Thin Ice

by Mikael Engström

  Parrot Earrings told my teacher that I was to be collected in accordance with some law. Miss wondered what that law was, because she didn’t want strangers just walking in and taking her pupils.

  It was good my teacher argued with them. It gave me time to get to the window right at the back. It was easy to open and I jumped down into the bushes and ran.

  Zombie Book 3/6

  My dad’s a car mechanic. My dad’s a lawyer. My dad’s a shoemaker. My dad’s a baker. My dad’s a lorry-driver. My dad’s a dentist. My dad’s a hairdresser. No, only joking. My dad’s a spade. My dad’s finished. I HATE HIM. EVERYONE CAN DIE.

  Zombie Book 4/6

  I sat in the library all day today. I’ve left school. It’s not a secure environment for me.

  I’ve been reading a book about whales. Forty million years ago there were whales with hind legs. The species was called Basilosaurus and it was a very big snake-like creature with massive jaws and big sharp canine teeth. It had no use for its hind legs. There was a picture of what it might have looked like. It reminded me of Snake Alone.

  Zombie Book 6/6

  I tried to tidy up today. Dad came home with clinking bags and said I was a good boy, and then he hid the bottles. He hides them so that I can’t break them. He thinks I’m cruel and unfair to do that. Considering what a hard time he’s had.

  It looked nice at home. I hoovered all the rooms. Then he got drunk and wanted to die again. Said he only goes on living for my sake, for me and Tony.

  I couldn’t stand hearing it all again. I went down into the cellar. I’ve taken Pi’s cushion down there. It’s only now I realise how good it was at Lena’s. I didn’t think about it at the time. It’s only when things aren’t good that you realise how good it has been. You’re too thick to realise things are good at the time. Only when Snake starts to move. A bit late.

  There’s so much I wish I’d said to Pi. I get a kind of ache when I think about it. So I try not to think of her.

  Zombie Book 13/6

  Parrot Earrings and Gold Tooth are standing outside the door. They’ve been ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing. They’re standing there now as I’m writing this. And two policemen. First I hid under the bed with a torch, but they didn’t stop ringing the bell. They talked through the letterbox and said I was going to get help. What shall I do? Tony isn’t home and Dad’s been gone two days.

  I’m not going to open the door. I can stay here. I’ve got enough chocolate to survive. I looked in the wardrobe but the gun’s gone. They’re saying through the letterbox that they’re going to break in. That I’m going to get help.

  I’ve asked who decided that. They say they’re the ones who make the decisions. I’ll open the door if I can go to Lena. But they couldn’t promise that because that wasn’t their decision. So I’m not going to open it.

  Then I said I’d jump from the balcony if they broke in. So it’s deadlock. Another police car has pulled up outside. I went out and waved at them. The police officers waved back. Then I climbed around a bit on the outside of the balcony railing, but now I’m lying under the bed again.

  The batteries in my torch are running out. There’s only a faint yellow light. Parrot Earrings is talking through the letterbox and telling me I can go to Lena’s as long as I give up that balcony nonsense and open the door. Now the batteries have run out.

  PART 4

  THE TORMENTORS

  NEW PARENTS

  Mik sat in the back seat. He looked out of the window and discovered it was already summer. He hadn’t noticed. Green and lovely. Yellow dandelions and white fluffy clouds in a blue sky. A Swedish flag fluttered beside a red cottage. Summer? He was astonished.

  He had said only two words during the entire journey.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  No, he had said, when she asked if he was hungry. But she had given him a sandwich anyway.

  Yes, he had said, when she asked if he would like the radio on. But then she changed her mind and thought it might just as well be quiet.

  Now he was going to live with a family. He would have foster parents.

  ‘A real functioning family,’ Parrot Earrings had said.

  They had promised him Lena. They had promised he would go to Selet.

  ‘But you have to understand that wouldn’t work,’ Parrot Earrings had said. ‘We have examined the case carefully and you have to understand this is the best thing for you.’

