Astrid the Unstoppable

by Maria Parr

  Heidi tapped her finger on the book again, then she picked it up and sat down on the sofa. “I can read you a bit, if you want.”

  There was some discussion and they had to flick back and forth a little so they could check how far Astrid had got, but eventually they worked out she must have been on page 113, at the part where Heidi was up the church tower in Frankfurt, looking for the mountains.

  It was a bit strange to start with, sitting there and being read to by a lady with whom Astrid was really tremendously angry, but both Astrid and Heidi eventually got swept up in the story, forgetting that it was the middle of the night and they were enemies.

  The Heidi from the book was extremely unhappy in Frankfurt. She missed home so much that she couldn’t eat, and then she started sleepwalking, so people thought the old house was haunted. It was the kind old doctor who finally found out how much Heidi was hurting, by which time Heidi had almost died of sorrow and homesickness.

  “Can you really die of homesickness?” Astrid asked, shocked.

  Heidi wasn’t sure. She thought the author might have been exaggerating a little. But if the Heidi from the book had practically stopped eating, then she probably was quite weak. Anyway, the doctor told Mr Sesemann, the father of Clara, the girl in the wheelchair, that there was only one remedy for Heidi: she’d have to go back home to her grandfather and to the mountains. Straight away.

  “Yes!” Astrid shouted.

  It was almost six in the morning by the time they finished the first part. By that point, Heidi had come home, all was well and everybody was happy.

  “This is the best book I’ve ever listened to!” Astrid said, in all seriousness. “Don’t you think the place up there where the grandfather lives sounds a bit like Glimmerdal Shieling?”

  Heidi nodded.

  Astrid looked down at her toes sticking out of the woollen jumper. There was something she had to ask, but it was a bit difficult.

  “Why didn’t you come back home to Gunnvald?” she whispered eventually.

  A long moment passed before Heidi said anything.

  “Gunnvald never asked me if I wanted to,” she finally replied.

  Astrid slowly sat all the way up, gazing at Heidi with wide eyes. “He didn’t?”

  Heidi shook her head. “When Anna came to take me away, I kept on pretending I was the Heidi from the book. You know, it was almost like when Aunt Deta came, even though it was my mother. To start with, it was exciting in Frankfurt. I got to play the fiddle every single day with a really good teacher, and Anna took me everywhere with her. I had been missing her, you know.”

  Astrid nodded. She could sympathize with that.

  “But I was sure that Gunnvald would call soon and say I could come home to Glimmerdal,” said Heidi. “I only had to stay in Frankfurt for a while, I thought, like Heidi does in the book. I longed to come back here. I longed to go back to Sigurd the goatherd, to the mountains, to the river, to the sheep… And to Gunnvald. Most of all to go back to Gunnvald. And the more I missed Glimmerdal, the more I thought I was like the Heidi in the book. In the end I couldn’t take it any more and secretly tried to phone home. I called several times, but nobody answered.”

  Heidi went quiet for a long while.

  “Gunnvald never called me, Astrid. Not once. He just stopped being my father.”

  Astrid Glimmerdal sat there on the sofa, wearing the enormous woollen jumper and feeling like something had collapsed inside her. How could Gunnvald have been like that? Gunnvald, who had always been so kind to Astrid, how could he have done that to Heidi? Didn’t he know how fond people can get of their fathers? Astrid turned round and buried her face in one of the cushions on the sofa. She didn’t want Heidi to see her crying.

  Astrid’s dad didn’t say very much when they arrived. He just gave them a little smile from behind his beard and made some breakfast. When Astrid staggered off to school, she knew three things. She knew that her dad and Heidi were still sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. She knew that Heidi wasn’t going to sell the farm to Mr Hagen. And she knew it felt as if something had died inside her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In which Astrid is reacquainted

  with an old man

  “Triplets!” Astrid shouted, jumping up and down.

  “You’re turning into quite the farmer,” her father mumbled drowsily.

  He prefers it when the ewes have twins. When they have triplets, there’s so often some kind of trouble, and before you know it, you’ve got a little bottle lamb on your hands. Bottle lambs have to be hand-fed with a baby’s bottle, which is a lot of work. That’s why Astrid’s dad prefers twins, but Astrid loves bottle lambs so she was hoping there would be heaps of them causing trouble.

  It was non-stop now, day and night. Astrid’s dad and Heidi were on lambing duty on their respective farms and could hardly get any sleep. Peter did a shift every now and then so they could snatch forty winks. Astrid begged to be allowed to help out too, but her dad was strict about it. She had to go to school and had to sleep at night.

  “How am I supposed to become a farmer if I can’t stay up at night?” Astrid shouted angrily.

  Astrid’s dad thought she’d get on fine anyway; and besides, nine-year-olds were only allowed an all-nighter once a month – that was just the way it was – and Astrid had already used up her quota on Heidi’s doorstep.

  As for Heidi, Astrid had grown to like her. She knew how to play the fiddle. She knew how to make strange food. She knew how to deliver lambs. She knew how to jump over rivers. And she knew how to make Astrid’s dad laugh out loud. Astrid was quite astonished when she heard him. Her dad had spent the previous few days training Heidi, as it was a long time since she had done any lambing. On one of the days, when Astrid came into their barn, she found her dad and Heidi each hanging over the edge of one of the pens, laughing so much they had hiccups, while the ewes and the puppy stared at them as if they were aliens.

  “What are you laughing at?” Astrid asked, but neither her dad nor Heidi knew. They were just laughing.

  Astrid was starting to realize that her dad and Heidi had been almost like brother and sister once upon a time. She’d asked her dad all about it over the past few days, and he’d told her about how they used to play together, about all the time they’d spent in the mountains, and about how bossy Heidi used to be back then. Astrid’s dad and his younger brothers always had to do what she said.

  Astrid and her dad had certainly talked about many things recently, but there was one thing Astrid couldn’t bring herself to talk about, and that was Gunnvald. Every time her dad tried to ask Astrid if she fancied going to visit him, Astrid started discussing something else.

  One day, Gunnvald even phoned and asked for her.

  “He wants to speak with you, Astrid,” her dad said, holding out the phone.

  Astrid stood there for a moment, looking at the telephone, and then she ran outside. She ran and ran until her mouth tasted of blood. She didn’t want to talk to Gunnvald.

  Astrid’s dad used some hay to wipe the worst of the blood and mess off the newly born triplets.

  “Dad, why don’t you get some sleep tonight, and I can stay here?” Astrid begged. “I can manage!”

  “I know you can manage, but you’re not allowed.”

  “But you’re so tired.”

  “I’m never tired,” her dad lied, as he climbed out of the pen. He ruffled her hair. “It’s reindeer meatballs for dinner tonight.”

  “I don’t need cheering up,” Astrid said, also lying. “I’m never sad.”

  Her dad put his hand on her shoulders, behind her neck, and they went out into the farmyard and the sunlight. Then both Astrid and her dad suddenly stopped and stared ahead.

  Auntie Eira once said that nobody in the world can shout “Mum!” like Astrid can. “You shout it so loud that you make the tree trunks snap all the way down the glen.”

  Now Astrid found herself doing it again, as there, ahead of them, wrapped in
sunlight, stood Astrid’s mum. Astrid ran and reached her in just two steps. Her mum’s kind arms held her tightly, and her woollen jumper had such a good smell of the sea and ocean that Astrid could’ve stood there smelling it all day.

  “God, how I’ve missed you,” her mum whispered into Astrid’s lion curls and into her dad’s beard, while Astrid’s joyful shout could still be heard dancing between the mountains.

  Astrid’s mum put down her rucksack and her red watertight bag in the hallway and rubbed her nose against Snorri’s beak. Then Astrid’s dad could finally be a tired dad, and Astrid could finally be a sad Astrid, as Mum was home now. Dear, kind, comforting Mum.

  Astrid’s dad fell asleep like a baby on the sofa in front of the news. Astrid’s mum kissed him on the forehead and put a blanket over him, then she took Astrid with her out into the barn. They sat close to each other as they started the all-night lambing shift, and Astrid talked and talked.

