The End of the World. Maybe

by Jo Nesbo

  “Two,” Nilly said. “One.”

  “It’s tickling,” Petter laughed, rubbing his potbelly.

  “Zero,” Nilly announced.

  Then everything went white.

  And after the echo of the bang had reverberated back and forth across the river a couple of times and the snow had settled again, there was nothing left in the yard in front of the hall. Just a pole with a flapping banner announcing South Trøndelag’s largest selection of hang gliders. Once again it was quiet, but if you listened carefully, you could just make out a cry from way up in the sky:

  “Flabbergast me! I’m Petter! I’m the one and only Petter and a heck of a Petter I am!”

  LISA STARED. THE countryside below them looked like a map slowly gliding by. It was even colder up here; she felt it on the tip of her nose. But inside the sleeping bag it was nice and warm.

  And it was so quiet! Just the rustling from the large red wing, a soft creaking of the cables tightening and loosening, the ticking of the altimetre as they rose and the nearly inaudible snoring of Nilly, who had fallen asleep beside her.

  Every now and then Doctor Proctor said something to Petter and pointed at the map they’d brought from the wall in the hall. And eventually Doctor Proctor was allowed to steer, while Petter showed him how everything worked.

  The sun had sunken down into the sea way out in the west, where the sky gradually changed from blue to orange to red and – at the very bottom – greenish purple. Every now and then they soared over a house with lights shining from its windows, and now and then over a road with its streetlights on, making it look like a glowworm in the gathering twilight.

  It was so beautiful that Lisa could only manage to think one thing: that this world was so wonderful, they just had to save it.

  An hour later it was dark and Doctor Proctor pointed at the carpet of lights appearing out of nothing below them.

  “Klæbu,” he said.

  But by then Lisa was already asleep.

  “YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, you have visitors.”

  “What?” The king looked up from the crossword puzzle he was doing in the South Trøndelag Times and glanced at the clock. It was eleven o’clock at night. Visitors now? He looked up at his butler Åke, who was standing before him in the living room doorway. Åke was a tall man who looked like someone had used a pencil sharpener on him. He had a sharp nose, pursed lips, sharp chin, sharp teeth. And a sharp tailcoat that tapered down to two points below his backside. He also rather often made pointed comments about what the king was or was not doing. But he made them in Swedish, so the king didn’t always fully understand the nuances of just how pointed they were. The king did occasionally wonder why he had hired Butler Åke, but then he remembered that it was relatively cheap to hire guest workers from Sweden, and besides they seemed to like to work for Norwegians in poorly paid, servantlike jobs. Plus, Butler Åke had shown up at his doorstep asking for a job the very day the king arrived here after that presidential imbecile threw him out of his Royal Palace.

  But sometimes the king felt like Butler Åke was laughing at him behind his back. Not that it mattered at a time like this, without access to his royal household resources, living in exile abroad. The king couldn’t afford anything other than a cut-rate Swedish manservant, so he would just have to put up with Butler Åke’s snide Swedish comments.

  “They landed in a hang glider outside,” Åke said. “They say they snuck across the border to speak to Your Royal Highness, and they request an audience. Shall I show them in?”

  “Hm,” the king said, glancing down at his newspaper. These South Trøndelag crossword puzzles were so darn difficult.

  Åke sighed in that irritating, pointed way of his, and then said, “One across, Oona.”

  The king counted the letters in the crossword and decided it was right. After all, he was the king.

  “Let’s see,” he continued with his finger on the next line. “Six across, five letters. ‘If you have this, you have the ability to think rationally.’”

  “They’re waiting, Your Royalness.”

  The king had noticed that Butler Åke was more and more prone to shortening his title, and he didn’t like it. But he was afraid that if he demanded to be addressed with his full title each time, Butler Åke would ask for a raise.

  “Yeah, yeah, send them in, then,” the king said, waving his hand in irritation.