  Parrot Earrings turned her head and looked at Mik in the back seat. She smiled: ‘They’ve got a farm with animals. And a lovely lake with canoes and rowing boats. It’ll be super.’

  Mik pressed the cushion to the car window and leaned against it. It still had a smell of Pi, very faint but he could smell it. What was a functioning family? And what was it that functioned? Lena was his auntie and completely on her own. She functioned even though she was alone.

  That’s how he wanted it to be. When he grew up he would live all alone. Because then nothing weird or stupid would suddenly happen, unless you made it happen yourself. Like burn yourself on the cooker. Or trip over the mat, maybe, or fall off a chair. How brilliant it would be. Imagine coming home and being sure nothing had happened, because no one was at home. And nothing would happen unless you tripped over a mat or fell off a chair.

  They turned into a driveway leading to a large yellow house with a garden and a flag pole in front. He saw the lake beyond with a little sandy beach and two canoes, one red and one blue. To the right of the yellow house was a large stable block where a girl was leading a horse, and on the left was a long, low building with big fenced enclosures. An enormous black dog hurled itself against the wire and barked at the car.

  Mik recoiled, absolutely terrified.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? They breed dogs too and run a boarding kennel.’

  Parrot Earrings looked up at him in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘That’ll be fun, won’t it? Lots of dogs. And there’s the stables with horses. I’m sure you’ll be able to ride, too. Perfect paradise.’

  On the gravel drive in front of the yellow house stood a boy holding an air rifle. Just behind him a bare-chested man was mowing the lawn between the apple trees, or maybe they were pear trees. Parrot Earrings parked in front of the house. The man switched off the lawnmower and called out, ‘Hello, welcome.’

  The lawnmower man was suntanned and had big muscles, which scared Mik. He looked as if he was hard and cruel. The dogs barked. The boy with the air rifle said nothing. He had red hair and freckles and looked like a nerd. A nasty nerd.

  He grinned at Mik, loaded the gun and shot at a tin can. The door of the house opened and a dark-haired woman came out, smiling.

  ‘Welcome. Coffee and buns are served in the kitchen. And juice for the children.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be lovely,’ said Parrot Earrings.

  ‘Or shall we sit outside? It’s such nice weather.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Parrot Earrings. ‘The kitchen will be absolutely fine.’

  She followed the dark-haired woman through the door. The man had collected his shirt, which was hanging in an apple tree, or pear tree, or whatever it was.

  The boy broke open the air rifle, loaded it, aimed up into a tree and fired. A bird flapped and fell to the ground, circled its wings for a moment and then went quite still.

  ‘Good shot, Niklas,’ said the man as he buttoned his shirt.

  The boy examined the bird, holding it up by one leg. It was quite a big bird. Its wings hung outstretched and blood dripped past its eye and down its beak.

  ‘A thrush.’

  ‘It’s dead,’ said Mik.

  ‘Course it is. I shot it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t argue about it,’ said the man. ‘They eat up the cherries later in summer and crap everywhere.’

  The plate of cinnamon buns was enormous.

  ‘Come on, help yourselves.’ />
  Mik hesitated.

  ‘Well, go on,’ said Parrot Earrings. ‘Don’t be shy.’

  He took a bun.

  ‘We must introduce ourselves,’ said the dark-haired woman with the plate of buns. ‘My name is Eva and this is our son Niklas.’

  ‘And I’m Niklas’s dad and my name is Rickard. We have horses and dogs and two goats.’

  Mik was given juice and took another bun. The door slammed. A girl came in and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘This is Louise, our sixteen-year-old, who –’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ said Louise.

  The girl took a bun and glared at Mik. She was blonde with crystal-clear blue eyes and Mik stopped chewing. She was so beautiful, or attractive, or pretty – no, not pretty, something else. So attractive you couldn’t describe it. So attractive that when you looked away or closed your eyes you couldn’t remember. The memory sort of didn’t last.

  ‘What are you gawking at?’

