He has mostly nice things to say. Hattie does her homework, can add and subtract, and puts her hand up often. Mama and Papa smile. Papa’s cheeks puff with pride when the teacher says that Hattie writes the longest essays in the class. Even when the teacher says the essays are even a little too long sometimes, Papa shines like the summer sun. “Little shrimp,” he mumbles and laughs.
“Hrm,” says the new teacher. “What Hattie should think about is not being so cocky. She has too much to say.”
Mama and Papa stop smiling.
In the car on the way home they mutter that only proper teachers should be allowed to speak up in parent–teacher talks. Then Hattie hears her father joke that the new teacher’s face is like a waffle because of the holes in her cheeks. Her mother giggles.
“Yes!” cries Hattie. “A waffle!”
Her parents press their lips closed. “Shush,” says Mama. “It’s not funny. It’s just your father being silly.”
But Hattie heard what Papa said. Ha ha! She thinks the teacher looks like a waffle too.
SEVEN YEARS OLD
When they get home from the parent–teacher meeting, Hattie’s mother runs into her room and locks the door. Hattie knows what she’s doing in there.
“Can I come in?” she calls through the keyhole with her syrupy-sweetest voice.
“No!” her mother replies, and Hattie hears the wonderful rustle of wrapping paper. Tomorrow she turns seven years old!
She stands for a while outside the door and whines just like Tacka does.
“I’ll put tape over the keyhole if you don’t go away,” Mama says.
Then Hattie runs away. It’s not even a month since Christmas but she’s already longing for more presents!
At bedtime she lies for hours blinking at the ceiling. It’s made of planks. The round knots look like thousands of flying saucers whizzing around in space. They’re looking for a place to land but they never find one.
Hattie squints. The bed is hot and uncomfortable. Snoopy’s awake too, thinking about her birthday. The floppy head hangs to his belly and the long ears are spread onto the pillow. Hattie lifts one. “What do you think I’ll get for my present?” she whispers.
“Skis,” Snoopy thinks. Because he’s seen her parents smuggling in a very long package. Hattie saw it too. Snoopy’s probably right.
“But what else do you think?” she mumbles and a yawn slips out. “What else could there be?”
Snoopy doesn’t answer. He’s fallen asleep. So Hattie pulls the soft, white body closer. She feels her eyelids become heavy. Snoopy’s fur tickles under her nose. At last she falls asleep too.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!” Her parents’ voices find their way to her ears. Hattie blinks tiredly, then when she remembers what day it is, she bounces awake and sits up in bed. Snoopy’s been awake for hours. Now they’re in the doorway, her mother and father with all the presents. Papa is carrying a tray with a cloth and flowers. Soon Hattie sits in a pile of presents.
She is given skis exactly as Snoopy thought. They’re thin and racer-quick. A pair of poles comes in the same package. The absolutely best present is the game of Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter with Borka, Lovis, the rumphobs and all. Hattie loves board games! As long as she wins.
In the first class at school everyone stands up, except for Hattie. They sing, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Hattie, happy birthday to you!” The teacher says, “Hip, hip,” and the class shouts, “hooray!” Hattie sits at her desk and enjoys it.
“I’m first in the class to have my birthday,” she says at morning break. Then Ellen and Karin say that it’s much better to have your birthday in summer because January is so close to Christmas and you’ve already had a whole lot of presents. A birthday in January is all wrong, they think. Hattie looks at the floor.
Then Linda says that it’s good to have your birthday in January. And that Ellen and Karin have big bottoms. And Hattie is happy again!
When Karin and Ellen have run away, Linda puts her hand in her pocket. It bulges as if there’s a whole roll of toilet paper in there. “I have something,” she says, pulling out a package. She’s painted the paper herself, with Roy on it, and she’s written, Happy Birthday Hattie from Linda.
Hattie opens it carefully so the painting isn’t spoiled. “Thank you!” she says, pulling out two stretchy bands with little clasps at their ends.