  Åke ducked out and then came back in, holding the door open. And an unusual group entered. First a skinny beanpole of a man wearing swim goggles, then a teensy-weensy little boy with freckles and red hair with something that looked like an insect sitting in it, then an apparently normal-looking girl with braids. But it was the last person that made the king really open his eyes wide: a voluptuous lady with a strict face and a nose that never seemed to end. She was – pure and simply – one of the most beautiful women the king had ever seen.

  “Your Royal Highness,” the beanpole in the swim goggles said. “I am Doctor Proctor, and we have come to tell you that you must talk some sense into the Norwegian people.”

  “That’s it!” the king lit up and filled in six across. S-E-N-S-E.

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?” asked the beanpole, who’d called himself Doctor Something-or-other.

  “Well, there’s doing and then there’s doing,” the king said. “I dare say I have enough to do already.” He nodded at the three-foot-tall stack of crossword puzzles on the floor next to him.

  “Your country needs you, King,” the little red-haired boy said. “Otherwise the world is in for a, well, a world of trouble. You have to come back to Norway with us.”

  “Back? To that president who threw me out?” the king gave a quick, bitter laugh.

  “Hallvard Tenorsen must be stopped!” the little girl said. “That’s not even his real name. His name is Yodolf Staler and he’s a moon chameleon.”

  “You don’t say,” the king said. “Uh, a moon chameleon? What’s that?”

  “They look like baboons and their rear ends are full of hemorrhoids,” the boy said.

  “Yes, well, whose aren’t?” the king mumbled, scanning his crossword. He had seen a clue that said “monkey” somewhere. Perhaps “baboon” was the answer.

  “Tenorsen has the whole population hypnotised,” the girl said. “He just looks into the camera and then everyone who looks into his eyes too long develops a weird speech impediment and does exactly what he says.”

  “I’m not impressed,” the king said. “I learned how to hypnotise people when I was crown prince. That’s what I do when I give the king’s traditional New Year’s speech on TV, you know. I hypnotise people to want to keep the monarchy instead of some newfangled president and all that silliness.” He looked up from his crossword. “Actually, would you like me to hypnotise you a little right now? My fellow countrymen . . .”

  “No thank you,” said the little girl. “Tenorsen wants to cook Mr Galvanius and invade Denmark next Wednesday. Which is the day after tomorrow. You have to come with us, Your Royal Highness.”

  “It’s out of the question,” the king said. “I’m doing splendidly here: satellite TV, no toll roads, cheap gas, no foreigners – well, apart from me and Åke, that is. And South Trøndelag hotdogs are way better than . . .”

  The next instant, it was like the room exploded. The king jumped right out of his chair and when he landed again, he was staring terror-stricken at the hand that had just slapped the table in front of him. A dreadful, infernal slap that had made his heart stop for a second only to once again start beating at triple the usual pace. The king’s eyes slowly moved from the hand up the arm to the shoulder. To the face, to the long nose, to the glasses, to the piercing eyes that looked as if they were staring straight through him.

  “Listen up,” said the voice, which was at least equally piercing. “You, my boy, are going to help us save the world. Got it?”

  “Wh-wh-who are you?” the king managed to stammer.

  But there was no answer, ju
st those eyes trained on him, making it impossible for him to look away.

  “That’s Mrs Strobe,” he heard the red-haired boy say. “What you just heard was the Strobe Desk Slap, and what you’re seeing now is the Strobe Stare.”

  “The S-s-strobe Stare?”

  “Yup. Can you feel how it’s drilling into your brain, which in a few seconds will start bubbling and boiling?”

  “L-l-leave my brain alone.”

  “On one condition,” said the woman called Mrs Strobe. “That you do your job as king.”

  “Exactly. Uh . . . um, which job is that?”

  The little girl with the braids took over: “Which is to tell the Norwegian people that Yodolf Staler is a fraud and that they shouldn’t be doing what he says. They need to oust him from the presidency. And they need to do it now!”

  “Oh dear,” said the king. “And you guys think I can accomplish all that just by . . . uh, giving a speech?”

  The whole delegation in front of him nodded.

  “And that’s it?” the king asked. “Give a speech?”