  She was wearing a thin, light-coloured blouse and her nipples protruded through the material. He became dizzy and afraid, looked down at his bun and couldn’t work out what was going on.

  ‘This is Mik,’ said Parrot Earrings, patting Mik’s head. ‘And the plan is for him to live here with you.’

  ‘Right,’ said Louise. ‘Just as long as I don’t have to see him.’

  She took two buns, stood up and left the table.

  The mum, who was called Eva, nodded her head in a weird way and pulled a face.

  ‘Hormones. More coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Parrot Earrings. ‘What a lovely home you have! I mean, this is really how it should be. This is how we ought to live. Not in a flat in town.’

  ‘Yes, well, it comes at a price,’ said the dad, whose name was Rickard. ‘Sometimes you can get tired of this too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said the mum.

  ‘What do I mean? Oh, nothing.’

  Parrot Earrings chatted about the practical details with Eva and Rickard. They flicked through some papers, slurped their coffee.

  ‘Well, there we are,’ said Parrot Earrings. ‘I’d better be off if I’m going to get back to Solna before I finish for the day, otherwise it’ll be overtime.’

  She stood up.

  ‘Thank you and I hope everything works out. Otherwise I’m here to help.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Rickard, holding out a huge fist.

  They shook hands and Parrot Earrings headed for the door, stopped and turned around.

  ‘Oh, yes, was there anything you can think of, Mik? Or is everything okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘Everything will be fine, you’ll see,’ said Parrot Earrings.

  She waved at the kitchen window from outside, got into the car, started it and drove off.

  Mik reached out for another bun.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Eva. ‘You’ve had enough now.’

  She put the plate of buns away.

  The room that was to be his was in the basement and had narrow windows high up under the ceiling. The walls were covered in forest-patterned wallpaper. Fir trees, an endless row of fir trees.

  ‘What have you got there?’ asked Eva, nodding towards his arm.

  Mik looked down at his cushion.

  ‘My cushion.’

  ‘Comfort cushion, is it?’

  Eva took the cushion and continued, ‘Only little children have things like that, don’t they? I’ll look after it.’

  And so she left, with the words, ‘Make yourself at home.’

  Mik opened his bag. He had three pairs of trousers, two jumpers, four pairs of socks, five pairs of underpants, five T-shirts, a belt, a toothbrush, toothpaste, his mobile, the knife and his front door keys. He put the knife in the belt. He folded the clothes and put them in the chest of drawers. He hid the keys under the jumpers, changed his mind and shoved them in his pocket.

  He made the bed with the sheet, duvet cover and pillow cases that had been put out for him, and when he was finished he sat on the bed and stared at the forest wallpaper. He had a strong feeling that no one here would think he was funny.

  Rickard and Niklas came into the room.

  ‘So, here you are,’ said Rickard. ‘Your own room and everything; that’s good. Just a couple of things. We all have to lend a hand here. No one can get out of it, otherwise it won’t work. And we have rules, but Niklas can run through those with you later. We’ve got fourteen dogs of our own and five in the boarding kennels. It’s a lot of work and we thought it would be a very good idea if you helped Niklas with the dogs. You can give them food and then muck out the runs and keep the dog kennels clean.

  ‘Dog poo,’ said Niklas, grinning.

  ‘You can go down straight away and say hello to the dogs.’

  LOCKED IN WITH A POTTY

  There were about ten dog runs with rusty wire netting outside the dog kennels. It looked like a concentration camp. It smelled of dog shit and dog piss.

  Two large dark dogs growled softly behind the bars and barked. Others kept quiet and roamed backwards and forwards behind the fencing. Most of the runs appeared to be empty.

  ‘The others are in the kennels,’ said Niklas. ‘They’re out here during the day and we take them in at night. They have their own enclosures so they don’t tear each other to pieces. We’ve mostly got Riesenschnauzers.’

  Riesenschnauzers. Mik shuddered.