“It’s sleeve holders,” Linda explains. She shows on Hattie’s shirt how to use the clasps to keep her sleeves up. “For when you do baking or dishes,” she says. “Momma’s making sleeve holders for the factory now. She’s finished with suspenders.”
Hattie wears the sleeve holders all day. They’re pink.
In the evening she tests her new Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter game with her parents. They all sit down in the living room and set up the board.
Soon they are deep in the dark Matt’s Wood. You have to get to Bear Cave alive and as quick as you can. Every time you throw the dice, you take a card from the pile on the table. The cards are terrible. They might say something like: Wild fiends! Everyone must jump back heaps of steps or: Underground fog! Danger, danger! Throw the dice to see if you die! Sometimes they just say: Nothing much happens.
Hattie is on tenterhooks every time she has to pick a card. Behind every tree stump new dangers lurk. She really wants to go straight to Bear Cave without meeting all the terrible things along the way.
Her parents think nothing of the danger. They just shrug their shoulders as they dangle over the Gap of Hell with only a spindly leather strap around their waists. But Hattie’s going to faint!
And quite suddenly she’s begun to cheat. She hardly noticed it happening, except that she can’t bear another second in Matt’s Wood, with all the monsters waiting to eat her up. It feels so real: if she doesn’t cheat, she’ll die!
She takes a card from the pile. She doesn’t even look at it. “Nothing much happens,” she says, quick as a wink putting the card back at the bottom of the pile. Then it’s her father’s turn. Then it’s her mother’s, then Hattie’s again. “Nothing much happens.” She puts the card at the bottom of the pile.
Soon Hattie has run all the way through Matt’s Wood without meeting even an ant. Her parents think it’s strange that they get the dangerous cards so often, and Hattie doesn’t get a single one. When Hattie says for the fourteenth time, “Nothing much happens,” and is about to put the card back, her mother is quick.
“Let’s see it,” she says and snaps the card away. Then she reads out: “Bottomless ravine. Jump right in.”
Her mother and father are cross. They think it’s no fun to play with a cheater. Hattie glares at the floor and feels tears looming. It’s actually not as easy as they think to be a child in Matt’s Wood! How can they ask someone who’s only seven years old to jump down into the bottomless ravine with a heel kick and a yell?
“But those are the rules,” says Mama. “It can’t be helped if it’s dangerous, you have to do it anyway. Otherwise the game doesn’t work.”
It’s so unfair. Her parents understand nothing! They should play in teams so the grown-ups can protect the children and sacrifice themselves when someone has to drop into a deadly ravine. And where is Birk when you need him? In the movie, at least there are two of them thrashing around together in the waterfall. Hattie cries and shudders, thinking of the ravine. She doesn’t want to die!
Then she doesn’t need to. “We’ll finish playing another time,” says her mother.
They pack up the board and say goodbye to Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter.
She’ll have to do the best she can among the gray wolves. Hattie dries the tears from her cheeks. At least she’s made it out alive from the dangerous Matt’s Wood!
THE LONG SKI TOUR
Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter can stay in the wardrobe until someone wants to see her again. But not the new skis. Only a few days later it’s time to “go on tour” at scho
ol!
The teacher explains: Going on tour means that you don’t go fast and compete to see who’s best, but you ski gently for a long time and enjoy the outdoors.
The teacher comes from town and always wants the children to get out and enjoy the outdoors. He forgets that they’ve grown up in the country and have seen nothing but the outdoors their whole lives.
He stands in front of them in the playground looking cheerful. Snow crystals glisten in his big beard and his breath steams. It’s minus eighteen degrees and everyone is wearing hats like bank robbers, except in bright patterns.
Hattie’s already shivering. Her clothes are so thick she can hardly bend over to clip on her skis, but still the cold reaches right to her bare skin.
“Off we go!” the teacher commands. He’s going first. All the children will go in the middle, and at the back is the teacher with the pockmarked skin—Waffle. Hattie is second to last, with only Waffle behind her. They ski off over the playground.
