Astrid the Unstoppable

by Maria Parr

  “If I were the sea, I wouldn’t dare rise another centimetre,” Auntie Eira had said once when Astrid’s mum was telling them all about it. Astrid’s mum gets quite worked up when she talks about rising sea levels.

  “Do you think she’ll be coming home soon?” Astrid asked, her mouth full of reindeer meatballs.

  Her dad closed his computer and poured himself an afternoon cup of coffee. “Yes, I think she will,” he said.

  “Why are you so fond of your father, Astrid Glimmerdal?” That’s what Heidi had asked her the day before. Astrid chewed her meatballs. Because he was her dad, she supposed. Because he had a cuddly beard, and because he made reindeer meatballs when she was sad, and because he looked after her. Astrid thought her dad was kind of like the mountains, actually. He was always there. That’s why she loved him.

  She’d just swallowed her last meatball when they heard a bang.

  There used not to be so many seagulls in Glimmerdal. Their numbers had been growing over the years. Snorri was certainly not the only one any more. Now there were lots of them making a racket, especially when the bin lorry came to pick up the rubbish. Then Astrid remembered it just so happened to be bin collection day.

  Heidi clearly didn’t like bin collection day. Astrid looked straight across the glen and saw, to her horror, that their new neighbour was standing with Gunnvald’s shotgun in her hands, shooting down seagulls as if they were clay pigeons.

  “You must be joking!”

  Astrid ran out and jumped on her bike. She didn’t take her helmet this time so that Snorri wouldn’t follow her, but he did anyway. Stupid creature!

  “Go home, you twerp! She’ll kill you,” Astrid yelled, waving him away.

  It was hard to cycle like that, with a seagull over her head, one hand on the handlebars, and a crazy armed woman very close by. Down near the river, her bike slipped on the dry grit. Astrid landed on the road, flat on her face. Ow! Her knee was bleeding like anything. Angry and agitated, she left her bike lying there with its wheels spinning and hobbled up the hill.

  Heidi was just aiming at another seagull when the familiar red lion curls came into view.

  “Stop that right now!” Astrid shouted.

  Heidi fired, and another seagull plummeted to the ground. She was a good markswoman. There were already four dead seagulls lying around the farm. Snorri landed on Astrid’s shoulder, and she grabbed hold of his legs.

  “I won’t shoot your seagull, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” said Heidi, starting to gather up the carcasses.

  “You mustn’t shoot any seagulls!” Astrid said furiously. “Those might be Snorri’s aunts, for all you know!”

  She looked around in desperation, while trying to shield Snorri from the horrific sight.

  Heidi didn’t care. She stole a glance at Astrid’s knee before picking up the last dead seagull. Astrid remembered the last time she’d bled. It was that winter, after the fight with Ola. It was Gunnvald who’d bandaged her up then. Now she was standing there, bleeding worse than ever before, and Heidi didn’t even mention it.

  As Gunnvald’s door slammed shut, Astrid realized that there was no other way. She’d have to talk to Mr Hagen.

  Mr Hagen was quite startled when he saw who it was stepping into his reception. He hadn’t seen Astrid up close since the day he’d thrown out those three children and their mother back in the winter. When he remembered that day, and how sad Astrid had been, he had to clear his throat.

  “Hello,” said Astrid.

  She sighed so heavily that Mr Hagen had to take a second look at her.

  “Have you hurt yourself?” he asked when he saw the bloodstained hole in her trousers.

  Astrid shook her head. “Well, maybe a little, actually.”

  Mr Hagen thought for a moment, then he beckoned her over behind the desk and took out a first-aid box. Astrid sat there on his chair, stunned, with her trouser leg rolled up, while he cleaned away the blood and the pieces of grit, and then stuck on some plasters with amazing precision. Astrid had never had such straight plasters before.

  “There,” said Mr Hagen when he’d finished, waving her back up from the chair.

  “Thank you,” said Astrid. “Hey, Klaus, I was wondering whether you might do me a favour.”

  “What kind of favour?” the holiday-camp owner asked her sceptically.

  “I was wondering whether you could forget about buying Gunnvald’s farm.”

