Hattie

by Frida Nilsson

  The tadpoles can eat fish food, which her father buys in town when he goes to the newspaper to talk about his articles. The food comes in small flakes. It smells of old fish and rotten seaweed. Hattie holds her breath every time she opens the jar. Poor tadpoles who have to eat such horrible flakes!

  One day she opens the fridge to see if there’s something nicer to offer them. At once she sees a lovely red carton. Cream is one of the nicest things there is, Hattie thinks. She could drink a bucket of it every day.

  When her father comes in she asks, “Shall I feed the tadpoles a little bit of cream?”

  Papa shakes his head hard. “No-oo.” He explains earnestly that tadpoles do not like cream. They only like horrible flakes. Then he puts on his hat and disappears out to feed the sheep.

  Hattie looks at her small pets. They look thin and wasted. You can clearly see how much they want to eat cream!

  She opens the fridge again and reaches for the carton. She knows that the tadpoles will lick up the whole lot in a second. Then they’ll never want to go back to the stream but rather stay with lovely Hattie who gives them cream.

  Splosh! She pours in a splash and looks into the bowl… Right away, something seems wrong. The cream spreads quickly like a toxic cloud of exhaust, and the tadpoles flee for their lives! Hattie takes a big breath. “Papaaaa!”

  Her father comes running. “No, no, no, no!” he says, rushing to the bench.

  Then he has to take the bowl straight back to the stream because otherwise the tadpoles won’t survive for more than ten minutes. Hattie stands at the bench watching him disappear over the field. Now she doesn’t have tadpoles any more. All she has is a big jar of fishflakes.

  HAPPY SUMMER

  Karin doesn’t have a pet any more either. Her crab was so stressed from being in her pocket that it died. Karin wears a black sorrow band around her head at school. If anyone happens to mention anything to do with crabs, she puts her head in her hands and howls.

  The teacher sighs. “Try to be quiet now,” he says. “We need to choose our songs for the end of year.”

  Soon it will be the last day of school. They’re going to sing in church and anyone is welcome to come and listen. Hattie knows that her parents are planning to come.

  The class has to vote for two songs. Anyone with a suggestion can put their hand up. The teacher will write them on the board.

  “Away you go,” he chirps.

  Many hands go up and the teacher points. “Richard.”

  Richard puts his hand down. “Rönnerdahl!”

  The whole class sighs at once. All the hands go down.

  “I was going to say that,” Karin complains.

  The teacher looks displeased. He tugs his beard. Then he shakes his head. “Think of some others,” he says, looking for more hands.

  There are cries of protest. The children shout so much, the teacher has to cover his ears. “Quiet!” he calls. “You can’t have the Rönnerdahl!”

  Then he explains why. The song of Rönnerdahl happens to have been written by a man called Evert Taube. And Taube happens to have written many rude songs. The teacher knows he’ll be disgraced for eternity if they sing that sort of song in church.

  “It can be interpreted rudely,” he says. “Choose another one.”

  Linda puts up her hand. The teacher’s face lights up. “Yes?”

  “Take Me to the Sea,” says Linda.

  “Yesss!” everyone shouts. “Let’s have that one!”

  “Not that one,” squeaks the teacher. “That one’s even worse. It’s about wine and women and all kinds of things.”

  “Yesss!” cries the class. “Take Me to the Sea!”

  The teacher gives them a wild look. Then he walks purposefully to the blackboard. He writes Rönnerdahl. He stands in front of it for a moment, thinking. Then he lifts his hand and writes Now Spring Is Come.

  He turns around and looks at them sternly. “So,” he says. “You’ve voted for one and I’ve voted for one. Now we’ll start rehearsing.”

  Everyone in the class sings as loudly as they can while the teacher tinkles on the piano. When they’ve finished for the day, he stands up and puts a finger in the air. “I have something important to tell you,” he says. “No one will put their hands together and clap when we’ve finished our singing at the end of year, because it’s absolutely forbidden to clap in church. It’s important,” he says again. “So if there’s anyone at home who doesn’t know about it being forbidden you must tell them. Okay?”

  “Okay!” they all cry. Now they can go home.

  The same day, Hattie goes with her mother to town. They’re going to buy best clothes to wear for the last day of school. Hattie chooses a white skirt with flounces and a white jacket with diamonds on the collar. She’s never seen anything more beautiful. “Can I wear it to school tomorrow?” she asks.

  But she can’t.

  “You have to wait for end of school,” says her mother. “Otherwise you take the fun out of it.”

  Hattie can’t understand that. If your clothes are beautiful, it’s best to wear them as much as you can! At least she knows she’ll feel good on the last day.

  “Pleeeease,” she says. And she goes on so much that her mother wants to take the clothes back to the shop. That stops Hattie’s nagging.

  The skirt and the jacket stay at home on the cane chair and are temptingly beautiful. Every morning Hattie pats the flounces and yearns. Then she puts on her old jeans as usual. Just until…

  End of school! Now the mornings are warm and light. The sun has been awake for a long time when Hattie hops out of bed and runs over to the cane chair. In the garden the peonies bob on their sturdy stalks and birds chirp in all the bushes.

  Hattie struggles to eat her breakfast sandwich and milk. She’s not at all hungry. All she wants is to finish school.

  “It’s rude to clap your hands in church,” she says.

  “That’s right,” her mother replies.

  Papa says nothing. He frowns and looks at his yogurt.

  Mama looks suspiciously at him. “Very rude,” she says.

  “Hrm,” Papa mutters.

  Then all three of them go to Hardemo in the blue car. They go over the hills and past the green fields. And then they come to the school, as always. But now someone has decorated the entrance with birch boughs and over the doorway is a banner. Happy summer! it says. It looks festive.

  In the classroom they give the teacher a round glass candlestick. All the class put in money and Ellen’s mother bought it in town. Hattie thinks the candlestick looks like a heap of mashed potato.

  But the teacher is so happy he cries. He rubs his hands over his tired, baggy eyes. The summer holidays will be good for him, too.

  And off they march. The school and the church are next door to each other. They only have to go twenty steps over the parking area and they’ve arrived. First come the year sixes with the flag on a pole. Then come the year fives, then the fours, the threes, the twos and, last, Hattie’s class. They’re the smallest.

  The priest talks for a long, long time. Hattie tries to listen but she’s too nervous. Soon they’ll go to the front and sing!

  When it’s time the teacher waves for them to stand up. Hattie’s legs feel like boiled spaghetti. Imagine if she sings something wrong! She’ll be mortified for the rest of her life.

  They form rows in front of the altar. The teacher goes over to the piano on one side. He starts to play. Between two chords he holds up one hand, which means they should start singing. Hattie is alert. She roars the first line of the song.

  At first she almost faints because no one else is singing. But by the second line Karin has begun to chirp and soon the whole class is bawling the last line loudly. “Cowslip, saxifrage, catsfoot…”

  Hattie sniggers. Linda usually sings “catspoop…” She’s standing next to Hattie in a pale blue dress. She’s as sweet as ever. And Hattie can tell she’s also giggling.

  After that they sing Now Spri
ng Is Come. It all goes very well. Hattie doesn’t say the wrong word a single time. When they’ve finished they’re allowed to curtsey or bow, then they’re supposed to go back to their seats and sit down.

  But something terrible happens. Someone claps! Hattie stares at the pews.

  Papa! His hands are high in the air and he’s clapping as hard as he can. “Bravo!” he calls. Everyone in church stares at him. Mama is flushed.

  Then someone else is clapping! Hattie turns around. It’s the priest! He smiles. The teacher looks confused. But now several people are clapping and soon the church is thundering with applause. Then the teacher perks up and runs to the front to take a bow. The class bow and curtsey several times and the teacher beams with pride. They’ve been a success! Happy summer!

  BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS

  Now all the summer visitors turn up. Hattie feels a little nervous in case they find out who put such beautiful Easter letters in their mailboxes. There are no other naughty children around here…

  She runs over in her clogs. Maybe she can take some of the letters back before it’s too late.

