The Story of the Blue Planet (6 page)

“Oof, not much, just a small dash of youth in addition.”

“Just a few %?” asked the children.

“Yes, just a very few % in addition.”

The children realized it wasn’t really expensive to pay with a little youth from the enormously deep well in order to do without having to bathe themselves in the cold waterfall spray.

“Hooray for Jolly-Goodday!”

Now everything was really perfect for the children on the island and they danced in the blue sky. They could fly whenever they wanted, the sun shone all day, the sky was clear and blue, and they were coated with Teflon
^®
wonder stuff, which kept them squeaky clean.

“And now you’re ready for the flying competition of the century!” cried Jolly-Goodday. “More speed! More excitement! More fun!”

“Hooray,” shouted the children. “Now we’re really going to have a good time!”

The Great Flying Competition and into the Blue

Jolly-Goodday took a loudspeaker and blared out:

“The great flying competition is about to begin. Now we’ll really find out who’s the best on the island!”

The children looked at Jolly-Goodday in amazement.

“But everyone’s the best at something.”

“But the one who’s the best at flying is the very best of all, and now it’s time for the flying fun competition!”

“I pick Hulda,” said Brimir.

“No, no, there’s no fun having people in teams,” said Jolly-Goodday. “Let’s have everyone against everyone else instead. The one who reaches the highest is the best of you all. Off you go!”

The kids shot up into the air shouting and screaming. Elva and Magni were equal in first place and zoomed like jet fighters straight up into the sky, but a black and white flock of terns jabbed them back down to the ground. Arnar the thinker then took the lead, but he collided with a gaggle of geese and crashed to the ground with them. Brimir and Hulda were soon, by far and away, flying the highest.

“I must get above her,” thought Brimir, and with difficulty climbed just a fraction higher than Hulda.

They were now the only ones left in the competition and were soaring at a fearful height. The land below seemed tiny and the children on the ground were no longer even little dots, indeed the lakes and forests were like little blue and green spots.

They had reached higher than the jabbing terns, higher than the gliding gannets, higher than the soaring swans, and finally even higher than the eager eagle. They had reached as high as the butterfly powder would allow them and they would have been dead level if Brimir’s hair hadn’t stood on end.

“Ha, ha! Tough luck! I win! You lose!” called out Brimir triumphantly.

Hulda’s cheeks burned red. “Hair doesn’t count.”

“Ha, ha! Sure it does. Sour grapes!”

“I wished I could get much higher than you,” shouted Hulda.

But Hulda had forgotten that she had an amazingly beautiful wishing stone. As soon as she had spoken the stone changed into an ordinary gray pebble and Hulda shot far up into the sky. Brimir managed to grab hold of her belt as they zoomed even higher at a tremendous speed.

“Cheater! I won, I’m the best!” cried Brimir.

“No, let me go! I won!”

Brimir bit Hulda’s foot hard and she tore out a large chunk of his hair. And that’s how they fought in the sky, propelled by the power of the wishing stone, higher and higher.

“Traitor!” shouted Brimir. “You destroyed the wishing stone.”

“Idiot! I could make any wish I wanted.”

Brimir and Hulda were now dangerously high in the sky. If a gust of wind hadn’t blown them sideways they would certainly have flown far out into space and been lost, or made a hole in the ozone layer and been burned by the sun. The gust of wind blew them a very long way. They were blown over the high mountains and the narrow gorges, and finally far out to sea. But Brimir and Hulda did not see any of this because they were quarreling and squabbling, screaming and scratching, punching and pummelling. It was not until much later that they looked down and noticed that they couldn’t see the island anymore. Below them was nothing but an endless ocean with whales and sharks, and in the distance a glint of unknown mountains, valleys, and clouds.

“Now see what you’ve done,” cried Brimir. “We’ve been blown off into the blue.”

“Blue? Where is this blue anyhow?”

“Oh, shut up, Hulda!”

“Oh, shut up yourself, Brimir, you jerk,” said Hulda. “You just had to go and grab me.”

“And I had to go and give you the wishing stone.”

The children became silent as they were blown even further along. They were blown so far from the nailed sun that it became a red spot above the ocean in the west.