It’s hard work and boring. The new skis aren’t at all racer-quick; they’re as slow as any old pair of planks. Her boots are wet in two seconds flat and her toes turn to ice in three.
“Keep up!” calls the teacher. “Keep an even distance and try to avoid gaps in our convoy!”
But someone has already stopped, and the convoy looks more like a necklace with several dropped beads. “Stop, I’ve lost a ski!” “Wait, she’s lost a ski!” they shriek over each other.
The teacher sighs. He wants a pleasant ski tour, not ten-pin bowling.
Hattie grimaces with her stiff face. Minus degrees cling like cold leeches to your body.
“How far is it to go?” she calls to the teacher.
He laughs. “We’re still in the school grounds! We’ll go past the church, down to the forest and take a swing around the paddocks before we come back!” He is overjoyed at how far they still have to go.
Hattie doesn’t know what to do. She wiggles her aching toes. They feel as if they could fall off at any moment, like ten small icicles.
She turns around and sees Waffle struggling right behind her. The pitted cheeks have white flecks and her lips are completely blue. Waffle meets her eyes with a desperate look. “Nothing for it but to keep going,” she says.
Just across the playground is the nice warm school. Hattie turns and skis on with a heavy heart. There is still so far to go.
Then they come to a ditch that runs straight through the field, forming a deep moat. The water in the bottom is frozen and now the class has to cross over it.
The teacher goes first to show how it’s done. He steps sideways down the steep edge, stabbing with his poles to keep him steady. It looks elegant. He climbs up in the same way and soon he’s on the other side, waving to the next in line. “Just do exactly as I did!” he calls.
The convoy begins to step down into the ditch. Soon they’re all over, except for Hattie and Waffle. The teacher urges the new teacher on with his pole. “Off I go again with these ones, and you can help the last one!” he calls. The line of small skiers moves off.
Hattie looks at Waffle.
Waffle blinks at the deep ditch.
“Oh my goodness,” she mumbles and swallows. Then she drags in a deep breath.
Hattie sees that she’s wearing thin finger gloves, and on her yellow hair there’s only a little beret like a button.
“Okay,” says Waffle, beginning to climb down in her skis. She doesn’t go sideways as the teacher showed them but lets the points of her skis go first. She reaches out her hand. “Come on, I’ll steady you,” she says.
Hattie takes hold and shuffles carefully forwards. Waffle sways like a bendy flagpole. When Hattie leans forward, they both tumble right down into the deep ditch. Their skis come off, and Hattie finds herself headfirst in a drift. Hard lumps of snow have crept under her collar.
Waffle snorts as she scrambles to her knees. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asks with anxious eyes.
Hattie shakes her head. They can hear the teacher shouting from a distance. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” He comes swishing back as fast as his long skis can carry him.
Waffle is quick. “We’re hurt!” she cries, looking at Hattie. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asks.
Hattie blinks. Waffle looks desperate. And then Hattie feels sure: “Yes! Yes!” she calls to the teacher. “I hurt my leg! I got a pole in the stomach!”
Waffle gets up slowly. “We can’t go on,” she says. “Someone has to take Hattie back to the classroom to see how badly hurt she is.”
The teacher nods importantly. “Quite right,” he says. “You two go up to the classroom and rest. We will complete the ski tour.”
He swishes back to the front again and the long line toils towards the horizon.
Waffle takes their skis in her arms, then she and Hattie climb out and head for the schoolhouse.
It’s much quicker to walk than to ski. In a few minutes Hattie is sitting in the classroom wearing just her long underwear and T-shirt. She has her feet on the radiator. The heat tingles in her toes.
The whole morning she sits there painting ice cream cones on big sheets of paper. Sometimes she looks at Waffle at her desk. Waffle looks back with a little smile. “How nice it is to be inside,” she says.
Hattie nods. It is.