  “Yup, that’s basically it,” the beanpole in the swim goggles said. “Pretty much like your ancestor, King Haakon the Seventh, did from London during World War Two. He spoke to the people, encouraged them to fight in the face of a superior power.”

  “Hm,” the king said. “Did it work? Did they do it?”

  “Well, maybe not as much as one might have wanted, but more than if he hadn’t said anything at all.”

  “I see.” The king looked at them thoughtfully, weighing the pros and cons. That ancestor of his had given a few short speeches over the radio, so he’d been able to sit right back down in his comfy chair by the fireplace and do his crossword puzzles. And of course, most wonderful of all, he’d been able to move back into the Royal Palace afterward. On the other hand, writing a speech like that was a tremendous amount of work.

  “We trust you, Your Royal Highness,” Mrs Strobe said gently, smiling at him.

  And he simply thought, Yowzers, she’s hot! Then he leaned in towards her: “Between us, Mrs Strobe, I think all that business about addressing me as Your Royal Highness can get a little stuffy. If you just wanted to call me Your Royalness, that would be fine.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Your Royalness,” Mrs Strobe said, batting her eyelashes. “And you can call me Rosemarie.”

  “Heh, heh,” said the king.

  “So, will you do what we’re asking?”

  “Well,” the king said. “It’s late, so let’s sleep on it. Åke, make up some princess beds for our guests.”

  Åke did an about-face. “We only have basic bunk beds.”

  “What the . . .”

  “You’re living in a rustic cabin in the mountains, not a palace, Your Royalness.”

  “Highness, Åke.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Your Royal High . . . Forget it. Fine, bunk beds, then. And supper.” He turned back to Mrs Strobe. “I have hot dogs, Rosemarie. Bought them at Seven-Eleven. Very good, very cheap.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, Your Royalness.”

  “Heh, heh,” the king said.

  “And there’s one more thing,” the red-haired boy said.

  “Oh?” the king asked skeptically. Because there was always just one more thing. And in general this “just” business was one of the things he liked least.

  “You have to ask us to save Gregory,” the little boy said. “And the country. And, for that matter, the rest of the world.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “How come?”

  “Because you’re the king,” the boy said. “And if we’re going to die, we want it to be for king and country, you know? It makes for good morale, you see?”

  The king thought about it. “Okay,” he said, scratching his right buttock. “I hereby request that you save Gregorious. And the country. And, for that matter, the rest of the world.”

  “Yippi-yai-yeah!” the young boy howled.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, and curtsied.

  LISA COULDN’T SLEEP. And it wasn’t because she’d eaten way too many South Trøndelag hot dogs. Or because she was thinking about her commandant father and her commandant mother and Gregory and moon chameleons and the end of the world. Or because of the breathing, snoring and wheezing noises coming from the other bunks around her. It was the other sound. Not the sound of the wind whistling in the hang glider parked on the lawn outside, which Petter had said they could keep before he had rushed off towards downtown Klæbu to drink hot chocolate and play poker. It was another sound, a clicking sound. She couldn’t figure out what it was, but it sounded like it was coming from somewhere inside the cabin.

  “Nilly,” she whispered.

  But Nilly’s only response was a whistling snoring sound.

  Lisa kicked off the covers and snuck over to the door and out into the hallway. She stood there for a while listening, the ice-cold floor hurting the soles of her feet.

  The sound was coming from a door that was ajar at the end of the hallway.

  She snuck over to the door and peeked in.

  The first thing she saw was a jacket hanging over the back of a chair. It was Butler Åke’s tailcoat. Someone was sitting in the chair, with his back to Lisa, gently and rhythmically hitting something that looked like a stapler, but which Lisa recognised. It was a Morse code telegraph key. Her commandant father had one just like it at Akershus Fortress. They had used it during the war to transmit messages, kind of like how people send text messages today. Her dad had even taught her the Morse code alphabet. Three short, three long and three short spelled “SOS,” for example. And “hi!” was four short and then two short. But who in the world was Butler Åke sending messages to at this time of the night? Lisa froze when she saw Butler Åke’s hand. If that was his hand. It had abnormally long fingers that were covered with grey hair and ended in black fingernails.

