Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland, translated from the Swedish by Jill Morgan

by Astrid Lindgren

  But my father the King was not there.

  We didn’t need the hundred white horses any more, so they turned back to the Forest of Moonbeams. I saw them gallop away over the fields. In front of them all ran the little white foal.

  Pompoo was telling his mama and papa all that we had been through and he didn’t notice that I opened the little door to the Garden of Roses. No one noticed when I disappeared into the Garden of Roses, and that was fine. I wanted to go alone. I walked under the silver poplars playing their music just as they had before, the roses bloomed just as they had before, everything was the same.

  Then I saw him. I saw my father the King. He stood in the same place, where I had left him when I rode away to the Forest of Moonbeams and to Outer Land. He stood there with his arms outstretched to me and I threw myself into his embrace. I put my arms tightly, so tightly around his neck and he held me close and whispered, “Mio, my son!”

  My father the King loves me, and I love my father the King.

  I had so much fun the whole day. We played in the Garden of Roses, Pompoo and Nonno and his brothers, and Totty and his sisters and brothers, and all the other children. They wanted to see the hut that we had built, Pompoo and I, and they thought it was such a fine hut. We rode on Miramis too, and he jumped over the rose bushes. We played with my cloak. Nonno’s brother didn’t want it back.

  “The lining is yours anyway, Mio,” he said.

  We played hide-and-seek with the cloak. I was wearing it inside out and I ran around among the rose bushes completely invisible, shouting, “No one can catch me! No one can catch me!”

  And they couldn’t catch me either, as hard as they tried.

  When it began to get dark, all the children had to go home. Their mamas and papas didn’t want them out for a long time, since it was their first night home.

  Pompoo and I sat together, alone in our hut. We played our flutes as twilight fell over the Garden of Roses.

  “We’ll take care of our flutes,” said Pompoo. “And if we ever become separated, we’ll play the old melody.”

  Just then my father the King came to find me. I said good night to Pompoo and he ran home. I said good night to Miramis, as he grazed on the grass beside the hut. Then I took my father the King’s hand and we walked home through the Garden of Roses.

  “Mio, my son, I believe that you’ve grown while you were away,” said my father the King. “I think we should put a new mark on the kitchen door tonight.”

  We walked under the silver poplars as twilight lay like a soft, blue mist over the entire Garden of Roses. The white birds had gone to their nests. In the top of the tallest silver poplar Sorrowbird sat singing. I don’t know what the song is for, now that the lost children have come home. But I think Sorrowbird will always have something to sing about.

  Away in the pastures, shepherds began lighting their fires. One by one they appeared, shining beautifully in the twilight. Far away I heard the shepherds playing. They played the old melody.

  We walked along hand in hand, my father the King and I, swinging our arms a bit. My father the King looked down at me and laughed a little, and I looked up at him, full of happiness.

  “Mio, my son,” said my father the King.

  No more.

  “Mio, my son,” said my father the King, as we walked homeward in the twilight.

  Evening came and then night.

  It’s been quite a long time now that I’ve been here in Farawayland. I seldom think of the time when I lived on North Street. It’s only Ben that I think of sometimes, because he’s so much like Pompoo. I hope Ben hasn’t missed me too much. Because no one knows better than I do how hard it is to be lonely. But of course Ben has his mama and papa, and by now I think he probably has a new best friend.

  Sometimes I also think about Aunt Hulda and Uncle Olaf and I’m not angry at them anymore. I only wonder about what they said when I disappeared. They never worried about me, maybe they didn’t even notice I was gone. Maybe Aunt Hulda believes that she only has to go to Tegnérlunden Park to look, and she’d find me sitting on a bench. Maybe she believes that I’m sitting there on a bench under a street lamp, eating an apple and playing with an empty bottle or some other piece of rubbish. Maybe she believes that I’m sitting there, staring at the houses with lighted windows and children inside eating dinner with their mamas and papas. Maybe Aunt Hulda is angry that I never came home with those rolls.

  But Aunt Hulda is wrong. Oh, she is wrong! Andy isn’t sitting on a bench in Tegnérlunden Park, because he’s in Farawayland. He is in Farawayland, I say. He’s where the silver poplars rustle . . . where fires burn warming the night . . . where there is Bread That Satisfies Hunger . . . where he has his father the King, whom he loves so much and who loves him.

  Yes, so it is. Karl Anders Nilsson is in Farawayland and all is fine, so fine with his father the King.

  ASTRID LINDGREN (1907–2002) was born in Vimmerby, Sweden, and grew up with three siblings on a family farm in the Småland countryside, a setting that later formed the backdrop for many of her books. In 1926 she moved to Stockholm where she found work as a secretary. She did not begin writing until 1944 when, immobilized with a sprained ankle, she began to set down the Pippi Longstocking stories she had invented over the years to entertain her daughter, Karin. Her first book (Britt-Mari Opens Her Heart) was published by Rabén & Sjögren that same year, followed by Pippi Longstocking in 1945. Free-spirited and super-naturally strong in all respects, Pippi was an immediate favorite of Swedish schoolchildren, and her popularity only increased with the tales of her adventures that followed. In 1946, Lindgren became an editor and then the head of the children’s book department at Rabén & Sjögren, a role she held for the next twenty-four years, living in Stockholm and spending summers on her beloved island of Furusund in the Stockholm archipelago. After the Pippi series, Lindgren wrote many fairy tales and picture books, in addition to further chapter books, including Seacrow Island (1964; published by The New York Review Children’s Collection) and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (1981). In addition to writing more than forty children’s books, Lindgren published and produced plays and screenplays, and was politically active and lobbied successfully for what became the Animal Protection Act of 1988. She received the Swedish Academy’s Gold Medal in 1971 for her contribution to children’s literature, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Award (1984), Albert Schweitzer Medal (1989), and Right Livelihood Award (1994) for her humanitarian efforts. In 2003 the Swedish government created the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in her honor.