THE CHURCH CHILDRENS HOUR
Then it’s not many days before Waffle says goodbye to the class. A month has gone by. She’s given a bunch of flowers and then she goes around and hugs everyone. “Goodbye, Hattie,” she says when it’s Hattie’s turn. Then she gives her a wink and smiles. Hattie winks back. They’ve become friends after all.
When Waffle has gone, the teacher hands out pieces of green paper. “These are from the church, about their children’s hour,” he says. “Anyone who wants to can go.”
Hattie folds up the paper and puts it in her bag.
At home, she shows it to her parents. Papa frowns right away. “That sort of thing is absurd,” he says.
But her mother asks if Hattie wants to go. Hattie nods, because it has actually become a little tedious not living next door to anyone. Some days she only has the sheep on the farm to talk to.
Her mother reads the note out loud. “Register with Irene. First meeting on Thursday in the church hall.”
She goes to the telephone and Hattie follows. Her father pads along behind. He pokes Hattie in the back when her mother starts to dial the number.
“You’ll get money if you don’t go,” he whispers.
Her mother hears him. “Stop it,” she says with an edge to her voice and her father sulks away.
Irene says Hattie is very welcome to the Church Children’s Hour. “She sounds nice.” Mama smiles as she puts down the phone. Hattie can’t wait.
When the time comes, Mama drives Hattie to the church hall. It’s right next to school.
“See you afterwards,” says her mother. Hattie goes in through the little old wooden gate.
There are bright pictures on the walls. They show people and lambs sitting and cuddling each other. They look peaceful. A lot more peaceful than Hattie feels mumbling to the sheep on the farm back home.
Irene is round and has yellow curls like a helmet on her head. She looks kindly at everyone new. Hattie waves to Ellen and Karin, who have sat down at a round table. Linda didn’t want to come to the Church Children’s Hour. Just like Hattie’s father, she thought it sounded silly.
They sit for a long time talking with Irene. She tells stories from the life of Jesus and all the time she shines like a sun. Hattie feels her heart warm up. She’d quite like to creep up onto Irene’s lap.
When they have free time, she asks if Irene wants to play tag. Irene laughs and you can tell she likes children.
“Okay,” she says and runs away. Hattie leaps after her. They charge between the tables where the others are sitting with books and puzzles.
Irene is hopeless at tag. “Tag! Tag! Tag!” Hattie calls out.
Irene has apr
icot tights on and she sighs about how unfit she is. “Gosh, you’re good at this,” she says.
Hattie is happy. “Shall you chase me now?” she says. Irene puffs and shakes her head. She understands that she could never in her whole life catch Hattie, not even if Hattie was on crutches.
So they play a little more with Hattie chasing Irene. She gets easier and easier to catch. Her tights are completely sweaty. Hattie is ruthless and takes advantage of Irene when she stumbles or tries to rest for a moment. “Tag! Tag! Tag!”
Irene wipes her face. “Gosh, you are quick,” she puffs. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
She goes to the bathroom and locks herself in. Hattie is impatient. “Are you ready yet?” she calls. Irene laughs behind the door. Then Hattie understands!
“You’re hiding!” she shouts and grabs the door handle. “Come out!”
Irene just laughs.
Hattie looks at the lock. It has a little spike sticking out. If she manages to turn it around, the door will open. But her fingers can’t get a grip on it. Hattie runs away and grabs a pair of scissors with orange plastic handles.
With the scissors she gets hold of the little spike. She turns it around and throws open the door. “HA HA!” she says, pointing.
Irene is sitting there, pushing hard. There comes a plop!
“Close the door!” she yells furiously. “Can’t a person even have a moment’s peace in the toilet? What’s this stupidity?”
Hattie closes the door with shaking hands and goes to sit on a stool. She feels as if she wants to cry. Grown-ups can be so unpredictable. In a second Irene has switched from being a cute round lady to a shrieking witch. Abracadabra.
She stays on the stool and stares at the wall till Church Children’s Hour is over. Then she runs off without looking back.
Hattie Page 5