SUN KISSED

by Jenny McLachlan

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’ She gets up, has a good long embarrassing stretch, then goes to the door. ‘Godnatt måne,’ she says. It’s what Mum always says to me at bedtime.

  ‘Goodnight moon,’ I reply.

  As soon as she’s gone, the homesick feeling creeps back. I roll over in the hard bed and think about home. Usually, Britta’s the last one to go to bed. After she’s finished her college work, she watches TV until late to try and relax. I like hearing the muffled sound of the TV. Sometimes, if she’s watching something funny, I hear her laughing. She’s got a really weird, snorty laugh.

  I actually miss Britta. I try not to think about her horrible dressing gown that she’s been wearing since she was twelve, or the way she bites her nails like she’s nibbling a nut, because for some strange reason this makes me feel even sadder. Instead, I think about meeting Ypperlig Leo. I imagine lying on a beach, sunbathing in my Roxy bikini, and a shadow falling over me. I peer over the top of my (new yellow) sunglasses and see a tall blond Scandi God.

  ‘I’m Leo,’ he says, gazing into my eyes. Clearly, he thinks I’m beautiful. It’s love at first sight.

  The boat sways and suddenly my fantasy Leo is wearing Britta’s grey dressing gown. Annoying. I replace the dressing gown with board shorts and a ripped chest and I make him say, ‘Do you need some help with that suntan lotion?’ But then Leo starts to bite his nails and snorty-laugh, so I give up trying to control my mind and fall asleep.

  FOUR

  ‘Next stop, Stråla!’ says Frida as the boat pulls away from the jetty. The horn blasts and thick grey smoke pours out of the funnel. We’re sitting on the deck at the back of the boat, our feet resting on chairs, faces tilted to the sun. For the past two hours we’ve been cruising between islands, as the boat picks up and drops off holidaymakers. It looks like we’re the only passengers left. I take this as a bad sign.

  ‘Time for fika?’ asks Frida. She’s big on Swedish traditions, including having coffee and cake at eleven on the dot.

  ‘Sure, but can I have Coke instead of coffee?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘OK, but it’s all wrong.’ She sets off across the deck, clinging to the backs of chairs to keep her balance. ‘You’re fifty per cent Swedish, Kat,’ she calls back. ‘You need to embrace your inner Swede!’

  I lean back in my chair and shut my eyes. The vibrations from the engine are making me feel sleepy. Suddenly, I remember that I haven’t done my nails and I rummage in my bag for my make-up. Frida rushed me this morning and when I got out of the shower, she was ready to go. I didn’t even have a chance to straighten my hair.

  By the time she comes back with our drinks, I’ve applied two messy coats of ‘Alexa Cashmere’.

  ‘Pretty colour,’ she says.

  I hold my hand out in front of me. My nails are a soft pinky-white. ‘It goes with the sea,’ I say.

  ‘You’re just like your mum. She’s good with colours.’ Mum paints watercolour pictures. I can only paint nails. I got a D for my last piece of art homework. As we sip our drinks, I get out my phone. ‘You’d better use it quickly,’ says Frida. ‘You’ll lose reception soon.’

  ‘I’ve only got two bars. I’ll wait until we get to the island.’

  ‘Nope.’ Frida holds her cup in the air as we’re rocked by a wave. ‘Can’t do that. There’s no reception on the island.’

  ‘What?’ I stare at her. ‘Are you sure? Hasn’t everywhere in the world got reception now?’ My voice rises with panic. ‘An eighty-year-old man climbed Everest and rang his daughter from the top. It’s true. We saw it in geography. If Everest has reception, then Stråla must have it.’

  Frida shakes her head. ‘No reception. You’re going to have a holiday from technology. Isn’t that exciting?’

  ‘Frida, once I left my phone in my locker at school and when I realised, I cried.’ Frida laughs. I don’t think she realises this isn’t supposed to be a funny story. ‘How will I talk to my friends?’

  ‘You can write to them. The postal service is excellent. Letters get to the UK in three days, and they can send letters to you.’

  I look down at my phone. One bar left. Do my friends even know how to write a letter?

