Astrid the Unstoppable

by Maria Parr

  There was less water in the river now, and the invisible rocks that Heidi had jumped across the last time formed a kind of bridge.

  “They might be slippery,” said Heidi.

  “Rocks in the river are always slippery, aren’t they?” said Astrid, breathing as much speed and self-confidence into her lungs as possible.

  They made it over: first Astrid, with her lion curls dancing in the gusts of wind blowing across the river, and then Heidi with her orange rucksack.

  “I’ve never been here before,” Astrid told her, looking at the dark solid rocks behind the waterfall.

  “I have,” said Heidi. “But I’ve never shown it to anybody. Follow me.”

  Astrid was so excited that she was fizzing inside. But she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary anywhere.

  That soon changed. Heidi walked right up to the waterfall, and then she vanished, as if the rock had swallowed her. There was no visible hole hiding in the shadows, though. Astrid stared, her mouth wide open, then she ran over and reached out her hand. There was an opening between a wet root and the rock face. What on earth? Eagerly Astrid slipped into the dark, narrow space.

  Pitch black. She reached her hands out in front of her, but she couldn’t feel anything apart from air. Eventually her eyes became used to the dark, and she could see the hole in the rock went even further back.

  “Heidi?”

  “Just keep going straight on!” a voice said from somewhere deep inside the rocks.

  Astrid groped her way forward, never having to crouch down. The sound of the thundering river grew quieter, but it was as if it had turned into an echo. In a way, they were inside the waterfall.

  “Heidi?” Astrid called again, as she felt she’d walked quite some distance now without seeing anything. She couldn’t believe it: there she was, in a secret passage! It was absolutely incredible.

  And then there was suddenly light. Astrid almost fell over a kind of step going down. She’d entered a cave. A massive cave! There had to be space for thirty people inside. The little thunderbolt of Glimmerdal stood there, gaping. She was speechless. A cave! A cave in Glimmerdal!

  “Welcome to my secret,” said Heidi, smiling and gesturing with her arms. She’d lit some candles so they could see each other. “Not even Sigurd knows about this place,” she added with a wink.

  And then, while Astrid stood there in the middle of the cave, still totally speechless, Heidi opened her orange rucksack and took out the fiddle.

  Astrid Glimmerdal will remember that moment for the rest of her life, as clear as water, every single second like a diamond in her mind. After Heidi had tuned Gunnvald’s fiddle and tucked it under her chin, the most fantastic thing Astrid had ever experienced happened.

  Heidi played to the river.

  Behind them, above them and around them, they could taste and smell the river, and as Heidi drew her bow across the strings, the notes mingled with the sound of the water. Goosebumps rippled right across Astrid’s body. She was surrounded by music.

  When the notes finally died away, Astrid was still speechless. Heidi smiled.

  “I used to play here when I was little. I found the cave purely by chance one summer when I stayed at Glimmerdal Shieling for almost a week and thought I should try having a shower in the waterfall.”

  “Wow,” was all Astrid could say, quite faintly.

  “And you know, Astrid, I’ve played music all over the world, but all I’ve longed for that whole time has been to come here and play in my river cave again.”

  Astrid could understand that.

  “Try singing ‘Bluey, Billy Goat of Mine’,” said Heidi.

  Astrid didn’t need to be asked twice. She sang to her heart’s content, while Heidi played. When they finished, Astrid had to sit down.

  “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” she said blissfully.

  Heidi laughed.

  They didn’t speak on their way home: they were so full of secrets and music that words weren’t enough. But when they reached Gunnvald’s farm, Astrid cleared her throat ceremoniously.

  “Heidi, would you like to come to my birthday party on Easter Sunday?”

  Heidi turned round, surprised. “Really? How old are you going to be?”

  “Ten. It’s a round-number birthday,” Astrid announced.

  “That’s quite something, Astrid Glimmerdal. Quite something indeed.”