“Look!” said Brimir suddenly.

“What,” said Hulda irritably.

“The sun is setting.”

“So what.”

“I’d forgotten how beautiful the sunset is,” said Brimir.

Hulda said nothing, but Brimir noticed how she watched the sun set, how it was reflected in her eyes. The power of the butterfly powder only works in sunlight, however, and they had now been blown over to the other side of the planet. It was pitch-black there because the sun could only shine on one side of the planet at a time. Underneath the darkness lay a land with forests and lakes.

“Oh, no! We’re falling!” shouted Brimir.

“Oh, I don’t want to die,” wailed Hulda.

They were falling fast. The wind whistled through their hair. The land approached with growing speed. They were now lower than the eager eagle, lower than the soaring swans, lower than the gliding gannets. They were now so low that they landed on the ground with a crash.

Wind-cold Wolf-trees

In a dark forest a weak sound could be heard from under the bushes.

“Hulda! Hulda! Are you all right?” Brimir felt his way with his hands. “Hulda, where are you?”

“I’m here, Brimir.”

Her voice echoed in the gloom. When his eyes had gotten used to the darkness he could see where Hulda was hanging from a tree.

“Shall I help you down?” asked Brimir.

“I can manage by myself. Leave me alone!”

A great cracking sound could be heard as Hulda tumbled from the tree. Brimir hovered anxiously over her.

“Are you okay?”

“Leave me alone. It was the easiest way to get down.”

Brimir was silent, but he saw that Hulda had hurt herself. They were in a forest, but the trees were bare and leafless. The wind whistled through the naked branches. The sky was full of clouds.

“What shall we do?” asked Brimir. “We’re lost.”

“We? Are you going to follow me? I don’t need you.”

Brimir remained silent and looked sadly at Hulda.

“But we’ll never find our way in this darkness,” he finally said.

“I’m going to wait until morning,” said Hulda. “I can fly home when the sun comes up.”

Hulda sat down under a tree and covered herself with a pile of faded leaves. Brimir walked dejectedly to another tree, rubbed together two sticks and lit a little fire with some dry twigs. In the fire’s glow he saw Hulda shivering with cold.

“Don’t you want to warm yourself by my fire, Hulda?”

She made no reply.

And that’s how they sat waiting for daybreak. Hulda shivered and Brimir sat by the fire. The night was unbelievably long. Brimir was starving but no fruit could be found on the trees and there were no animals in sight. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

When Brimir woke up the sun had still not risen. Nonetheless he felt as if he’d slept long and well. After pondering this for a short while, his face suddenly turned deathly pale.

“Hulda!”

“What now
_;
you jerk!”

“I don’t think the sun’s going to rise.”

“Talk about being pessimistic! Of course the sun will rise.”

“Haven’t you forgotten something, Hulda? We let Jolly-Goodday fix the sun over our island so there’d be everlasting day.”

“Oh, no,” said Hulda. “And now we’re on the other side of the planet in endless night.”

“Which means we’ll have to walk all the way home.”

“Don’t you think Jolly-Goodday will save us? He always saves the day and the kids must be getting worried about us.”

Brimir and Hulda waited a while longer; they fell asleep and woke up a few times, but it was always to the same darkness and no one came to save them. Their tummies began to rumble in unison.

“They’ve forgotten us.”

“Maybe they’ve forgotten you, but not me,” said Hulda sulkily.

“But it’s always noon on our island, they don’t realize how long we’ve been missing.”

“They must be on the way. I’m going to wait.”

“I want to leave right now,” said Brimir.

“Go then! See if I care.”

Brimir set off into the forest. Hulda remained seated on her own.

“Wait a minute, Brimir!”

“Are you coming with me?”

“No, I’m going to walk behind you, so the wild animals will eat you first.”

Brimir didn’t answer her, but Hulda followed right behind him. They got stung by thistles and stumbled over fallen tree trunks.

In the darkness the trees were like ogres and monsters; their branches were long gnarled hands that stretched out to catch them and keep them in the forest. Sometimes they creaked and cracked as if they could talk: