Adventures with Waffles (13 page)

I thought for a bit, then shook my head. There are lots of things that Lena doesn’t say.

“She’s never told me that I’m her best friend,” I said to Mom. “Do you think I am?”

Mom smiled. “Yes, I think so.”

“But you can’t be completely sure,” I said.

No, Mom said, you could never be completely sure if she didn’t say so. She had to agree with that.

I didn’t think Lena could be all that upset now, though.

“Isn’t it great that I’ve moved in?” she kept on saying, grinning widely.

“Goodness gracious me, yes,” Grandpa answered. “Trille and I thought it was pretty tame in Mathildewick Cove during that week when you weren’t here.”

In the afternoons, Lena and I had so much fun with Grandpa that we couldn’t get back from school quickly enough. One day when we had come back and thrown our bags by the door, Grandpa asked us if we wanted to go with him up to Hillside Jon’s farm. The snow had disappeared, so we could ride our bikes instead of sledding.

But biking up to Hillside Jon’s, while trying to keep up with Grandpa on his “super-duper-tuned” moped, was almost as tiring as pulling Lena all the way up there on the sled. Grandpa had the moped at full throttle, and he laughed at us trailing behind. After that day, Lena and I gave Hillside Jon a new name: Hilltop Jon.

When Hilltop Jon was young, he was a sailor, and he lost one of his eyes in an accident. Since then, he’s worn a black pirate’s patch.

“I only see half of the world, and thank God for that,” he tends to say.

Children are often scared of him because of the eye patch, but Lena and I both know that Hilltop Jon isn’t dangerous. On the contrary, there are a lot of good things about him, and the best of all is Hillside Molly, his horse. In summer she grazes at the edge of the forest, and in winter she eats inside her stable.

“That mare is so intelligent that she can practically whinny hymns,” Grandpa says.

When we finally got up there, Grandpa and Hilltop Jon sat on the steps drinking coffee, while Lena and I ran into the stable.

“She’s quite an old horse,” said Lena, tilting her head in the semi-darkness.

“She’s intelligent,” I said.

“How do you know that? Can you neigh?”

No, I couldn’t. I just knew, but it was no good trying to explain that to Lena.

We stayed with Hillside Molly for a long while. We stroked her and talked to her, and Lena gave her a candy. I decided that she had to be the best horse in all the world.

“The horse ate a piece of candy,” I told Grandpa when we got back to the moped.

“That was probably the last candy she’ll ever have,” said Grandpa, tightening his helmet.

“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise, but by then Grandpa had started the engine and couldn’t hear anything.

When we got home and he’d finally stopped the engine, I ran over and grabbed his hand.

“What do you mean, her last candy?”

Grandpa muttered a little, but then he said that Hilltop Jon was so old that he was going to a retirement home, and Molly was so old that nobody wanted her. “Getting old stinks,” Grandpa mumbled angrily, shutting the door in my face.

“What are they going to do with Molly, then?” I shouted through the closed door.

Grandpa didn’t answer. He sat indoors being angry because people and horses and grandpas get old. But Lena answered, loud and clear: “There are no retirement homes for horses. Don’t you get it? She’s going to be put down.”

I stared at Lena for a long moment. Then I yelled, as loudly as she normally does, “THEY CAN’T!”

“Can’t,” repeated Krølla seriously.

I told Mom and Dad. I cried and said that they couldn’t put down horses that were as intelligent as Molly.

“But, Trille dear, we send sheep to be slaughtered every single year, and you never make such a fuss about that!” said Mom, trying to dry my tears.

“Molly’s no sheep!”

They didn’t understand a thing!

The next day, Molly was all I could think about. That good-natured horse who had never done anything wrong to anyone but who was going to die. During math class, I almost started crying. That would have been pretty embarrassing! I glanced at Lena. She was looking out the window. There are no retirement homes for horses, she’d said.

Suddenly I stood up, tipping over my chair.

“Ellisiv, Lena and I have got to have the rest of the day off,” I said, distressed.