  Heidi lifted the fiddle case out of her orange rucksack. “Now you can take this to Gunnvald.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In which Snorri the Seagull

  gets a seagull castle, and

  Gunnvald comes home

  “It’s my birthday in just over a week; tomorrow Ola, Broder and Birgitte are coming to Glimmerdal for their Easter holidays; and today…” Astrid stopped to catch her breath. “Today Gunnvald’s coming home. And he’ll be reunited with Heidi!”

  Astrid was lying in bed and had so many things to look forward to that she could hardly get up.

  As she lay there, so happy and excited that she almost felt ill, Astrid heard a noise that made her leap out of bed. It sounded like somebody revving and tuning moped motors. She rushed over to her attic window. At first, she was so surprised that she thought she was dreaming. Down in the farmyard were two skinny legs, in jeans full of holes, sticking out from beneath a moped. And not far away was the back of a green chequered shirt, leaning over another moped.

  Astrid threw the window wide open. “Auntie Eira! Auntie Idun!”

  Astrid thought that God must have been having a good day when he made her aunties.

  “Today I’m going to come up with a surprise,” said God, and then he started putting together an auntie.

  He made her skinny and freckly, and decided that she would crumple up like a concertina when she laughed. Then he stuffed her full of noise. He’d never put so much noise in an aunt before, Astrid thought. God decided that she would like everything that was funny, everything that made loud bangs, and everything that moved fast. When he’d finished, he took a step back and looked at that aunt. He’d never seen anything like her. He was so pleased with her that he decided to make another, so by the end of the day, God had made two aunts who looked exactly the same. To put the icing on the cake, he took an extra fistful of freckles from his freckle bowl and sprinkled them all over both of them, especially on their knees.

  “Knee freckles are my favourite thing,” said God.

  Astrid imagined he must have pondered for a while who he should give the aunts to, since they’d make such a racket. Eventually he put them in Astrid’s granny’s tummy. She already had four boys who were getting big by then, so she was quite experienced. Astrid’s granny called the first aunt Idun and the second Eira. She thought they were the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. She’d told Astrid that. Then, from heaven, God looked after her aunts, just like he does all aunts. But Astrid thought he must have had to keep a special eye on these ones, since they got up to all sorts of mischief. He must have sat up there, chuckling to himself, and when they were ten, God decided to give the aunts a surprise.

  “And then, with a big fanfare, da-da-da-da-da-daa, along came the little thunderbolt of Glimmerdal, with freckles on her knees,” Astrid always said when she told her aunts the story. It was all so well thought out by God that she really couldn’t have made it up any better herself.

  And now Astrid’s aunts had come home several days earlier than planned. They’d heard rumours that the snow in Glimmerdal was melting at an outrageous speed that year, they said, so if they wanted to do any proper skiing, they’d have to whizz home. On top of that, they’d also heard that big brother of theirs was getting worn out with the lambing.

  “And last, but by no means least,” said Auntie Idun, “we heard that Astrid Glimmerdal’s got a big birthday coming up and is going to have a massive party, and things like that take some planning. What kind of cakes do we need to bake?”

  Astrid smiled a smile
as wide as a bus. “Well, I did promise Snorri I’d make him a seagull’s castle out of real gingerbread,” she said.

  After breakfast, Astrid and her aunts carried the ingredients they’d need over to the old house. That quiet house was going to liven up now: Astrid’s aunts always filled it with friends and all sorts of hullabaloo. Most of all, they filled it with Peter. Astrid knew he’d be coming soon. He’d park his Volvo over by the barn and walk calmly across the farmyard with his lopsided smile. And even though Gunnvald had told Peter to get his act together on the love front, he probably wasn’t going to be able to spit it out this Easter either that he was in love with Auntie Idun, and that he’d been in love with her since their second year at primary school. In other words, for twelve years.

  “If I ever fall in love, although I doubt I will, I’ll certainly make sure to tell the person in question,” Astrid had told Gunnvald the last time they’d spoken about it.

  “Mozart above,” Gunnvald had said.

  Over in the old house, Auntie Eira climbed up onto the kitchen worktop and took down the world’s largest mixing bowl. Then they got to work, spreading a billowing cloud of flour through the cold kitchen.

