Dani certainly is a little forgetful sometimes. Now she had already forgotten why she was cross with her father.
But what was he doing? Why didn’t he come and knock on the door again?
Dani got up from the floor, unlocked the door, and put her nose out.
There was a lovely smell!
She followed the smell to the kitchen. There he was, holding a chair out for her.
“Amore,” he said, “what would you say to two or three or four freshly made pancakes?”
“Yes, please,” answered Dani, and she sat down and ate pancakes until she almost burst.
She leant back and closed her eyes. She needed a rest.
But her father had other plans.
“Come on,” he said. “They’re waiting for us.”
“Who are?” asked Dani.
“The teacher and those girls.”
Dani couldn’t believe her ears. He wasn’t going to start all that again!
“Dani,” said her father sternly, “you must understand that you can’t just squirt sauce at people without saying sorry! We don’t do things like that in our family.”
He could talk as much as he liked. Dani had no intention of going with him!
But her father wouldn’t give up.
“Can you tell me just one thing,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “Why did you do it? You know what I mean…”
Dani pulled up her sleeves.
Her father went very still.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Pinch marks,” she mumbled.
“Pinch marks?” said her dad. “Do you pinch each other in your class?”
Dani shook her head.
“Only Mickey and Vicky…”
She didn’t manage to say any more before her father got up and was on his way out to the hall. Without a word he pulled on his jacket and opened the door.
What was he going to do now?
Dani jumped up. It was probably best to go with him after all.
But where on earth had her shoes gone?
She found one on the hat shelf. The other was on the little table where the vase used to be.
“Wait for me!” she shouted and ran after him.
Chapter 11
Dani didn’t catch up with her father till they reached the school. He was really angry!
Her dad threw open the door to the classroom and went in. Everything came to a standstill. It was like when you play Statues.
Mickey, who was on her way up to the teacher for help with an equation, came to a sudden stop.
Vicky leaned over her mathematics book.
“I suppose you know why we’re here,” thundered Dani’s father, looking around the room.
No one answered.
In the end Cushion held up his hand. “Because Dani has to say sorry!”
“Wrong!” said Dani’s father. “Dani is not going to say sorry. There are some other people here who are going to say sorry!”
He stared at Mickey, but she pretended not to understand.
He looked around for Vicky.
But Vicky was pretending to count.
Then he took Dani, who had hidden behind his back, and pulled up her shirtsleeves.
“Can anyone tell me why Dani looks like this?”
Everyone stared at Dani’s arms.
“Look!” he said, pointing. “Look at these bruises! Here and here and here and here…”
The whole class started to move. Everyone wanted to see Dani’s bruises, except for Mickey who turned away and headed for her desk.
And Vicky who was turning pages in her book.
The teacher came over to Dani.
She was the person who looked longest at Dani’s bruises.
“I see! Now I’m beginning to understand,” she muttered.
And you could hear in her voice that she was starting to get as angry as Dani’s father.
She shook her head and went over to Vicky and Mickey.
“What does this mean, Michaela?”
“W…we were just playing!” squeaked Mickey.
“Playing!” said the teacher. “Was Dani part of this playing?”
It was quiet for a few seconds.
“No, but Vicky pinched, too…” squeaked Mickey.
The teacher turned to Vicky.
“Is that right, Victoria?”
“I didn’t know it would make bruises,” muttered Vicky.
The teacher stood and looked around the room.
“This is very sad!” she sighed. “Is there anyone else this has happened to?”
It was quiet again.
“Me,” said Jonathan finally. “Vicky and Mickey keep pushing me all the time!”
And Susie waved her arm furiously.
“Something sad happened to me!”
She swallowed.
“Yes?” said the teacher.
“My hamster died!”
“But that’s not Mickey or Vicky’s fault,” said Cushion.
“No, but it is sad!”
Then suddenly something unexpected happened.
The classroom door opened again.
And who could it be standing in the doorway but…
Chapter 12
…Ella!
She stood there with a big smile on her face!
A kind of shiver ran around the desks.
“What’s she doing here?” shouted Benny.
But Ella didn’t seem to hear. Her eyes were searching the room.
When she saw that Dani’s chair was empty, her smile disappeared.
“Where’s Dani?” she asked.
Dani had lost the power to speak. It was like being in a dream.
In the end she woke up and rushed over to Ella.
Ella let out a happy squeak. “There you are!”
What happened next was that Ella’s extra father Paddy poked his head around the door.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he puffed. “I have an important meeting to go to…”
The teacher gave him a questioning look.
“Here’s what happened,” he said. “This morning, when I left Northbrook, I thought I was alone in the car. And then I heard someone sneeze!”
“Mmm?” said the teacher.
“It was Ella, hidden under a blanket in the back seat!” said Paddy. “She crept into the car without me noticing. She had to see Dani, she said…”
“Excellent,” Dani’s father interrupted. “You can leave Ella here. We’ll look after her.”
The next minute the bell rang. It was time for break.
Everybody hurried out because there are always long lines at snack time. Especially when it’s buns or twirls. Or fruit salad or hot dogs or waffles. But that’s almost never.
Mostly it’s dry biscuits or apples.
They’re quite good, too.
Vicky and Mickey tried to sneak out with the others but the teacher stopped them.
“You two stay here!” she said.
Chapter 13
As soon as Dani and Ella reached the dining room and each had an apple, they rushed to the table in the farthest corner. Just as they used to in the old days.
