by Jo Nesbo
“You can stop standing at attention,” Bank Governor Tor said. “The king won’t be here until he finishes his breakfast.”
The two guardsmen immediately relaxed and started tugging on their mustaches.
“I assume you guys are with the Royal Guard’s secret service,” Tor said.
“And just what makes you say that?” the one with the handlebar mustache said, scowling with suspicion.
“Because of your hats with the floppy horse-tail thingies . . . uh, sorry, tassels.”
“I think we’d better keep an extra-close eye on this wise guy here. Don’t you, Helge?” Mr. Handlebar said.
“I think you’re right, Hallgeir,” said the other one, tugging on his Fu Manchu mustache. “Besides, it’s not called the Royal Guard’s secret service anymore,” Mr. Fu Manchu continued. “Some tagger changed the sign to read the Secret Gourd. Then the organic farming activists painted a big gourd on there. . . . Sorry, where was I? Well, anyway, we had a secret meeting and decided to keep those changes. They could only help with the secrecy, right? So let me just put it this way: If the secret service did exist, it would be called the Secret Gourd.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Handlebar. “But that’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone. And remember that we haven’t said a single word about the fact that we’re in the Secret Gourd. Have we, Helge?”
“Not a single word that I’ve heard, Hallgeir,” Fu Manchu answered. “Because that’s the first rule of the Secret Gourd. We don’t say a word about our working there. Whoops, allow me to make a correction: They don’t say a single word about their working there. But that’s secret too. Got it?”
“Got it, Helge.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Hallgeir. I was talking to the civilian.”
“Got it,” said Bank Governor Tor. “So, have you two heard what happened?”
“It’s a secret,” Helge said. “Both the thing that happened, and whether we know about it.”
Just then the door opened and the king came in. Helge and Hallgeir snapped to attention.
“Good morning, guardsmen, ahem, gourdsmen,” the king said.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness. We hope your breakfast was good.”
“It was just poached eggs with smashed saddle of pheasant on freshly baked, lightly toasted whole-grain bread. But I’m full, I’ve brushed my teeth, and I’m ready to see about who can help us find the gold.”
Mr. Handlebar turned off the lights in the room, and Mr. Fu Manchu turned on the slide projector. A picture of a tall man with a long scar on his face appeared on the wall.
“First of all, there’s this guy,” Mr. Fu Manchu said. “His name is Harry, and he would probably be our first choice as investigator. Unfortunately, he’s abroad right now.”
“They say he’s in Hong Kong, smoking bad things. An ugly habit, Your Highness,” Mr. Handlebar said.
“Yes, to be sure. Then there’s this woman,” Mr. Fu Manchu continued. The picture on the wall showed a thin reed of a woman with black hair. She had a roller skate on one foot. “Her name’s Raspa, and apparently she can travel through time. We thought maybe she could go back to the day before the robbery and just move the gold bar to a safer place.”
“Unfortunately, no one’s seen her for ages. Some people say she disappeared back around the time of the French Revolution,” Mr. Handlebar said.
“And then there’s this guy,” Mr. Fu Manchu continued, showing the next slide. The picture on the wall was blurry. It showed a tall building with something green in front of it. “This photo was taken by an amateur, but this is the only known photo of a man who supposedly has superpowers. He can turn into a human frog that can jump thirty feet straight up and stick his tongue out at least that far. We thought he might be able to snatch the gold back with his tongue. Unfortunately, we don’t know where or who he is.”
“But of course we’ll track down whichever Your Highness might like us to,” Mr. Handlebar concluded.
Silence.
“Um, Your Highness?” Mr. Fu Manchu asked.
They heard faint snoring. Mr. Handlebar flipped on the lights.
The king woke with a start, spluttering, “Who am I? Where am I? Not in Austria, right?! Please, not in Eastern—”
“Which of them would you like to save Norway, Your Highness?”
“Save Norway, yes!” the king said, raising his index finger. “There is only one person in this country who can save Norway.”
“Only one, Your Highness?”
The king raised two more fingers. “Or three. Actually, there are three. And you need to get hold of them today.”
“And what’s so special about these three that makes Your Highness think they can save Norway?”
“Because these three saved the world from that big moon invasion.”
“Uh, I’m sorry . . . what invasion?”
“You don’t remember it, because you were hypnotized like all the rest of Norway. It’s a long story, but it happened, believe me. I was with them, and they saved the world,” the king said.
“Who are they? Secret superagents? Superheroes with top-notch training? The Norwegian men’s curling team?”
The king got up from his chair, strode over to the window, and rocked back and forth on his heels as he looked out over his capital city for the second time. People were still acting totally normal. But it wouldn’t last, not if they found out about the gold robbery. Which they were sure to do next week when the World Bank came for the inspection. East Austria, yikes!
“Doctor Victor Proctor,” the king said. “And Lisa and Nilly.”
The Big Recruitment
IT WAS EXACTLY sixteen minutes past three in the afternoon when Hallgeir (the secret gourdsman with the handlebar mustache) and Helge (the just-as-secret gourdsman with the Fu Manchu mustache) rang the doorbell at the little red house on Cannon Avenue in Oslo. The birds were singing and everything seemed peaceful. Well, everything was peaceful.