  “Gunnvald never called Heidi,” she muttered quietly when she’d finished, staring into the darkness of the barn.

  “Tomorrow, Astrid, we’re going to visit Gunnvald,” said her mum.

  “No,” said Astrid.

  “Yes,” said her mum.

  It’s strange, but things tend to turn out the way Astrid’s mum says. Astrid thought that must be where she’d got it from.

  Now Astrid and her mum were standing outside Gunnvald’s room. He wasn’t at the hospital any more; he’d gone to a place just outside town where they were teaching him how to walk again. Astrid’s heart was pounding as her mum knocked on the door.

  “Hello?” they heard a voice say. They walked in and entered a bright, pleasant room.

  An old man was sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room.

  “Oh, Gunnvald,” said Astrid’s mum. “What have they done to your hair?”

  They’d cut it and combed it, and Gunnvald was unrecognizable. He was pale too, and thin.

  Astrid’s mum walked straight over to Gunnvald and messed his hair back up again. They said hello to each other and chatted. Gunnvald told her about his thigh bone and his ankle, and he asked about Greenland and the rising sea levels, but he kept getting distracted and glancing over at Astrid. She stood there, looking down at the ends of her shoes: one was pointing straight forward, while the other was pointing a little out to the side. She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want to be there.

  “Astrid?”

  She didn’t answer. She could feel Gunnvald’s eyes on her, and eventually she had to lift up her head and look at him. He didn’t look like Gunnvald any more. His cheeks were hollow. They spent a long time looking at each other like that. Then Gunnvald cleared his throat.

  “Astrid, what would I do without you?”

  Then the dam burst. Astrid Glimmerdal ran across the room and flung herself round his neck. “You’re the biggest fool I know!” she sobbed.

  He really was. He was big, and he was a fool too. But he was also her best friend, after all, and she’d missed him so much that it was a wonder she hadn’t died from it.

  “I’m going to get us some Danish pastries,” said Astrid’s mum.

  When they were alone, Astrid sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. She could see that Gunnvald was going to ask about school and the sheep and the snow, but he could save himself the trouble.

  “Why did you never call Heidi?”

  Gunnvald realized that if he still wanted to have a god-daughter, he’d have to make an effort and give her an answer. He drew a breath and put his hands on his knobbly knees.

  “I was angry with Anna Zimmermann, Astrid,” he admitted. “First she came along with Heidi and left her with me without asking. Heidi grew up with me, and I grew so fond of her. Then Anna came back and took her away again without asking. And Heidi went with her. She wanted to leave me!”

  Gunnvald’s face wore a devastated look.

  “Nothing is ever the children’s fault,” Astrid said, showing no mercy.

  “No, I know,” said Gunnvald.

  “Heidi’s been longing to come back home her whole life, you know. You were the one who didn’t want to have her back.”

  “But I did!”

  “Why didn’t you ring her up and tell her, then?”

  Astrid was shouting now. Gunnvald ran his hand through his newly cut hair. It was far too short.

  “You don’t know what it was like, Astrid. I’ve spent all these years trying to forget she existed, because—”

  “You’re not allowed to think like that!” she yelled. “If you’re a dad, then you’re always a dad! You can’t just stop being one even if bad things happen.”

  Gunnvald looked out of the window. When he turned back to Astrid, he had tears in his eyes.

  Astrid felt so sorry for him. And she felt sorry for Heidi. In her mind, there was one old bag who was worse than anybody, and that was Anna Zimmermann. Imagine ruining something so good the way she’d done.

  Astrid got up and stroked Gunnvald’s cheek where a tear had made it wet. “They’re doing a good job of shaving you here,” she said. “You almost look normal.”

  “Oh, good heavens, how I wish I was in Glimmerdal and didn’t have to shave,” Gunnvald grumbled.

  “Close your eyes,” Astrid said.

