Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  “Yes. I’m not as stupid as all that,” said Tjorven.

  Melker ran out to the well, as excited as a child. He pulled up a pailful of water and poured it into the pipe. He laughed with joy when he saw it on its way toward the kitchen and heard Tjorven shout from inside. The whole thing was functioning just as he had intended.

  But not quite . . . unfortunately, not quite! The pipe leaked and most of the water ran out on to the ground. He saw this with annoyance, but, still, that could be mended. Wooden vats that leaked were put into the sea so that they would swell and tighten up. He could do the same with his wooden pipe, that is, if he had the strength to take it apart again. All that wire—yards and yards of it—which he had wound around the pipe would not be easy to dismantle. Wouldn’t it have the same effect if a lot of water were poured through the pipe where it stood? It would gradually tighten up that way.

  He went ahead with all the zeal and enthusiasm he always brought to everything he did, and when he had poured about ten pails of water through the pipe, he thought the pipe really had tightened a little—or was it only his imagination?

  He stood there scratching his neck and watching the water as it poured out onto the ground, and then he suddenly became aware that Tjorven was shouting to him from the kitchen. He had a feeling that she had been doing so for a long time without his noticing it, and he shouted eagerly, “Is it full now?”

  Tjorven stuck a grim face through the window. “No,” she said, “only the whole kitchen, right up to the door!” And then she said, “Are you deaf, Uncle Melker?”

  It was clear that the pipe had functioned better than Melker had supposed. Even though most of the water had leaked out onto the ground in transit, there had still been enough left over to fill both the pail and the entire kitchen floor!

  Johan and Niklas burst in a little later and found their father on the floor with a cloth in his hands and they asked in surprise, “Are you scrubbing the floor?”

  “No,” said Tjorven, who was sitting on the top of the woodbin, looking on. “He’s just been making a nice little surprise for Malin. Guess what he’s done? He’s fixed up a way to get water from the well straight into the kitchen.”

  “Out you go!” roared Melker. “Out! All of you!”

  But far away from Melker’s delightful surprise, Malin was enjoying her day very much. Live for the day—she had most of the necessary ingredients, certainly—sun, water, soft summer breezes, a warm, hard rock to lie on, the sweet smell of flowers mingling with the smells of the sea. All these wonderful little green islands with their bare, gray rocks, their flowers and their sea birds. Where could one spend a better day than on one of them? Of course, it would have been better without Krister, because his chatter drowned out the faint lapping of the water. His chatter began to irritate her so much that she wished he would keep quiet, but she knew that would never happen.

  On Midsummer’s Eve she had told him she liked to be absolutely quiet and absolutely alone. Not always, of course, just now and then, she had hastened to assure him. But, anyhow, sometimes she felt that she must be alone.

  “I like being alone too,” Krister had assured her. “But it depends who with. With you I could be alone as long as you like!”

  Poor Krister, he was not allowed to be alone with Malin. Pelle did not like his chatter either but, nevertheless, he had settled down near the two of them so he would not miss a single word. He was collecting stones on the shore and watching tiny fish in the water, but he kept his ears open all the time.

  “I’m going over to Åland for a week with the motorboat. Want to come too?” said Krister.

  Pelle looked up. “Do you mean me?”

  Krister quite truthfully assured him that he did not mean Pelle, but the person he did mean only smiled and did not answer.

  “Malin, will you come?” asked Krister eagerly.

  “No—I don’t think I want to,” said Malin.

  “For goodness’ sake,” said Pelle, and picked up a little white stone.

  “It’s a fine thing, to have brothers listening to everything you say!” said Krister.

  He suggested that Pelle should take himself off a little farther down the shore. He thought there were much better stones down there, but Pelle shook his head. “No, then I wouldn’t be able to hear what you’re saying.”

  “Why do you have to hear everything I say?” asked Krister. “Is it all that interesting?”

  Pelle shook his head. “No, I think it’s stupid.”