  She gets as far as the big corner when she stops and looks down into the ditch. All the flowers are growing there now, crinkly little birdsfoot, flouncy red clover and violet granny bonnets. Hattie knows that her mother loves flowers. She’ll pick a bunch to surprise her with!

  The bunch grows slowly bigger. It’s as scrawny as a piece of string and the granny bonnets sprawl in all directions. The dandelions in the ditch also want to be picked but they can’t be, they’re too ugly. Hattie wanders on, further and further from the house.

  Up by the summer houses she looks inside some of the mailboxes. She has to be careful because mailboxes always have earwigs running around in them. Hattie has heard that earwigs run into people’s ears and settle there. Then they build nests and won’t come out. Ugh!

  She can’t see any earwigs. No Easter letters either. They’ve probably blown away, she thinks. Or they might have crumpled up and disappeared.

  Relieved, she turns around and heads for home. The sun is shining and the grass tickles her legs. Then she stops short, her mouth open.

  In the ditch, just a bit away, is a whole jungle of flowers! Not stumpy little clovers, pathetic granny bonnets or scraggly old birdsfoot. These are completely different. The flowers reach Hattie’s neck and look like pink and violet spires. She’s never seen anything growing so proudly in a ditch, as wild as dandelions. And no one has come to pick them! She throws away her tatty bunch and starts a new one.

  The air hums. The flowers are hard to pick. Hattie has to tug and pull. Mama will love these; she’ll pick them all. The bunch grows quickly. Soon she can’t hold all the thick stems in one hand. She has to hug the flowers and carry them like a doll in her arms. She avoids a bee and goes on picking. The ditch is full of flowers. And bees.

  After a long time Hattie has picked every single flower. Only lank grass stalks are left in the ditch. Then she goes home.

  She can hardly see the road for the bushy bunch in her arms. The pink and violet spires tickle her face. Her mother will be so happy, Hattie thinks, as she quickens her pace.

  Soon she’s crunching over the gravel in front of the red house. She scurries up the steps and into the kitchen where her mother is standing.

  “Aha, there you are,” she says when she sees Hattie.

  Hattie is as radiant as the sun. Her mother is beaming like…a careful sun.

  “I wondered when you might come,” she says. “Wanda called.”

  So what? Hattie has flowers! “These are for you, Mama,” she shouts, thrusting out the bunch.

  “Oh, thanks.” Mama takes them. “Yes, well, Wanda rang.”

  Hattie is disappointed. Mama isn’t nearly as pleased as a person should be when they’re given a bunch of seldom-seen most-beautiful flowers. She only wants to talk about Wanda.

  Wanda comes to her little summer cottage every year when it gets warm. She’s nice. Wanda often gives Hattie jars of honey because she has lots of beehives. She lives right next to where Hattie found all the flowers.

  “She said that she saw through the window that you’d picked all her lupins, which she sowed on the property,” says her mother, trying to smile.

  Hattie stands there in silence, staring at the bunch of flowers. The spires are called lupins. Now she understands why no one else has picked them. Flowers someone has planted are not for picking. Her heart pounds in fear. Tears creep under her eyelids. Why didn’t Wanda come out and say something when Hattie had only picked one or two flowers? Why did she sit there staring behind her curtains till it was too late? Now Hattie never wants to go back to the summer cottages. Wanda won’t want to see her again either.

  Her mother puts the lupins in a vase on the table. She takes a couple of steps back and looks at them. “They’re beautiful, anyway,” she says.

  Beautiful? Hattie’s never seen such ugly flowers in her whole life. Lupins make her feel sick.

  When her mother has left the kitchen, Hattie takes the lupins and throws them on the compost heap. They lie there among the rotten potatoes and old onion tops.

  On top of the compost heap is a single dandelion. She takes it and puts it in a vase. A dandelion is a thousand billion times more beautiful than lupins, thinks Hattie.

  TO SUMMER PARADISE

  Soon Hattie is going where you’ll never see a glimmer of a dandelion. She’s going on a summer trip.

  Mama and Papa have booked it. The whole family is flying to an island called Rhodes, which is a Greek paradise. They have the tickets and now there’s only one day to go.