But they weren’t left in peace.
Everybody wanted to see Ella and tell her what had happened since the last time they saw her.
Meatball wanted to tell her how he got hit in the head by a big block of ice. But Irma said it was just a small lump of ice.
Susie wanted to talk about her dead hamster.
It was called Hairy.
Jonathan wanted to show her his braces.
Then Cushion and Benny came and wanted everyone to hurry outside, so they could play hide-and-seek.
So that’s what they did. It’s fun to play when there are lots of people!
Everyone was there except Vicky and Mickey.
They had to stay in the classroom for the whole break and talk to the teacher and Dani’s father.
They have a nice schoolyard at Dani’s school.
There are tw
o jungle gyms, six slides, two hopscotches, and quite a big field.
But the best thing is the hide-and-seek tree where Cushion stood and counted to a hundred while the others ran and hid.
Dani and Ella rushed to the toolshed, but that was already taken.
Meatball and Benny were hiding there.
Dani and Ella went on to the blue sand box.
Jonathan was in there.
They ran to the stairs, but there were lots of children already under there: Susie, Victor, Irma, Gabriel, and Jens.
“We can hide behind the tree,” Ella suggested at last. “Cushion won’t think of looking there!”
But just when Cushion started looking, the bell rang.
Typical!
Chapter 14
Mickey and Vicky were waiting at the door of the classroom. Now they were the ones with red eyes like white rabbits’. You could see how hard they’d been crying. That was because the teacher was going to talk to their parents, but the class didn’t know that.
First of all they had to say sorry to Dani. And they didn’t want to.
“How long must we wait, I wonder?” said the teacher.
Vicky and Mickey stared straight ahead without answering.
Nothing happened.
Everyone was curious about how the sorry would sound. But some got tired legs from standing and waiting.
“Well?” said the teacher.
What could anyone do? Vicky and Mickey stood as still and quiet as statues.
Until finally Dani said they didn’t need to.
“I forgive you anyway,” she said.
Everybody breathed out. The drama was over. The class went back into the classroom.
And then Dani’s father could finally go off for his run.
Ella sat down in her old place. How lucky it was still empty!
“Dani,” she asked, “why do Vicky and Mickey have to say sorry to you?”
“Because I was forced to squirt sauce on them,” said Dani.
“Ah, I see,” said Ella.
But she didn’t at all.
And it didn’t matter. The main thing was that no one else had taken her old place.
“This lesson we are going to paint fish,” explained the teacher, when the class was quiet. They were having fish and shellfish week.
Dani and Ella each painted a pike with sharp, pointy teeth.
Then the teacher wanted the class to take out their story books.
MY HAPPY LIFE
was the name of Dani’s book.
It was ages since she’d written in it. And there didn’t seem to be anything to write about now either.
Dani just sat and waved her pen around and smiled at Ella, who had been given a sheet of paper to write on.
“Off you go,” said the teacher.
“What shall I write?” asked Dani.
“Write about a time when you were happy,” suggested the teacher.
“I’m always happy,” said Dani.
That’s how it is. She doesn’t count the times she’s unhappy.
“Write about one of the times when you were especially happy then!” said the teacher.
Dani bent over her book.
I am always especially happy when I am with Ella…, she began.
Ella leaned over and read what she had written.
Then she wrote almost the same thing:
I am always especially happy when I am with Dani…
She wasn’t copying. Ella never does that.
But she often does the same thing.
Everything was almost the same as it was when they used to sit next to each other every day.
Back then Dani hadn’t thought much about how happy she was. She didn’t have time to.
She didn’t now, either. But she did manage to think: There are probably not many people in the world who like each other as much as Ella and I do!
Then she had to think about what they would do after school.
She hadn’t been this happy for a long time!
Dani bent over her story book again and carried on writing.
Then she sat back and looked at the words she had written:
My heart is laughing.
This edition first published in 2014 by Gecko Press PO Box 9335, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand [email protected]
English language edition © Gecko Press Ltd 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or utilized in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First American edition published in 2014 by Gecko Press USA, an imprint of Gecko Press Ltd.
A catalog record for this book is available from the US Library of Congress.
Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publishing Group, www.lernerbooks.com
Distributed in the United Kingdom by Bounce Sales and Marketing, www.bouncemarketing.co.uk
Distributed in Australia by Scholastic Australia, www.scholastic.com.au
Distributed in New Zealand by Random House NZ, www.randomhouse.co.nz
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.
First published by Bonnier Carlsen, Stockholm, Sweden
Published in the English language by arrangement with Bonnier Group Agency, Stockholm, Sweden
Original title: Mitt hjärta hoppar och skrattar
Text © Rose Lagercrantz 2012
Illustrations © Eva Eriksson 2012
The cost of this translation was defrayed by a subsidy from the Swedish Arts Council, gratefully acknowledged.
Translated by Julia Marshall
Edited by Penelope Todd
Typesetting by Vida & Luke Kelly, New Zealand
Printed in China by Everbest Printing Co Ltd, an accredited ISO 14001 & FSC certified printer
Hardback (USA) ISBN: 978-1-877579-52-3
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-877579-51-6
E-book (MOBI) ISBN: 978-1-927271-22-3
E-book (EPUB) ISBN: 978-1-927271-21-6
For more curiously good books, visit www.geckopress.com
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My Heart is Laughing Page 2