  Krister was used to people liking him—not children, of course, because he couldn’t be bothered with them—but it irritated him that this little half-pint did not seem to like him at all and he wanted to know why.

  “So you think I’m stupid,” he said in a friendlier tone of voice than he had so far used to Pelle. “But there must have been stupider men than me who’ve gone out with Malin!”

  Pelle looked at him silently and did not answer.

  “Or perhaps there haven’t,” said Krister.

  “I’m just trying to think,” said Pelle.

  Malin laughed and so did Krister, but not as heartily as she did.

  After a moment’s thought Pelle agreed that perhaps there had been one or two who were more stupid than Krister.

  “How many have there been altogether?” asked Krister curiously. “Can you count them?”

  “Of course,” said Malin. She got up quickly and dove into the sea. “But it’s none of your business,” she said when her head bobbed up from the water again.

  But Pelle had no objection to explaining. “A couple of dozen at least,” he said. “They call and call and call all day when we’re at home—in town, of course. When Daddy answers the telephone he says, ‘This is the Melkersons’ automatic answer phone. Malin is not at home.”’

  Malin shouted to Pelle, “Shut up, can’t you!”

  Then she lay on her back in the water and floated, and as she looked up into the blue sky, she tried to work out which two had been stupider than Krister, but she could not reach any conclusion. Then she suddenly felt how much nicer this day would have been without him—this day and every day, and she decided then and there that this was the last time she would go out with Krister. Then she thought of Björn and sighed a little. She had been seeing a good deal of him lately. He was like one of the family in the Grankvist house, and Carpenter’s Cottage was just a stone’s throw from there. So he came almost every day on various pretexts and sometimes with no excuse at all. He brought fish he had just caught, or fresh mushrooms, which he put quietly on the kitchen table; he helped Johan and Niklas arrange their fishing tackle; he sat on the steps of Carpenter’s Cottage talking to Melker—but Malin knew perfectly well who he came to see. He was so sweet, so polite and so absolutely nice and so much in love with her. She tried to see whether she was a little in love with him—she would like to be so much, but she could never feel her heart beating any faster when she thought of him. She wondered whether she would have to go through life without being in love with anyone. What a pity that would be! There must be something wrong with me, thought Malin, staring at her toes, which were sticking out of the water. Why were her brothers making all this fuss? She was never more than just a little in love with anyone. They really had no need to be so anxious.

  She sighed and then looked up at the sun and thought that half this lovely day had already passed. And she wondered how her father had got along with the cooking.

  But Melker had no intention of spending the day over the hot stove. “Not when we have food right by our own jetty!” he said to Johan and Niklas. “We’ll have stewed perch for supper!”

  He sent the boys to dig for worms and then he sat down on the jetty for two hours without catching so much as a minnow. On the other hand, Johan and Niklas landed one large perch after another and he did not envy them their pleasure. But after a while, he began to look very down in the mouth, for he had warned the boys beforehand that they should not expect their fishing to go that well
while he, Melker, was around. He only had to whistle to the fish and they would come. So they were not to be disappointed if he caught more fish than they did. But now there they sat and pulled up fish after fish in front of his eyes, and he caught nothing. It really seemed unfair that he could not get a single bite.

  “Not my day,” he said, and stared gloomily at his float.

  Johan and Niklas looked almost guilty every time they got a bite. Dad must not be disappointed—that was one thing all the Melkerson children were unanimous about. None of them could bear to see his gay, blue eyes cloud over—and they clouded over so easily and for such childish reasons.

  They could see now that he was growing more and more depressed. He had a way of stroking his chin with his hand, which they recognized and which was not a good sign. Finally he threw aside his fishing rod.

  “The fish will have to look after themselves,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here holding my fishing rod any longer.” He lay down on the jetty and pulled his beret down over his eyes. “If any fish comes along and makes a fuss and wants to be caught, tell him that I’m asleep and he can come back at three o’clock.” Then he immediately fell asleep, and his float went on bobbing up and down. In spite of his sons’ heartfelt prayers, no fish came, asking to be pulled up. So they decided to arrange it themselves. Their father must have one fish at any rate. They pulled in Melker’s line and put their largest perch on his hook. Then they woke him up with loud shouts of “Daddy, you’ve got a bite!”