A man with a big paunch opened the door and bellowed in a friendly, authoritative voice, “Well, what do you know? The Secret Gourd came to see us! What can I do for you boys?”
“How did you know we—” Mr. Handlebar spluttered, chewing on the tips of his mustache in irritation.
“Forget about it, Helge,” Hallgeir said. “Commandant, is your daughter at home?”
“Lisa? She’s—”
Just then a frightful, piercing scream was heard from somewhere inside the house.
“That’s her!” Mr. Handlebar yelled, pushing the Commandant aside. “Someone beat us to it! We have to rescue her!”
The two Secret Gourds stormed into the house and up the stairs to where the terrible, pained sound was coming from. They yanked open the door to what turned out to be a girl’s bedroom and stood there staring in shock. Then they flung their hands up to cover their ears.
A girl was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. She didn’t look like a superagent, more like a very ordinary girl with brown braids, a few freckles, and friendly blue eyes that were looking up at the two Gourds in astonishment. There was a music stand in front of her, and there was something tubular and black hanging out of her mouth, making horrendous sounds.
“What—what’s going on?!” Hallgeir yelled.
The girl took the tubular thing out of her mouth.
“What do you mean what’s going on?” Lisa said. “I’m practicing my clarinet. The Dølgen School Marching Band is going to play ‘God Save the Queen’ tomorrow at the PTA meeting. What do you guys want?”
“Uh,” Hallgeir said. “If you’re Lisa, then Norway needs your help.”
“It does?” Lisa said, surprised.
“Well, um,” said Helge, looking skeptically around the completely normal-looking girl’s bedroom with posters of some pop stars on the walls, a globe, and a couple of stuffed animals that looked even less superheroesque than the girl. “Someone thinks so, yes.”
IT WAS EXACTLY twenty-one minutes past three when Hall
geir and Helge waded into the tall grass in front of the crooked blue house that stood all by itself at the very end of Cannon Avenue. They followed the dull banging coming from the back of the house, and when they rounded the corner, they met a strange sight. A withered man with bushy hair, wearing a doctor’s lab coat and something that looked like swim goggles, was standing underneath a pear tree in the middle of the yard. He was balancing on one leg. He was painstakingly lifting his other leg—shod in something that looked like an old, hand-stitched black leather ankle boot— over a chopping block with a piece of firewood on it. Then he dropped his foot. There was a thump as the heel of the boot slammed down on the piece of wood, which split into two. Each piece of firewood fell off opposite sides of the chopping block. The tall, skinny man kicked first one piece and then the other. They both sailed through the air, across the yard, and over to the wall of the house, where they landed neatly on a pile of stacked wood.
“Doctor Proctor, I presume?”
The skinny man straightened his back and beamed at Helge and Hallgeir. “Did you see that? Bang, bam, chopped and stacked right onto the woodpile! I’m working on a model that’ll take down full trees. Just think what that will do for the lumber industry. Wait, is that why you guys are here?” The strange man brightened up even more. “Yes! You must have read the letter I sent to the minister of timber and lumberjacking affairs! You’re here to buy my invention! I’m out of debt!”
“Um, not exactly, sir,” said Hallgeir, straightening his tasseled hat. “We’re here to—”
“Wait, let me guess!” Doctor Proctor said. “You’re from the patent office, and you came to see the new aiming mitten I just submitted a patent application for?”
“No, we’re—”
“Then you must be from the national dart-throwing team. But you know it would be cheating to use the mitten.”
“Professor,” Helge said. “We’re here to ask you to save Norway as we know it.”
AT EXACTLY QUARTER to four the representatives of the Secret Gourd were standing outside the little yellow house on Cannon Avenue, ringing the doorbell. A girl in her teens opened the door.
“Is Nilly here?” Helge asked.
“Who’s Nilly?” the girl responded.
Helge cleared his throat and rocked on his heels. “The Nilly that they claim supposedly saved the world from being invaded by creatures from the moon, my dear?”
“I am not your dear, you weirdo. And my brother, that little squirt, is gone!” the girl said, staring at them with open hostility. “Are you guys from Norway’s Biggest Liar?”
“Norway’s what? What are you implying?” Hallgeir asked, peering over the top of his sunglasses.
“Are you back to do another mock interview with us?” the girl asked.
“A mock interview about what?” Hallgeir asked.
“About Nilly saving the world, of course. You know what happened after you tricked us into doing it last time? My mom cried for three days, and I couldn’t show my face at school without being a laughingstock. ‘That’s the girl whose brother is a big liar,’ and all that stuff.” The girl was so mad the pimples on her red face were glowing. “So we decided to just pretend we’ve forgotten all about Nilly, you see?”
“I . . . uh, see,” Hallgeir said. “But it’s very important that we find him. Where did he go?”
“We don’t know any Nilly, I’m telling you! And besides, I promised Nilly—cross my heart—that I wouldn’t tell anyone where he is, that numbskull.”
“Cross your heart?”
“That little gnome paid me fifty kroner to cross my heart,” she said, the corners of her mouth drooping down into an ugly grimace.