  Mr Hagen slammed the first-aid box shut. “It seems like you get to decide quite a lot of things around here, Asny.”

  “Astrid,” she corrected him.

  “Astrid. But this is none of your business. This is my business. I’m running a holiday camp and I need to make money from it. Now I’ve been offered a fantastic plot that’s closer to the mountains than this site here, has a better view, and offers considerable opportunities for the further overall development of Hagen’s Wellness Retreat. You bet I’ll be buying it!”

  Astrid stamped her foot, unrolling her rolled-up trouser leg. “It’s Gunnvald’s farm!” she protested.

  “It’s a perfect plot for some cabins, that’s what it is,” Mr Hagen said firmly. “I have great plans for Glimmerdal, Asny. The farm up there is a gold mine. I’d be an idiot not to buy it.”

  “But don’t you make enough money already?”

  Mr Hagen’s jaw dropped wide open, and he roared with laughter. Astrid had never heard him laugh before.

  “It’s a good job you don’t run a business, my dear,” he chortled. “You can never make enough money. You must never settle for what you have. Ever. If you do that, well, then you’ve lost.”

  As Astrid stood there in front of the posh rich man, she fancied giving him a thump on the head. Homes, friends, dads, mums, fiddle music, the mountains, the river, rising sea levels: those things were important. Not money. You don’t even need money to take the ferry. Astrid remembered the time she’d broken the window and how Mr Hagen had taken out the money and given her back the box. What a prize twerp.

  As Astrid disappeared through the gate, with the world’s straightest plasters, Mr Hagen stood by the window, smiling and shaking his head. Maybe he thought he’d finally got the better of the little thunderbolt of Glimmerdal.

  If so, he was sorely mistaken.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  In which Astrid can’t reveal

  what’s going on

  Astrid sat behind the washing machine. She’d just spoken with Gunnvald on the phone. She’d told him about the sheep and how spring was going, but it made no difference, no matter what she said. Gunnvald just grumbled in reply. When Astrid told him about Heidi jumping over the river, Gunnvald said he had to hang up. He couldn’t bear hearing about her. Astrid thought it was as if Gunnvald were withering away. Big, strong Gunnvald. She missed him so much now that she didn’t know what to do, so she cried her eyes out quietly behind the washing machine. Ugh, how she hated Heidi. She hated her something awful.

  Astrid looked at the phone, thought about it for two seconds and then dialled another number.

  “Ola, is that you?” Astrid was whispering. It was best to keep her dad out of it, so he wouldn’t have to share any of the guilt.

  “Of course it’s me. Why are you whispering?” Ola asked.

  Astrid curled herself up even tighter behind the washing machine. “Can you skive off school tomorrow and take the boat here?” she asked him quickly.

  “Yup,” said Ola.

  It certainly was wonderful to have people like Ola, who never think before they do something wrong.

  “Great. I’ll meet you at the quayside at quarter to eleven.”

  “But, Astrid, I haven’t got any money.”

  “Just tell Able Seaman Jon that I sent you. I’ve got to hang up now.”

  “Wait!” said Ola. “What are we going to do?”

  Astrid bit her lip and peered out from behind the washing machine. Snorri was at the door, looking at her suspiciously.

  “W
e’re going to carry out your terrible plan,” she whispered. “We’re going to kidnap Heidi’s dog.”

  Astrid’s stomach ached when she woke up the next morning, but she went on with her usual routine. She spread some fish roe on her bread, chatted about this and that with her dad, brushed her teeth, swung her rucksack on her back and ran at full speed to the bridge where the little school bus, with Lise behind the wheel, was waiting for her. But when they got down to where the other houses were and Lise indicated to turn out onto the main road to Barkvika, Astrid said, “Thanks very much, but I’ll be getting off here today.”

  Lise turned round in her comfy driver’s seat. She had a questioning look in her eyes. “Aren’t you going to school?”

  “No, thanks, not today.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to the dentist’s?”

  “No.”

  “Are you skiving?”

  “It depends how you look at it,” Astrid reasoned.

  Lise stopped the bus altogether, but she didn’t open the door. She was a school bus driver, she said, and it was her job to take children to school, whether they wanted to go or not. She wondered if Astrid had thought what Dagny would say about this.

