by Maria Parr
“Do you seriously think we’re going to tow you all the way out to Kobbholmen?” I asked despairingly, looking at the enormous raft on the pebbles by the shore. “It’ll take all day.”
“I’ve got plenty of time,” said Lena, her mouth full of screws. “I’ve got to check if this thing’s seaworthy, after all.”
I knew it was pointless arguing, so I went into the old boat shed to find a suitable rope. As I scanned all the hooks and shelves, I suddenly spotted a bottle with a piece of paper in it. It was hidden up on a rafter right inside the shed.
“It’s a message in a bottle,” said Lena from behind me. “I found it that day back in the winter when we were looking for wreckage. When Birgit came back, you remember?”
Just her name gave me a wistful sinking feeling.
“Who is it from, then?”
“Who do you think?” Lena asked dryly.
I opened the bottle and unrolled the sheet of paper. It was from us, of course, and yet it felt like it was from somebody else. Childish writing careened across the paper.
Deer whoever finds this messidge in a botl we are too frends from mathildewik cove and our fone number is . . .
“This is ancient,” I said, stunned.
I read it again. My heart beat warmly but painfully in my chest. I pictured Lena and me as we’d been when we were young. Two good friends in our welly boots, throwing out messages in bottles just a few yards from shore, thinking they’d travel the world.
“I wasn’t very good at spelling then,” I mumbled, so Lena wouldn’t see that I was almost crying.
Lena could see it anyway. She tilted her head and gave me a kind look.
“I know. Imagine that, Trille. A gifted child like you.”
Then she started waving a coil of rope impatiently. “Are we going outside, then?”
We put out to sea. Grandpa stood calmly and slightly stoop-shouldered, squinting as usual. He had his injured hand in his overall pocket and his good hand on the wheel. Now and then, he glanced back and chuckled. A giant raft, made from the wreckage of one of the worst hurricanes of all time, was heavily pounding through the sea behind us, its happy owner and ship’s dog on board.
“If she bumped into the ferry with that thing, I truly don’t know who would sink first,” Grandpa grumbled. Then he raised his shoulders slightly and turned toward me.
“Well, time for an old man to have some coffee. Do you want to take over here, Trille?”
He let go of the wheel and stepped aside. A fresh breeze ruffled my hair as I took control. I could still feel the warmth of Grandpa’s hand in the wood. Birgit was in the Netherlands, but the ocean lay ahead of me, wide and blue. Far out there, by Kobbholmen, was a fishing line in the sea, exactly where my grandmother had once shown it was a good place to put it. And towed behind us, using the most solid rope in Mathildewick Cove, was my best friend and neighbor on her raft.
“Hey, Trille!” Lena yelled from back there.
She’d gotten to her feet and raised her hand to her mouth, like she does when she calls to the back line in her team. Her voice carried like an earthquake in all directions. I looked quizzically at her, an old feeling of joy bubbling in my stomach. Lena waved and laughed, and then she shouted with all her might:
“Do you think we can speed this convoy up a bit?”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text © 2017 Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo
Originally published as Keeperen og havet by Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo
Published in arrangement with Hagen Agency, Oslo
English language translation © 2020 Guy Puzey
Cover and interior illustrations © 2020 Lara Paulussen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First US electronic edition 2021
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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