The Secret Gourds exchanged looks.
“What if we gave you a hundred?” Helge said tentatively.
“What do you take me for? He’s my brother!”
“Oh, well then,” Hallgeir said, and they turned around to leave.
“Wait!” the girl said.
They turned around again. “Yes?”
“Two hundred,” she said, rolling her eyes and holding out her hand.
THE ELDERLY COUPLE stared at the tiny, eager, redheaded boy, who was so small he was barely visible behind the sales counter in the store they’d just walked into.
“No,” the elderly man explained. “We don’t want to buy a hang glider, we’re just a little lost. I told you. So if you could please just tell us which way to go so we get out of this backwoods, godforsaken South Trøndelag place to somewhere where there are people.”
“Not only will you receive a thirty percent discount and an extra set of tent poles so that you can also use the hang glider as a tent in the event that you’re forced to land in the mountains,” Nilly said, now hopping up and down on top of the counter, “you’ll also receive a bag of charcoal!”
“Now you listen to me! My wife is afraid of heights, so we’re never going to—” the man continued to protest.
“And that’s not all!” Nilly yelled. “You’ll also receive a map of South Trøndelag, western Sweden, and half of eastern Norway!”
“No, no, no! Which way to the highway, boy?” the man yelled.
“If you buy one, just one, little hang glider, I’ll throw in a map that will show you how to get out of here and find your way to Gothenburg or northeastern Blåfjella-Skjækerfjella all by yourselves. And since it’s such a beautiful day today, I’ve just decided to throw in one packet—no, not one, but two packets of hot cocoa mix! So, what do you say?”
“No!” the man bellowed, slamming his fist down on the counter so hard that his anxious, acrophobic wife shuddered, causing her hat to slide to one side, where it hung at a funny angle.
Nilly nodded. “I can see that you need a little time to consider my offer, my good man. Well, well, then it would be a pleasure for me to explain to you how to get out of here. It shouldn’t be that hard. As you can see, everyone else has already figured out how to do it. No one’s here!”
Nilly continued, “I just wonder if I could be so bold as to ask you if you wouldn’t mind dropping this postcard in the mail for me once you reach civilization. It’s to my friends, Lisa and Doctor Proctor.”
The woman nodded, pushed her hat back into place, and took the postcard while the boy spread out the map and started explaining to the man how to reach civilization. She read the postcard.
Nilly stood out in front of the store, waving as the old couple’s car disappeared down the country road, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it. The sound of its engine faded away, and all that could be heard was cautious birdsong from the vast forests that surrounded the hangar, which bore a large banner that said SALE! HANG GLIDERS 30% OFF WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!!!
But as Nilly stood there, he heard something else. A voice. It was coming from the air somewhere far above him.
“Heh-heh, Nilly! NILLY! Look!”
Nilly put his hand up to block the sun and peered up at the hang glider circling in the air above him. A person wearing a snug-fitting red bodysuit, which was extra tight over his potbelly, and a pair of glasses with lenses so thick they looked like big marbles, dangled underneath the glider.
“Look at me! I’m Petter! I’m the one and only Petter! New record, Nilly! I flew almost to Denmark and back! Hurray for Petter!” the man in the red bodysuit—who it appeared might be named Petter—sang and bragged, grinning down at Nilly, who was waving up at him frenetically.
“Great, Petter!” Nilly yelled back. “But watch out, don’t you see the—”
There was a crunch and an ominous creaking from the frame and wings of the hang glider as it crashed into the wall of the store, snapping the TV antenna and then tumbling to the ground.
Nilly ran over to Petter, who was already standing up amid the wreckage, brushing gravel and grass off his potbelly.
“Yikes, Petter, you’ve got to look where you’re going!” Nilly said.
“Why bother? It’s not like I can see anything anyway,” Petter said, breathing on his th
ick glasses and then rubbing them on his bodysuit. “I flew all the way to the coast, Nilly! Soon I’ll make it all the way to Denmark. Then I can buy us some Danishes to go with our hot chocolate. Hmm, now that I mention hot chocolate . . .”
“I’ll go reheat the batch we made this morning,” Nilly said with a sigh.
Half an hour later they were sitting in the kitchen, each drinking from their mug as Petter stared at the Chinese checkers board in deep concentration.
“I’ve been thinking,” Petter said.
“Yes,” Nilly said. “You’ve been thinking for more than twenty minutes, and you haven’t even moved your first marble yet. Maybe it’s about time you—”
“I wasn’t talking about the Chinese checkers,” Petter said. “I was thinking that you’ve been up here for a long time now. Not that I’m not enjoying having you around, but . . .”
“I can’t go back home, Petter. Oh, the humiliation, the humiliation! My whole school, my whole family, they’re all laughing at me. All my friends . . .”
“All of them? How many friends do you—” Petter began.
“Well, okay, fine. Both of them . . . They warned me, said I should bite my tongue, not talk about how we saved the world from invisible baboon monsters from the moon. They said no one would believe us anyway, but like the idiot I am, I—”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nilly! You’re not an idiot!” Petter protested.