  ‘Quick, Frida,’ I say. ‘I need the address.’ As I write my text, the single bar on my phone keeps vanishing and reappearing. No phone reception on Stråla. DISASTER. Please, please, please send me a letter TODAY. I add the address and then sign off: Don’t forget me!! Kat xxxxxx

  I send the message to Bea, Betty and Pearl, although there’s almost zero chance Pearl will write to me. She doesn’t even write in school. The single bar disappears. I stare at the screen. One, two, three minutes pass. My phone is useless, just a great big watch. I sip my Coke and keep glancing down at it, forgetting that nothing will appear. To stop myself, I shove it in my bag.

  ‘Oh, look, Kat!’ Frida leaps to her feet and peers over the rail, her skirt blowing in the wind. ‘I can see Stråla.’

  I stand next to her and she points to a distant island. Until now, there have been so many islands in the archipelago that it’s almost been crowded, but Stråla looks like it’s the last one. It’s a lump of pine trees and grey rock. That is it. Beyond Stråla is the open sea, and beyond that … I don’t know. Finland, I guess.

  Mum and Dad have sent me to the end of the world.

  ‘It’s so wonderful to be back,’ says Frida, as we pull the last pieces of our luggage off the jetty. An old man was waiting for us and now he starts to chuck our bags into a trailer attached to his scooter. He’s wearing a blue cap pulled low on his head and a yellow tracksuit that is so seventies it’s actually cool. His brown face is covered in deep wrinkles. My suitcase won’t quite fit so he starts pounding it with his fist.

  ‘Careful,’ I say. ‘My straighteners are in there.’ He stops what he’s doing and turns to stare at me. ‘They’re GHD … IV … the jade ones.’ He blinks, slowly, and continues to stare like I’m speaking in a foreign language, which I suppose I am.

  Frida is crouched on the floor picking some wild flowers. She looks up. ‘This is my niece, Kat,’ she says in Swedish. ‘She’s English.’

  The old man nods as if this explains everything. ‘Otto,’ he growls. Then he turns round and carries on pounding my case until it fits in the gap.

  Once everything is loaded on to the trailer, Frida’s guitar balanced on the top, we set off along the track. It was Frida’s idea to bring the guitar. She says I can play to her in the evenings while she meditates. So depressing.

  Otto drives at a snail’s pace so that he can answer all of Frida’s questions about Judit’s chickens and Alvar’s new shed. ‘You know, Kat,’ says Frida, switching to English, ‘Otto’s scooter is the only vehicle on the island.’ We’re walking along a sandy path through a forest. ‘He’s just been telling me about the plans for the festival tomorrow.’

  ‘Festival?’ My ears prick up, although I know we’re not talking Glastonbury here.

  ‘I forgot to tell you about it.’ Frida links arms with me. ‘Tomorrow there will be a little festival on the island, the Solsken Festival. Do you know what solsken means?’

  Of course I know what solsken means – Mum’s relatives love testing my language skills, but I never play along. ‘Awesome famous rock bands?’ I say.

  ‘No, “sunshine”, but there will be a band playing.’

  ‘My band,’ says Otto, speaking in heavily accented English.

  ‘And a disco,’ Frida adds.

  ‘My disco,’ Otto says. ‘I run all the discos on Stråla.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. He takes his eyes off the path and looks at me, like he’s waiting for me to say something. ‘You must like music,’ I add.

  He grunts, then says, ‘Sometimes Leo helps me. He’s arriving soon.’ Then, with a roar, he accelerates ahead of us and disappears round the bend.

  ‘Ypperlig Leo,’ I say under my breath.

  ‘What?’ Frida asks, tucking a flower behind her ear.


  ‘Oh, nothing. Just daydreaming.’

  *

  It doesn’t take long to get to the cabin Frida’s rented. Like most cabins in Sweden, it’s small and square and painted red and white. Unlike most cabins in Sweden, it’s falling apart. One of the windows is cracked and paint is peeling off the wood in long curling strips. A scruffy garden of dry grass leads to a pebbly beach.

  Otto swings our bags on to the porch. Crunch, Frida’s silver furnace lands on my case, followed by a huge bag of groceries and then the guitar. Frida and I rush to help with the rest of our stuff before anything is broken. ‘OK,’ Otto says, dropping a set of keys in Frida’s hands. ‘Enjoy.’ Then he frowns and stares at the horizon for a moment before stomping back to his scooter and driving up the track.

  The sound of the engine fades and we stand in silence. Frida breathes deeply. ‘Perfect,’ she says.

  ‘Mm,’ I say, which is as close as I can get to the truth without hurting her feelings.