  Melker jumped up and grasped his fishing rod so eagerly that he almost fell into the sea, and he shouted with joy when he drew in his perch. “Have you ever seen such a fine fellow! He’s twice as big as any of yours!”

  But this perch did not seem to be making much fuss about being caught. It lay there unnaturally still and Melker looked at it for a long time in silence while his sons regarded him anxiously.

  “The poor creature looks stunned,” said Melker. He stroked his chin a few times and suddenly he smiled, like the sun quite unexpectedly bursting through dark clouds. He smiled affectionately at his sons.

  “Now I’ll go in and cook this perch—and a couple more,” said Melker. “According to my own excellent recipe. At least that’s something I can do better than you!”

  Johan and Niklas assured him that he was the world’s best fish cook and Melker went off to the kitchen. Malin would have shuddered if she had seen him cleaning the fish. He had a large knife and a small slippery perch, and this combination ought to have resulted in the most frightful blood bath, but the strange thing about Melker was that sometimes he weathered splendidly situations which seemed absolutely ripe for catastrophe.

  He was in great good humor. He placed the fish in an enamel saucepan and sang his recipe as if it were an opera.

  “Stewed perch à la Melker,” he sang. “Five fine fishes . . . and then butter . . . plenty of butter, parsley, and dill. A little flour . . . a splash of water . . . just ordinary water . . . and salt according to taste . . . salt according to taste . . . salt according to t-a-a-a-ste!”

  It sounded so good that he began to wonder if he had not missed his vocation and ought to have been an opera singer.

  Now and again he looked at his water pipe, which was sticking in through the kitchen window, and every time he looked at it, he smiled contentedly. That was something to show Malin when she came home.

  Almost immediately, he heard the motorboat arrive at the jetty and he rushed out to the well to show what he had done. As a matter of fact, Malin looked as if she needed to be cheered up. She hung her bathing suit on the line and looked strangely thoughtful, but when she felt Melker looking at her, she smiled. And then she saw the water pipe.

  “What in the world is that?” she said, and Melker explained it to her and Krister and Pelle. A simple, first-class arrangement, it was, which from now on would make their life at Carpenter’s Cottage so much easier.

  “Have you tried it out?” asked Malin.

  “Oh, yes—and how have you been getting along?” said Melker. Then he saw that Johan and Niklas had arrived—and they knew a thing or two! So Melker told the truth. “Yes, I have tried it out. Some water leaked on the ground and some onto the kitchen floor, but that will be all right as soon as I’ve got a trough.”

  Melker was beaming all over. He was so delighted with his water pipe and so proud of it that he wanted to stroke it, and he did just that. But just where he put his hand sat one of Pelle’s wasps, and when Melker felt the pain of the wasp’s sting, he went quite berserk. Twice in the same day was really too much! He uttered a roar that made Krister jump, and looked around for a weapon of revenge. There on the grass lay one of the boys’ croquet mallets. He seized it and when he saw the wasp still sitting on the pipe—so pleased with itself—he lifted the mallet over his head and brought it down as hard as he could. Then he stood there, quite paralyzed, on seeing what he had done. He had not killed the wasp. It was probably home in its nest, laughing its head off and boasting to the other wasps. But his pipe, his beautiful water pipe, was shattered in the middle and nothing more than a stump of it hung down from the wire.

  At last Melker awoke from his dream, and then he hissed, “Guess what I’m thinking of doing now?”

  “Swearing?” suggested Pelle.

  “No, that’s ugly and uncivilized. But those damned wasps have got to go from Carpenter’s Cottage—or else I go!” He lifted his croquet mallet, but Pelle hung onto his arm and shouted, “No, Daddy, don’t touch my wasps!”