Lena had no idea what I was talking about. Still, she stuffed her math book into her bag determinedly, put on a serious face, and said, “It’s a matter of life and death!”

And while Ellisiv and the others watched in astonishment, Lena and I stormed out of the classroom with our bags half open.

“Have you got ants in your pants?” Lena exclaimed breathlessly as we ran through the woods on our way home.

“We’re going to start a retirement home for horses!” I shouted enthusiastically.

Lena stopped dead in her tracks. Apart from some birds singing and us panting after all that running, it was completely quiet. I looked at her anxiously. What if she didn’t like the idea? But then came the beaming response: “What an incredibly brilliant idea to come up with right in the middle of math class, Trille!”

Grandpa was the only one who was home. That was good. He was the only one who would be any help. I sat down next to him on the porch.

“We can keep Molly in the old stables, Grandpa. She can live there. Imagine how happy Hilltop Jon will be if he doesn’t have to send her to the slaughterhouse! I’ll cut the grass and rake it up and dry it and look after her and feed her, and Lena can help. Right, Lena?”

Lena nodded. She might as well help a bit with that old horse, she said. I could see that she was happy because of missing math.

“And maybe you could help too, Grandpa?” I asked weakly, hardly daring to look at him. Grandpa rubbed his tanned, wrinkled hands on his knees and looked thoughtfully out to sea.

“For example, maybe you could be the grown-up who gives us permission,” I said, even more weakly.

It was difficult to ask for something like this. I could feel that the tears were on their way again, and I fought to hold them back. Grandpa fixed his gaze on me.

“Oh, suffering sticklebacks, all right! There’s no reason young Trille and the girl from next door couldn’t cope with looking after a horse,” he said eventually.

There were two good reasons for riding in the moped box this time, Grandpa said. First, we had to make it up to Hilltop Jon before he sent Molly away on the slaughter truck. Second, we had to make it up to Hilltop Jon before Grandpa had time to think again.

“Because right now I must be out of my mind!” he said.

We braked suddenly in the farmyard up at Hillside. There was a car there. It was Vera Johansen’s. Hilltop Jon is her uncle. She was helping him with the packing and the cleaning before he went to the retirement home. As for Hilltop Jon himself, he was sitting on a chair, looking helpless. Grandpa stuck his hands into his overall pockets and nodded silently to his best friend.

“The young boy’s got something he wants to ask you,” he said, clearing his throat and pushing me across the floor.

“I . . .” I whispered. “I was just wondering whether I could take Hillside Molly. We’re going to start a retirement home for horses. Lena, Grandpa, and me . . .”

It turned so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop, and I barely dared to look at Hilltop Jon. He brushed his hand quickly over his good eye.

“Bless you, boy,” he said. “But Molly left on the ferry twenty minutes ago.”

As I stood in front of Hilltop Jon, looking into his sad eye, I thought I’d never be happy ever again, just like the day when Lena left. But then Lena herself piped up.

“Hello? Are we going to start a retirement home or aren’t we?” she said indignantly, pulling me by the jacket. “Surely a horse can’t be finished off that quickly!”

And she ran outside. All Grandpa and I could do was follow her. As we were starting the moped, Hilltop Jon came tottering out onto the step. He waved at us, with many different emotions showing on his face.

“Drive, Grandpa! Drive like a madman!” I shouted, hoping we might be able to catch up with the next ferry.

And Grandpa drove. I understood for the first time why Mom didn’t want us to sit in that box. Even Lena looked a little scared as we went down the hill. We were going so fast and bumping around so terribly that I bit my tongue three times. But still we weren’t going fast enough.

“Keep going! The ferry’s put down the barrier!” I shouted.

“Come back, you stupid ferry!” shouted Lena.

We jumped out of the box and waved our arms.

The captain spotted us, and maybe he saw that Grandpa was waving too, because he came back. The ferry docked with a bang, and Able Seaman Birger let us aboard. Dad was on his lunch break and was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe it’s best if you don’t tell Dad that we’re here right now,” I said to Able Seaman Birger.

“Why not?” he asked.