  ‘Come on. I’ll show you round.’ She unlocks the door, but it’s stuck in the frame. She kicks it until it swings open.

  I peer into the gloomy room. ‘Are you sure we’ll both fit in there?’

  ‘You’re so funny,’ she says. ‘This was Otto’s family’s cabin. When he was a boy, six of them used to stay here every summer.’ I follow her inside. The walls are made of rough wooden planks and the floor is cracked concrete with faded rag rugs thrown over it. There’s a stove in one corner and a table covered in a checked cloth. The whole place looks like it should be in a museum. ‘Let’s get some air in here.’ Frida pulls back the lace curtains and flings open the windows.

  She points to two doors. ‘My room and the shower room,’ she says. ‘You’re upstairs.’ I can’t see any stairs. Then I spot a hole in the ceiling and a ladder leaning against the wall.

  Taking care not to chip my nail varnish, I prop the ladder against the hatch and climb into the attic. I step into a tiny room and the roof slopes so dramatically that I can only stand up in the middle. It’s boiling up here. I push open the window. The floor and ceiling – there are no walls – were painted white a long time ago and there’s another stripy rug on the floor. The bed is a double mattress. That’s it. Except for a light, there is nothing else in the room. No mirror, no wardrobe, no plug sockets.

  No plug sockets!

  ‘Wahooo!’ yells Frida. Through the window, I see a streak of pink flash down the beach and crash into the sea. Frida’s first skinny dip of the holiday. She floats on her back, kicking in circles. ‘Hej!’ she calls out, seeing me at the window.

  ‘Frida, does the cabin have electricity?’

  ‘No. Just a gas stove and paraffin lamps.’ So when the batteries run out this means no phone, no iPad, no iPod and no straighteners. Without straighteners, I look like Britta!

  ‘Fancy a swim?’ Frida shouts.

  I shake my head. My chest aches. The cabin is so dark, so small and dusty, and I’ve just discovered that I can’t use any of the things I love. I haven’t even got anything to read. The only entertainment I have with me that doesn’t require electricity is one copy of Grazia. And make-up. How am I going to survive a whole month here? This room is suffocating me. I can’t bear to be in here for another minute.

  ‘I’m going to go for a walk,’ I call out, possibly for the first time in my life.

  ‘Take as long as you like,’ Frida says, her eyes shut. ‘There are no rules here.’

  FIVE

  I grab the brochure that Frida gave me and set off along the winding path. I need something to do. I need to buy something. I’ll go to the shop. An ice cream will make me feel better.

  At the top of the path, I stop and look at the map. It is so simple it could be a joke. There are two ‘roads’ on Stråla: one that goes around the edge of the island, and one that cuts across the middle. On the opposite side is the buzzing heart of the island: the Beach Deck Cafe, a shop, a youth hostel and a hotel. I decide to walk around the edge of the island, guessing that I’ll end up by the cafe in a couple of hours. I haven’t a clue what I’ll do this afternoon. Probably read Grazia … or go to sleep.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m standing outside the cafe. It’s shut. I’ve explored half of the island in twenty minutes, leaving me twenty-eight and a half days to explore the other half.

  On the way, I passed a few people carrying rolled-up towels, but that was it. Oh, and lots of trees. And some rocks. I didn’t even see any cows. Still, the empty cafe looks surprisingly OK. It has a deck stretching over the sea, long benches topped with white cushions and a chalk board advertising kaffedrinkar, pommes and alkoholfritt. I don’t know what alkoholfritt are, but I know Pearl would like them.

  I quickly check out the harbour in case any of the boats look like they belong to billionaires (nope), then walk across a grassy area the map says is the mötesplats. A noticeboard advertises tomorrow’s Solsken Fest, which kicks off at three with the Otto Orkester Dansband, with Disco Otto taking over at 9 p.m. Through the trees, I see a plastic polar bear licking an ice cream. The shop! Stuff to buy … lipgloss … magazines … who knows!

  It’s cool and dark inside. I drift up and down the aisles, wishing my friends were here with me. There are so many bizarre things they’d love: bubblegum and popcorn-flavour sweets, a banana lolly you can peel, packets of digestive biscuits that cost four pounds and, best of all, tampongs. Tampongs are tampons!

  Quickly, I take a selfie of me holding a box of tampongs. I wish I could send it to my friends. We could start a band called the Tampongs. Obviously, Betty and Bea would have to stop hating Pearl, but it could happen. I want to tell them this right now. Then I remember I can’t. Ahhhhh!