  Melker angrily threw the mallet away. He turned on his heel and walked down toward the jetty. It was the last straw—Pelle wanting his father to be perforated with wasp stings! Pelle ran after him to explain and to comfort him and so he did not see Krister’s mighty deed.

  The wasps’ nest was just about high enough to be reached with a croquet mallet if one stretched a little, and Krister thought it would be fun to destroy that big gray mass of wasps. So he took the croquet mallet and aimed a hefty blow at it, but he missed and hit the wall next to the nest. The wasps had never heard such a noise in their lives and they did not like it. The whole army of them came out to avenge themselves. The first person they saw was Melker and they zoomed after him, ready for battle. Melker heard them coming and ran in a zigzag line, bellowing with rage all the time.

  “Run, Daddy, run,” shrieked Pelle.

  “I thought that was what I was doing,” roared Melker, and charged down toward the jetty.

  Krister and Malin and the boys raced after him and Krister laughed so much that he almost choked—without knowing how much Malin hated him for it.

  Melker flailed wildly with his arms to protect himself against his tormentors, but he had already been given a few stings, and in his plight he saw only one way out.

  He took a leap straight into the sea and his children saw him disappear below the surface. He intended to remain there for quite a time. The wasps buzzed around and looked for their prey, but all they could find was Krister, standing on the jetty laughing more than ever. But it was strange how quickly he changed his tune when the whole swarm of wasps headed toward him.

  “Go away!” he shouted. “Don’t come this way!” But the wasps did not go away. And so Krister too gave a yell and dove head first into the sea. He was more furious than any wasp when he came up again, but Melker, who was treading water a little farther out, greeted him cheerfully. “Good evening! You out for a walk too?”

  “Yes, but I’m on my way home,” said Krister. And with a few more strokes he reached his motorboat. “Good-bye, Malin!” he called. “I’m going now. This island’s dangerous. Perhaps we’ll meet again some day!”

  “Not if I can help it,” murmured Malin, but Krister did not hear.

  Melker met Tjorven as he came wandering up towards Carpenter’s Cottage and she smiled at him. “Have you been swimming in your clothes again? Why are you always doing that? Haven’t you got any bathing trunks?”

  “Of course I have,” said Mel
ker.

  “But I don’t suppose you can splash so well when you have them on,” said Tjorven.

  “No, it’s much better like this,” Melker admitted.

  But then came the glorious moment when he was to help his children to the fish stew à la Melker.

  Malin stood by the kitchen stove and lifted the lid from the saucepan. Oh, how good it smelled and how hungry she was!

  “Daddy, you’re fantastic,” she said.

  Melker had changed his clothes and bathed his wasp stings. Now he was sitting at the kitchen table, once again in high spirits. Life was so rich! He smiled shyly at Malin’s praise and said, “Oh, well, they say that if men really applied themselves to cooking they would do it better than women. Not that I mean I . . . but we’ll see. Let’s taste it, at any rate!”

  He served them in turn and said that no one was to begin until each had had his portion, but last of all he served himself. He looked hungrily at the white fish swimming in dill, parsley and butter. He was still smiling as he lifted the first bite to his mouth. But then a desperate little gurgling sound came from him.

  Malin and the boys had begun to eat too, and they were sitting as if paralyzed.

  “How much salt did you put in?” asked Malin, and put down her fork.

  Melker looked at her and sighed. “According to taste,” he said heavily.

  Then he got up and disappeared and went out through the door, the children watching him with anxious eyes. Through the window they saw him sink down by the garden table where he had begun this day with such great expectations. Without a word they all rushed to the door.

  “But, Daddy, why are you so upset?” said Malin, when she saw Melker sitting there, his face hidden in his hands.

  “Because I’m worthless,” said Melker and looked up at her with his eyes full of tears. “Live for the day—and what have I done? I’ve done nothing properly. Everything has been a failure,” he said. “I expect I write bad books too. I can see that now. Yes, don’t say a word, I do! Poor children, to have such a worthless father!”