  “I think there must be some kind of curse on gingerbread made so far out of season. You know, we normally make gingerbread at Christmas,” said Auntie Idun, as Astrid smashed her third egg outside the enormous mixing bowl. It went blop as it landed on the worktop. Snorri sat watching them from Astrid’s grandpa’s rocking chair. He gave a “Squaaawk!” every time the eggs went blop.

  “Maybe he thinks I’m smashing seagull eggs,” Astrid realized. She told Snorri to look away if he thought it was disgusting.

  Astrid and Auntie Eira dreamt up all the things the castle would need. Auntie Idun drew designs and did the maths to work out what was possible. Gingerbread pieces were put in and taken out of the oven tray by tray.

  “With all this gingerbread, we’re going to confuse Father Christmas. What if he comes stumbling along here in April?” said Auntie Eira, taking a really deep breath of the gingerbread smell.

  There were bits of gingerbread covering all the tables and worktops in the kitchen. Now they needed the sugar mixture to stick the pieces together.

  “Take two steps backwards, please,” Auntie Eira commanded as she got going with the red-hot gooey mixture.

  Astrid had never been part of making such a huge gingerbread castle before. When they put the last piece into place, it was almost a metre and a half tall with three floors, four balconies, two towers and a rickety walkway. They’d even made a flagpole. It looked like it might collapse if you so much as glanced at it the wrong way, but Auntie Eira swore that her sugar mixture was better than all the superglue in the world.

  “Snorri’s going to live like a king in there!” she said.

  And that was when Astrid suddenly glanced at the clock. It was half past three. How could that have happened?

  “Gunnvald!” she shouted.

  How could she have got so caught up that she’d forgotten? And Heidi, what about her? Suddenly Astrid was in such a hurry that she didn’t know where to start. Big things were about to happen. She hustled out into the corridor, crashing into Peter, who was on his way in.

  Astrid’s dad had already started the car. He was going to fetch Gunnvald from the ferry and wondered whether Astrid wanted to come along for the ride. She shook her head. She had to go and find Heidi! Her lion curls danced in the spring sunlight. Imagine how strange it was going to be: Gunnvald and Heidi, father and daughter. They hadn’t seen each other in almost thirty years! Astrid ran down the hill as fast as she could.

  But as soon as she arrived at Gunnvald’s farm, she sensed that something wasn’t as it should be. Was it the dark windows, perhaps? Or the way the house was looking at her? Maybe the fact it was so terribly quiet? Astrid rushed up the steps to the house and threw the door open.

  “Heidi?”

  Nobody answered.

  She ran all through the house: up and down stairs, through Gunnvald’s thousand sitting rooms, the bedrooms, the workshop, the garage, the barn. She shouted and shouted, but nobody answered. Neither the puppy nor Heidi was anywhere to be seen.

  And then she found the note on the kitchen table. “Thank you for everything,” it said.

  Astrid was speechless. She stood by the kitchen table, reading the note over and over again.

  Heidi had gone.

  When Astrid’s dad and Gunnvald drove into the farmyard, Astrid was sitting on the steps outside the house. Wet trails of tears lined her cheeks.

  Astrid’s dad helped Gunnvald out of the car. The enormous Gunnvald stood there, looking at his farm, his house and his glen, all of which he’d missed so much, but most of all, he looked at Astrid with her tear-streaked face.

  Then it was as if he snapped: it was so horrible to watch that it felt as if somebody were crushing Astrid’s heart. With a small whimper, she stood up from the steps and ran across the farmyard. She threw her arms around her enormous best friend’s stomach, more or less where he seemed most broken, and buried her face in his jacket. She hugged him so he would know how much she loved him.

  They stood there like that, Astrid and Gunnvald, while spring sprang around them and the river filled the air with its loud, mournful lament.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  In which Auntie Eira skis a

  somersault, Astrid almost skis a

  somersault, and Ola is nowhere

  near skiing a somersault

  “Are we going all the way up there?” Ola asked, pointing his ski pole towards the top of Cairn Peak.