  If Astrid was honest, she couldn’t give a hoot what Dagny would say about it. She went right up to Lise. “This is the first and last time in the history of the world that I’ll skive off school. I promise.” She held out her hand seriously.

  “Off you go then, you little thunderbolt,” Lise sighed, pressing the button to open the door.

  Astrid would wish later that Lise had never opened that bus door.

  “The man on the boat said he was going to swab the decks with you,” Ola announced as he came bounding down the gangway in his baggy trousers. “He says the ferry’s going to go bust thanks to you.”

  “When I’m older and rich from making sledges, then I’ll pay it all back,” Astrid explained.

  They had to walk up the glen along the bank of the river, so nobody would see them. It took a while. Ola’s trousers got soaking wet around his ankles, but he didn’t complain. He carried on talking non-stop about everything under the sun.

  “Crikey, it looks totally different here in the spring, doesn’t it?!”

  Astrid was only half-listening. What was she even thinking? Why did she never, ever learn?

  The biggest challenge would be sneaking past Sally’s house without being seen. Auntie Eira had shown Astrid that there was a way round the back of that green-painted house which meant you didn’t have to walk on the road. There was a hole in the enormous hedge of dog-rose plants. But you had to put up with getting a few scratches from the thorns. It was unavoidable.

  “It’s a route only to be used in emergencies,” Auntie Eira would always say.

  “And since Eira’s life is mainly made up of emergencies, she normally takes the route through the rose bushes,” Auntie Idun would add.

  It was an emergency now. Astrid and Ola crawled silently through Sally’s rose bushes, picking up some decent scratches on the way. Then they scurried over the bridge like two mad rabbits. Astrid felt sick. She didn’t know whether it was her fear of dogs or the idea of kidnapping, but she’d never felt so terrible.

  “So are you a total chicken around dogs?” Ola asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got to be the bravest person I know, then, if you’re planning to kidnap a dog even though you’re scared of them.”

  “I’m not that brave,” said Astrid.

  “Am I the one who’s going to kidnap it?”

  Astrid nodded, and Ola shrugged. He had no problems with kidnapping. You would’ve thought it was the kind of thing he got up to every day.

  They crawled all the way up the hill to Gunnvald’s house, keeping behind the stone wall. When Ola eventually saw the dog, he realized why Astrid was as white as a sheet. The dog’s hair glistened in the sun, and they could hear him growling all the way from where they were hiding.

  “Wow,” he whispered. “If I had a dog like that, nobody would ever dare beat me up.”

  The plan was simple. They had to stay behind the stone wall and wait until they saw Heidi head up into the mountains or into the barn or down to the holiday camp or wherever. Then they would rush over to the flagpole, untie the dog and take him with them over to Astrid’s farm, where they’d put the dog in the woodshed. Astrid hadn’t decided precisely how they’d deal with the ransom demand yet. She’d had enough to think about just with the dog.

  “We can write a note,” said Ola. “We’ll cut out letters from a newspaper and glue together a message on a piece of paper: ‘Give the farm back to Gunnvald or we’ll take out your dog.’”

  “We’re not going to ‘take out’ any dogs,” Astrid argued. “We’ll just keep him until she gives in.”

  “We could still write that we’re going to take him out, even if we’re not really going to do it,” Ola insisted.

  “No!” said Astrid.

  “Honestly, you don’t know much about kidnapping and ransom, Astrid. Have you got rubber gloves? We’ll look like real plonkers if we leave fingerprints on the note.”

  It was a good job they still had a few things to plan, as ages passed without Heidi going anywhere. Ola had started a long lecture about balaclavas and machine guns when they finally heard the door. Astrid’s heart almost stopped beating. Great Gunnvald, now it was for real.

  Heidi went over to the flagpole and gave the dog some food and water. Behind the wall, two pairs of eyes were following her every step.

  “She’s massive!” Ola whispered, clearly impressed.

  Then they heard her phone ring. Heidi leant against the flagpole as she answered it. “Yes, I’ve spoken to the lawyer, he… No, we can sort that out tomorrow… Six o’clock? Yes, that’ll be… No, I’ll be going back to Frankfurt, so I’d like to get it all sorted… What was that? … Asny?”