  Hattie’s so happy that her legs hop all by themselves. She dances around the kitchen and her mother stands at the sink and laughs. Papa sits on the kitchen sofa with a map of Rhodes’ black rocky terrain. He’s planning excursions.

  That evening when Hattie should be asleep, her bed feels about as comfortable as a slab of rock. The mattress seems to have mounded up, the covers twist and the pillow is lumpy. She’ll never sleep! She’ll lie here awake with her eyes open till she grows old and dies! It’s so light out in the sky.

  Her parents are still up, running around and packing. On the floor in Hattie’s room is a little suitcase. She’s put everything into it. Bathing suit and skirt and sunglasses. For Snoopy she’s packed a pair of tennis shorts and a pullover. When they fly he’ll wear his cowboy costume.

  He lies next to Hattie and looks her in the eyes. “Sleep now,” he says. And then she goes to sleep.

  But straight away she has to wake up again. They leave so early in the morning it’s almost the middle of the night. Her mother and father put the suitcases in the blue car. Then Papa puts the key under the door mat because Alf next door will come and feed all the animals while they’re away.

  Hattie throws herself into the back seat and goes straight to sleep. When she wakes up they’re already at the airport. They leave their suitcases at a desk and go to “the gate.” The gate is what you call it.

  Inside the cramped plane they each have a small seat. They fasten their seatbelts, Hattie clutches Snoopy tight, and next thing they’re up and away!

  Rhodes really is a paradise. The beach is right next to the hotel and they go there every day. The sand runs hot and tickly into your shoes. Papa is worried that Hattie will get webbed feet because she swims so much. Mama is worried that she’ll turn into a brown biscuit because the sun’s so fierce.

  “Can’t you swim in a T-shirt?” she begs.

  But Hattie is never going to swim in anything but a bathing suit: no clown bootees and certainly no T-shirt.

  “No,” she says, and skips away when her mother tries to make her.

  Mama frowns. Then she takes off her bikini top and sunbathes topless. She doesn’t think it matters if she turns into a brown biscuit herself. She thinks that’s good.

  Someone who doesn’t get brown is her father. He runs into the shade as soon as he gets a chance. On the beach he sits beneath an um
brella and he looks like a white seal in shirt and trousers.

  “Phew, it’s hot,” he complains and runs his finger over the Rhodes map. “I’m going to hire a car.”

  And he does. He hires a cool sports jeep, without a roof and with big tough tires. He’s pleased. He’s looked forward to this outing for ages.

  Mama’s pleased too. With her sunglasses on, she’ll sit beside Hattie’s father looking chic as they zoom around the island at high and dangerous speeds.

  Hattie sits in the back seat and Snoopy sits beside her in his cowboy costume.

  Vroom vroom! Papa accelerates and soon they’re far from the tourist village. Now they’re lurching through the beautiful rocks. Hattie is enjoying herself to the full. Snoopy too. He waves his cowboy hat at everyone they pass.

  But after a while Hattie sees that Snoopy looks pale and faint. Sweat runs down his soft white forehead and his nose is dry. “Would you like to get changed?” she asks. Snoopy would.

  Hattie rummages in the bag. She pulls out the pullover and continues to search. She takes out bikinis and watermelon, sandals and blow-up balls. But however deep she digs, she can’t find his shorts. Snoopy looks at her in anguish.

  Hattie suddenly realizes. The shorts must have blown away! Because the bag was open and her father has been driving like the wind! “STOPPP!” she cries.

  Papa screeches to a stop. “What’s the matter?” He gives her a worried look in the rear vision mirror.

  “Snoopy’s shorts have blown out of the car!”

  “Just now?” asks her mother.

  “No! I don’t know! Some time. We have to go back!”

  Mama and Papa squirm. They think it’ll be hard to find the shorts because they’ve gone so far already. They’d rather keep going.

  Hattie panics. Snoopy has no other shorts. He’ll have to go around in his leather trousers the whole holiday. Or even worse, naked! Tears stream from her eyes. Her parents scratch their heads. Hattie cries even harder and soon Snoopy is crying too. He howls like a wolf. In the end Papa turns the car around and back they go.