itself (and happily we were able to ascertain that we got just as many gifts as our more well-behaved brothers and sisters, and just as many as we’d gotten in previous years). But true Christmas arrived only on the day before New Year’s Eve, when
Tæring Tuesday
ran a story about demons having found their way to Tæring.

The demons were us.

Page three carried an exhaustive description of the heap of meaning.

Because our names weren’t allowed to be made public, we weren’t mentioned specifically; it just said that one of the senior classes at Tæring School was suspected of being involved. We were more than a little proud of ourselves, even if Pierre Anthon still hadn’t shown up at the sawmill. When school started again on January 4, we paraded
around the schoolyard, pulling ourselves up to full height and looking all superior so that the other seventh graders and the junior classes, too, could be left in no doubt that we knew something they didn’t. Several tried pumping us, but the only thing we were willing to reveal was that we had found the meaning.