  Then she told him how the trees in Glimmerdal were looking now. There was colour on the buds, and the spruce trees smelt wonderful, as did the land. Astrid told him how it smelt when she lay down on her stomach and buried her nose in the waking grass. Meanwhile, the mountains were losing a bit more snow every day, she told him, but there was still enough left for her aunts to go skiing when they came at Easter. That was, if they went up high enough, which of course they would. Aunts like hers could never get enough of going high up into the mountains. Sally was going on about her crocuses every day, which was enough to make anybody crazy, so Gunnvald should be glad he had to stay in town for his physiotherapy. But Gunnvald would soon be able to come back and sit on his old stone steps. The steps were so warm in the midday sun now that you could sit there without getting a cold backside. And the roads were all free of snow, but they were still wet. Only the bridge was dry, and there was grit on it that made people skid on their bikes.

  “And the river,” said Astrid. “The river is thundering away as ever. You know what it’s like, don’t you?”

  Of course Gunnvald knew what it was like. He sighed as he sat there with his eyes closed.

  “Astrid, can you bring me my fiddle the next time you come?” he asked. “If it’s not going to be too long a wait until next time, I mean,” he added.

  “You won’t have to wait too long,” Astrid promised, shaking hands on it.

  Gunnvald gently squeezed her hand. There was something he was about to ask. Astrid waited. Nothing came.

  “What is it, you stubborn old mule?” she asked eventually.

  Gunnvald took a deep breath. “Is it true that Heidi missed home?”

  That was when Astrid realized that Gunnvald still couldn’t believe it. She sat back down in her chair and looked at her skinny best friend, with his hair cut so short.

  “Yes,” Astrid said sincerely. “She missed home every day, Gunnvald. So much it made her stomach hurt.”

  Glimmerdal has a special sound. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear it. It’s the sound of the pounding river. It’s the sound of the wind making the spruce trees whisper and the mountains sigh. It’s the sound of the birds, too. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, then you’ll hear other sounds mixed in as well. Sometimes it’s the notes of a red-haired girl singing, or an old troll playing his fiddle.

  And every now and then, if you’re really lucky, you can hear something that’s nothing like anything else: miracle music.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  In which Heidi shows Astrid

  something really fantastic

  “You’ve got a great mother,” said Heidi.

  She and Astrid were on their way up towards Glimmerdal Shi
eling.

  Astrid smiled. She liked it when people said nice things about her mum. Not everybody did. Some people thought she should spend a little less time thinking about the sea.

  “What about your mother?” Astrid asked.

  Heidi laughed a little. “My mother was good at playing the fiddle,” she said.

  “Did you love her?”

  “Surely everybody loves their mother,” said Heidi. “But I suppose I was normally more angry at her.”

  “So was Gunnvald,” said Astrid.

  It was a strange walk they were on, Astrid thought. She’d gone over to see Heidi and told her that Gunnvald had asked for his fiddle, and then, instead of giving her the fiddle, Heidi had packed it in its case and slipped it in her orange rucksack. Then she’d told Astrid to go home and put on some sturdier shoes.

  “I’ve got something to show you,” she’d said.

  So now they were on their way up to Glimmerdal Shieling with a fiddle in Heidi’s rucksack.

  “Oh, I’m looking forward to Easter so much!” said Astrid, dancing around Heidi’s legs.

  Just think: then Gunnvald would be coming home, and Ola, Broder, Birgitte and their mother would be coming too. It was certainly going to be full at Gunnvald’s farm this year. Astrid wondered what Heidi would think of Ola and Broder. Of course she’d already met Ola that time they tried to steal her dog, but Astrid didn’t want to think about that. She looked on ahead up the path.

  Glimmerdal Shieling had to be the best place on earth: Astrid was sure of it.

  “We’ve got to come up and spend the night here this summer, Heidi!” she said excitedly when they spotted the old buildings. She was about to go over the bridge, but Heidi signalled that they were heading further up.

  Then Astrid suddenly realized that they weren’t going to the old mountain farm but to the waterfall where she’d seen Heidi walk across the river.

  “Remember that my legs aren’t as long as yours,” she warned Heidi as she pictured the enormous leaps Heidi had taken last time.