  I stare at my useless crappy phone, then look up and see a shelf stacked with stationery. I pick up a pack of paper and envelopes decorated with hedgehogs. That’s what I’ll do this afternoon: I’ll write letters to my friends and tell them that we’re going to form a ground-breaking girl rock band called the Tampongs!

  I get a Hello Kitty lolly out of the freezer and go to pay.

  There’s a small queue at the till. An old lady wearing dungarees is resting on the counter, talking about herring, and standing behind her are a boy and a girl who are arguing over whether to buy a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheez Cruncherz or a tube of RäkOst paste. I’m pretty lazy with my Swedish, but an argument is always worth translating.

  ‘I’m a vegetarian, you arsel!’ yells the girl, as she tries to prise the paste out of the boy’s hands. From the tutting of the dungarees woman, I’m guessing arsel is not a nice word. She picks up her shopping basket and leaves the shop.

  Next, the boy calls the girl a ‘dumskalle’ – which definitely isn’t a nice word – drops a note on the counter and walks out of the shop carrying the RäkOst.

  The girl stares at the Cheez Cruncherz she’s still holding.

  ‘Are you going to buy those?’ asks the lady behind the counter.

  ‘I haven’t got any money, Juni.’ The girl looks at the crisps then turns to me, opens her eyes wide and says, ‘Can you lend me ten kronor?’ She blinks. Her eyes are lined with very badly applied purple eyeliner. ‘I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘Erm … OK,’ I say, handing her the coins.

  ‘Hey, you’re English!’ she says, quickly switching languages. While she pays for her crisps, I check out her look. She’s wearing pink high-tops, denim culottes and a T-shirt that says ‘Awesome and Beefy’. I pay for my lolly and we leave the shop. ‘So, hi, I’m Nanna,’ she says as she rips open the crisp packet, ‘and that moron squirting paste in his mouth is Sören. My twin. Can you believe we’re twins?’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘I know. Shocking. We look nothing like each other.’ They look exactly like each other: Sören is Nanna, but he’s wearing less make-up. Even their curly blonde hair is cut the same way. ‘Who are you?’ Nanna asks.

  ‘Me? I’m Kat.’

  ‘Weird name,’ says Nanna, which is so hypocritical it’s not even
worth taking up. ‘Crisp? You wanna walk with me?’

  ‘OK,’ I say, because Nanna is the only teenager I’ve met on Stråla. Even so, I’m a bit worried about being seen with her.

  Sören disappears into the trees. ‘He’s shy,’ says Nanna. ‘Seriously. He’ll probably never speak to you.’

  As we walk, I tell her that I’m spending the summer on the island. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of hours,’ I say, ‘and I’m already so bored.’

  ‘Really?’ she says, pushing her little pink glasses up her nose.

  ‘Well, there isn’t much to do.’

  ‘There’s loads to do! I’ve been coming here most of my life. C’mon, let’s jump rocks.’ She leads me off the path and down to the sea, and before I know it, I’m rock-jumping. Nanna flies off ahead of me, leaping from one huge grey rock to another. I hang back because I’m fifteen, and clearly this will destroy my nails (finger and toe). But then Nanna starts talking to me and I have to catch up with her to hear what she’s saying.

  It turns out, jumping on big rocks is dangerous in flip-flops. And really tiring. Nanna must have stronger thighs than me. She jumps around like a monkey while I crawl after her. It doesn’t take her long to tell me her entire life story. She’s thirteen and staying on the island in a cabin at the youth hostel. She’s ‘mad chatty’ and Sören’s ‘mad quiet’; oh, and she loves ‘mad cool’ fashion, black-and-white films, gerbils and cold milk, but not orange juice because it’s too ‘spicy’.

  ‘I can’t jump any more,’ I say, pulling myself on to a huge rock and flopping back. Nanna sits next to me and stops talking for a few blissful moments.

  She can’t last long. ‘You see that rock,’ she says, pointing out to sea. I force myself to lift up my head. The rock is quite a long way out and it looks like the back of a whale. ‘Sometimes I get phone reception on that rock.’

  I sit up properly and shade my eyes against the sun. The rock doesn’t look like a grey lump any more: it’s shining golden in the afternoon sun. ‘Nanna,’ I say. ‘I am so glad I met you today.’