“It’s a surprise,” said Lena. “It’s his birthday,” she added.

Able Seaman Birger looked at Grandpa, and Grandpa nodded sincerely.

“Yes, you look after that young lad. He’s forty-four today,” he said, giving Birger such a slap on the back that it made his ticket bag jangle. I looked at Grandpa and Lena in shock. What were they talking about?

“Sometimes it’s all right to tell white lies, Trille, my boy,” said Grandpa. “And this will be just great for your father. Maybe Able Seaman Birger will put together some cake and a present!”

I don’t think it had ever taken the ferry so long to get to town. I stood peering over the ferry door the whole way, and it felt like we were never getting any closer. But with every second that passed, Hillside Molly was getting closer to the slaughterhouse.

“We’re never going to make it in time,” I said. “I just want to jump overboard and swim!”

“If you’re going to splash about in the middle of the fjord without a life jacket, then you’ll definitely never make it in time!” Lena helpfully informed me.

Grandpa looked at his watch.

When we finally reached town, Grandpa drove even faster, but he threw the woolen blanket over Lena and me so that nobody would see us. Especially not the police. I lay there thinking about all the forbidden things we’d done that day: skipping math class, lying to Able Seaman Birger, starting a retirement home without permission, and riding in the moped box down the hill and through town. I felt really bad about it. But then I pictured Hillside Molly.

“Dear God, please let us make it!”

“Wait here,” Grandpa said strictly when we got to the slaughterhouse.

And then he tramped inside in his overalls and wooden shoes. Lena and I stood waiting in the middle of the large parking lot. So this was where we sent sheep every autumn, I thought, and my stomach began to hurt a little. We couldn’t hear a sound from inside.

“Maybe she’s already been turned into sausages,” Lena said after a while. “Just waiting for the mayonnaise.”

“Stop it,” I mumbled angrily.

But Hillside Molly had gotten there almost an hour before us. She was most likely no longer alive. Why wasn’t Grandpa coming out? Maybe he couldn’t bear to tell me. I tried not to cry, but I had tears in my eyes. Lena kicked her shoe on the pavement and pretended that she didn’t see.

Then the door finally opened, and out came Grandpa—without Molly.

“Oh, no!” I shouted.

“Now, now, Trille. I couldn’t exactly lead her through their offices, could I? We’ve got to go around to the other side to get her.”

We had made it after all! But as Grandpa said, it was a close shave. Suddenly there I was with my own horse in an enormous parking lot. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so happy!

We made quite a funny procession as we strolled back through town. Grandpa went first on his moped. I followed, leading Molly, and finally along came Lena, who kept announcing that it looked like Molly was about to poop. Molly didn’t poop until we got to the ferry line. We took our places behind a black Mercedes—Grandpa on his moped, then me with the horse, and finally Lena.

“Now she’s pooping like there’s no tomorrow!” Lena shouted joyfully.

People looked at us strangely, and I was glad I had found myself such a wise and gentle horse who stood there so calmly; otherwise it would probably have been mayhem.

Actually, fairly soon it was mayhem, because Dad had finished his break. He was standing on the bow as the ferry moored. When he spotted us, he gaped so widely that I could see his wisdom teeth all the way from the shore. In his astonishment, he forgot to wave the Mercedes and the other cars aboard. They started up anyway, and we followed them toward Dad, who was standing in the middle of the deck with a birthday party hat sticking out of his pocket. The Mercedes rumbled by first, then Grandpa chugged by, then Hillside Molly and I walked on board, with me not daring to look at Dad, and afterward came Lena, smiling broadly. She likes a commotion.

Dad sold the Mercedes a ticket first, so he could collect his thoughts. Then he came to Grandpa on his moped. Dad was red in the face and had probably planned an entire speech. But Grandpa clambered off his moped, drew out his wallet, and said: “One senior, two children, and a horse, please.”

“And many happy returns of the day!” added Lena.

That day, Dad said he was going to be old long before his time because of us, but Lena said it didn’t matter: he could get a place at our retirement home too. Even though it was mainly for horses.