  Astrid shook her head. “Are you crazy? You’ve got to learn to ski first. Don’t forget, you have to come back down too.”

  “I do know how to ski!” Ola shouted angrily.

  “But you’re not very good,” Astrid replied, being honest.

  “Yes, I am!”

  Behind them, Broder laughed quietly.

  Ola, Broder, Birgitte and their mum had returned to Glimmerdal. The spring thaw had moved them further up the mountain than the last time they’d come, but Mr Hagen could probably still hear them, if he listened extra carefully. They could hardly have a quiet time up there in the Easter snow when it was only the fourth occasion in his life that Ola had put on skis.

  Astrid went at the front, leaving a trail for them to follow in the wet snow. After a while, she met a ski trail that was already there. When she lifted up her head, she could see who had made it.

  “Now you’ll see somebody who really knows how to ski,” she told Ola, pointing up at the two black dots beneath the summit of Cairn Peak.

  “Who’s that?” asked Broder.

  “My aunties,” said Astrid proudly.

  The side of Cairn Peak is Auntie Eira and Auntie Idun’s favourite slope.

  “There’s something wrong with you,” Astrid’s grandpa always tells them. “Why can’t you stay on the flat parts, like everyone else?”

  But if Astrid’s aunts had stayed on the flat parts, like everyone else, then the little thunderbolt of Glimmerdal wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the music that played in her head as she watched them come dancing down the slope, like now. Besides, her grandpa wouldn’t be coming home until later in the Easter holidays.

  Auntie Idun was the best skier. The track behind her was as straight as an arrow, as if somebody had drawn a finger through the snow. Auntie Eira skied more in fits and starts, but she was the best one at jumping. And now she was approaching the Little Hammer at top speed.

  Astrid watched with her mouth wide open as Auntie Eira’s lean body pretty much flopped off the edge of the Little Hammer and leant back. Calmly and smoothly, with her arms and ski poles sticking straight out like slender wings, Auntie Eira stretched into an endless somersault, before landing softly below the Little Hammer. Auntie Idun followed behind her. She didn’t do a somersault; she just pulled in her legs and flew far, far through the air like a little ball. It looked as easy as anythin
g.

  “Wow,” Ola whispered.

  “Yup,” said Astrid. Then she started singing “Old MacDonald” as she heaved herself along.

  It was no good this time either. Astrid landed on her back beneath the Little Hammer with a real slam, winding herself. If she didn’t die now, she never would!

  “You’ve got really good!” said Auntie Idun, smiling and calmly rubbing Astrid’s chest until she could get her breath back.

  Astrid was about to reply but was interrupted by a howl of the worst kind imaginable. It was Ola. He came flapping through the sky like a crow: skis, ski poles, hands and feet pointing in all directions.

  “Somebody’s got the hang of it,” Auntie Eira murmured, her eyes following the little Easter visitor’s trajectory through the air.

  Broder came snowploughing down to them, just in time to see his little brother crash-land in the damp spring snow.

  “OOOOOWWW!”

  A little later, Astrid stood at the door and watched as Gunnvald cleaned the graze on Ola’s cheek. Birgitte was playing with Hulda in the slants of sunlight on the kitchen floor. The boys’ mother was baking buns. It all looked like a beautiful, shiny photograph: it was Easter, there were guests and there was plenty of joyful noise. But beneath all this happiness was something not so happy. Where was Heidi? Astrid could see in Gunnvald’s eyes that he was thinking about it the whole time. She was thinking about it the whole time too. Heidi, Heidi, Heidi.

  They’d tried to find her, but the only thing they knew was that she’d left on the boat and was going to catch a flight: Able Seaman Jon had told them that much. That flight could have been going anywhere. They hadn’t managed to find any phone numbers that worked either. Nobody answered when they called the number they’d found for the house in Frankfurt, and a mobile number they tracked down was no longer in service. Astrid’s mum was able to get in touch with Heidi’s agent: he was the one who organized all of her concerts. But the agent told her that Heidi had taken an indeterminate leave of absence. He hadn’t heard from her for a long time. It was as if Heidi had vanished off the face of the earth.