  Niklas grinned. ‘The biggest ones, old Jasack and Bass, weigh over fifty kilos and are seventy centimetres high. Sack and Bass can’t stand Qvint and Rip. They must never be let out at the same time or be in the same run. Otherwise they’ll kill each other. Nian and Narp can’t be together either. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mik.

  He was listening, and he realised he had arrived in hell.

  Niklas went on, ‘Jasack is the oldest and biggest and the king. But he’s old and has only got four teeth left and his breath stinks. He only likes Dad and tries to bite everyone else.’

  Niklas looked at Mik with a superior expression. Mik knew Niklas was the bullying kind. They were easy to recognise: if you went down to the street to show everyone what a lovely big toad you’d found, there was always one boy who wanted to know what colour it was underneath. But there was also always the boy who wanted to know what a toad would look like after a flight down from the tenth floor.

  Mik knew he was the toad. Foster child and Niklas’s toad.

  And why did these people have dogs? Wasn’t it bad enough as it was?

  ‘Come on, I’ll teach you the dog duties,’ said Niklas, opening the door to the kennels.

  They entered a large room with steel workbenches along the walls. Stainless steel bowls were piled up high. There was a grimy bathtub and a shower hose. On the walls hung leads, muzzles, combs and brush-type things. There were two big blue plastic barrels full of dog food.

  The whole room smelled of dog food and stale dog. And behind it lingered the stink of piss and shit. At the end of the room was a long passage with cage doors on either side.

  ‘This is the workroom where the food is prepared and the dogs are groomed. You must never have more than one dog in here at a time. In the other section are the enclosures.’

  Niklas chatted on about what you should and shouldn’t do. Which food some dogs must have and others mustn’t. Mik looked at the muzzles and leads and all these shiny chains. Chains, chains and more chains.

  ‘Those are the choke chains,’ said Niklas. ‘For the big ones, to stop them doing what they want.’

  Niklas pointed to a piece of paper taped to the wall, listing how much each dog should have of what. It was an endless list of dog names and types of food.

  ‘Jasack has to have his heart medication every day. You mix it in with his food. It’s that tin there.’

  He turned around and looked at Mik.

  ‘Are you getting all this or what?’

  ‘Yeah, I get it.’
/>
  ‘You’d better not make any mistakes or I’ll get the blame and then Rickard will go mental. Jasack is his favourite dog so he has to have the best food and be looked after well.’

  Niklas lined up some bowls, scooped dry food into each and mixed it with water.

  ‘Bring the bowls and follow me,’ said Niklas, and he walked into the passage with the cages.

  Mik stayed where he was in the opening. It resembled a cellar passageway with fenced-off storage areas on each side. The difference was that here there was a black monster behind each door.

  ‘I don’t do dogs,’ said Mik.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you allergic or something?’

  ‘No, I’m scared.’

  Niklas smiled and the freckles on his face lengthened into narrow strips.

  ‘They don’t all bite.’

  ‘How do you know which is which, when they all look the same?’

  ‘They don’t all look the same. You’ll learn. You only have to feed them morning and evening. And there’s always one who’s crapped in his kennel during the night. Then you’ve got to scrub it clean.’

  ‘Are the doors properly closed?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, get going.’

  Mik walked down the passage, his eyes moving anxiously from one dog to the next. They glared back, watchful. One gave a low snarl and the others joined in. They could smell his fear, and then all hell broke loose. Dogs threw themselves against the wire netting, barking. The netting rattled and bulged. The dogs tore round like black demons. Completely mental.

  He saw eyes – black eyes and white inner eyelids. Glistening teeth in red, warty gums. Warm breath smelling of their stomachs. Dog spit sprayed in his face. Mik dropped the bowls but stayed rooted to the spot. The fierce barking went through his body like electric shocks. Jaws snapped. Teeth twisted the wire netting. Dogs on hind legs, bigger than he was. Black, with massive white teeth. They hated him, they wanted to kill him and his body wouldn’t obey him.