  Lisa’s eyes slid down over the back of the chair. And there, through the top of the slit between the tails at the bottom of his tailcoat, she saw something oozing out between the bars in the chair back. Something pink. In bulging clumps. And even though she’d never seen any before, Lisa knew instinctively what they were: hemorrhoids.

  Suddenly the clicking came to an abrupt stop. Lisa quickly ducked back from the doorway. She held her breath and listened, her heart pounding in her chest. Butler Åke was a moon chameleon! Had he heard her? Her fear commanded that she run. But her fearlessness said that if she ran now, he was bound to hear her. Her fearlessness won. She waited, urging her heart to please beat a little more quietly. The seconds passed. Nothing happened. Then the Morse code started again.

  Lisa exhaled and listened. And counted. And spelled.

  S-A-B-B-O-T-E-U-R-S C-A-M-E T-O S-E-E T-H-E K-I-N-G (STOP) T-H-E-Y W-A-N-T T-O S-A-V-E T-H-E F-R-O-G (STOP) W-H-A-T S-H-O-U-L-D I D-O? (STOP).

  Lisa waited. Then she heard the clicking sounds of the response:

  F-I-L-T-H-Y P-A-N-T-S! Y-O-D-O-L-F S-A-Y-S O-F-F W-I-T-H T-H-E-I-R H-E-A-D-S A-N-D E-A-T T-H-E-M F-O-R B-R-E-A-K-F-A-S-T (STOP) G-O-R-A-N.

  Eat them for breakfast!

  There was no time to lose; they had to get out of here!

  Lisa snuck back down the hallway with infinite care. A floorboard creaked. She thought she heard the door behind her slide open, but didn’t dare turn around. Commandant Daddy, she thought. Commandant Daddy, SOS, SOS!

  THE KING WAS dreaming that there was a gala dinner at the Royal Palace. There was pomp and glamour and government cabinet members bowing and curtsying, and he was wearing his dress uniform with the diagonal silk band and his chest full of medals. And he had just explained to his dinner companion, Mrs Strobe, that one of the medals was called the “little seahorse” when he felt something shaking his chair. And when he looked up it was that chiropractor, Tenorsen. The singing one. Hallvard Tenorsen.

  “You’re in my chair,” Tenorsen said. “Move!”

  The king stoo
d his ground, but Tenorsen kept shaking and shaking.

  “Wake up, Your Royalness!”

  The king opened his eyes. And was looking right at Butler Åke’s face.

  “You have to come, Your Royalness. Your guests have locked themselves in their room. I need the keys.”

  “Locked themselves in? Why in the world . . .”

  “I don’t know, but they won’t open the door. They’re planning something. I think they may have been sent by Tenorsen.”

  Tenorsen! The king jumped out of bed, pulled on his dressing gown, stuck his hand down into the chamber pot next to his bed, and pulled out a ring of keys.

  “Aha,” Åke said, reaching for the keys.

  “I’m coming too,” the king said.

  It wasn’t until they’d walked down the hall towards the guest room that the king noticed the large, rusty sword Åke was lugging around with him.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “To chop off their heads. In case they resist, I mean.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the king said, knocking on the door. “I’m sure there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Rosemarie! This is Your Royalness! What’s going on?”

  No response.

  The king turned to Åke. “Why did you need to go into their room in the middle of the night anyway?”

  “To chop off – uh, to check if their chamber pots needed emptying.”

  “Oh, right,” the king said. He found the right key on his ring, stuck it in the keyhole, and twisted. “Rosemarie! I’m coming in now!”

  He pulled down on the door handle and had only just opened the door when Butler Åke rushed past him into the room with his sword raised over his head.

  “Don’t . . .” the king said, but it was too late. There was a tearing sound as the sword sliced through the fabric on one of the duvets and a cloud of feathers flew into the air. And then another duvet. And then another.

  “Butler Åke!” the king yelled.

  “Butler King!” Åke mocked in return, laughed loudly and resoundingly, stabbing again and again. “I’m making breakfast, Your Royal Highness,” Åke snorted.