  Astrid stared at Ola, her mouth wide open. It had to be Mr Hagen. They were talking about her! Astrid heard Heidi snigger. Were they laughing at her in her own glen? Astrid had a good mind to climb over the wall and put a stop to it.

  “Was it yesterday she came by?” Heidi asked.

  Astrid looked at Ola, flabbergasted. Those two terrible people were talking about her as if she were just a little fart!

  But Heidi had stopped laughing. Now she was quite short and surly with Mr Hagen. When the call was finished, she stared out into space.

  “What a twerp,” she muttered. Then she stuffed her phone in her pocket and disappeared into the barn.

  “Now!” said Ola, leaping over the stone wall. Astrid saw him running towards the dog. He wasn’t scared in the slightest. His sleek hair danced in the sun.

  Astrid suddenly felt bad. If anything happened to Ola, then she would never forgive herself. How could she ever have thought about being such a coward! Imagine calling one of her best friends and asking him to do something so dangerous that even she wouldn’t dare to do it. She hauled herself over the wall and caught up with Ola in two seconds flat.

  “I’ll do it,” she heard herself say.

  Then it was as if she’d wandered deep into a tunnel. Her heart was pounding right up in her throat as she untied the dog. Ola was jumping up and down, looking at the barn and telling her to hurry. But it was as if Astrid were no longer in the farmyard at all. She couldn’t hear the dog growling right by her ears. In her head, all she could hear was that old goat-herding lullaby; all she could see was Gunnvald; and all she could smell and taste was hot chocolate made out of real chocolate bars. Nothing else.

  She heard the music of Gunnvald’s fiddle singing in her head as the beast snapped at her arm. And she could still hear the music as the dog’s sharp teeth dug into her skin. Astrid was so afraid that she didn’t know where she was, but there was fiddle music in her head and, outside her head, there was Ola shouting and the dog snarling.

  “Let Astrid go!” Ola howled at the dog, pull
ing at his collar. “Let her go! Let her go!”

  She was going to die! She was sure of it.

  Then Heidi came running across the farmyard. She yelled at the dog and hit him until he let go of Astrid’s arm with a whimper. The little thunderbolt of Glimmerdal staggered backwards and then fell down flat on the ground, her lion curls spread out around her head in a wild fan shape.

  The dog whimpered. Astrid whimpered. The sun shone down on them.

  “Astrid! Astrid!” Ola shouted frantically. “It was me who was supposed to take the dog!”

  “Shush,” Heidi scolded him brusquely, crouching down on one knee. She pulled out her phone. “I’m going to call Sigurd,” she said. “You’ll have to go to Barkvika to get a tetanus injection.”

  That evening, Astrid’s dad sat on the edge of her bed without saying anything. Astrid had a bandage on her arm, but that wasn’t why she was crying. She was crying because her life was so miserable. She was crying because Gunnvald was in hospital and still couldn’t come home. She was crying because Heidi was going to sell the farm to Mr Hagen. And most of all, Astrid Glimmerdal was crying because she was a little girl who couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Heidi’s put down her dog,” Astrid’s dad said after a while.

  Astrid stopped crying and looked at him, terrified. “Did she shoot him?”

  Astrid’s dad nodded.

  Then Astrid flung herself down on her dad’s lap and wept even more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In which old Nils gets drunk

  and says something very true

  On her way home from school the next day, Astrid got off the bus by the houses down the glen. She couldn’t bear to go home. She didn’t want to see Gunnvald’s farm that wasn’t Gunnvald’s farm any more, and she didn’t want to see the flagpole with no dog next to it, thanks to her. And she never, ever wanted to see Heidi again.

  But what was she going to do down the bottom of the glen? Astrid was standing there, feeling downhearted, when she suddenly caught sight of old Nils. He was out for a spin with his walking frame. For a while, Astrid just stood with her hands behind her back, watching. First, Nils walked straight into the flagpole outside the closed-down snack bar. Then he got his frame untangled and walked slalom-style across the quayside. Astrid could see he was having a funny turn and thought it would be best to take him home so he didn’t toddle over the edge of the quay and drown.