Chapter 4
A shiver runs through my body, and I wrap the blanket tighter around myself. Ms. Granberg gave it to me when we got back to school. Rasmus was given one too.
I’ve been sitting and waiting in this classroom for almost an hour and a half. The clock says five to four. School has never been so quiet.
Everyone else was sent home, even the little kids. I saw ?sterman’s blue oilskin coat through the window as he left the dock. The fog has finally begun to lift. The sea is visible again. It looks like a glistening expanse of thick oil outside the window.
My legs feel stiff as I walk over to draw the curtains. To keep anyone from seeing in. And to hide the water.
The orange Ms. Granberg gave me before she left is still on the bench. I don’t want it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt less hungry.
Who were they? What were they?
All I want to do is talk to Rasmus. Ask him everything I should have asked in the forest. I was too frightened and confused to say anything at the time.
Now he’s not here.
When Ms. Granberg took him away, he looked as pale and lost as I felt. He glanced over his shoulder at me as he walked away.
The door opens.
Ms. Granberg stands on the threshold. She looks like she’s posing for a photo, with her thick blond hair and big blue eyes.
Everyone in class likes her. She is young and pretty enough to be considered cool. But I have always found her . . . plastic. Fake. She was the first on the scene in the woods. She arrived before Mr. Lundin when I blew the whistle. Almost as if she’d been waiting for something to go wrong.
Now she has such a forced smile plastered on her lips that I wonder if she’s mocking me.
“Hi, Tuva,” she says. She has dimples. Of course she does. “How are you feeling?”
“Where’s Rasmus?”
She smiles even wider. I don’t trust anyone with a smile like that.
“Everything’s okay,” she says. “Don’t worry about Rasmus.”
She sits down opposite me, glances at the orange.
“You need to get some food in you, Tuva. This must have been a terrible ordeal.”
Below the table, I clench my fists. “When can I go home?”
“Tuva,” Ms. Granberg says, rolling up her shirtsleeves so that they are perfectly even. She straightens her skirt as well. Everything about her is pretty and neat and well groomed. “Can you please tell me what happened in the woods?”
I squirm in my seat and avoid eye contact.
“You can trust me,” says Ms. Granberg.
Why does it always sound like a lie when grown-ups say that? Maybe because if it were really true, they wouldn’t feel the need to insist on it.
“What happened out there?” she presses.
I have to ask, even though I don’t want to. I already know the answer.
“Have they found Axel?” My voice comes out shriller than usual. It doesn’t sound like my own.
She presses her lips together.
“Some people are coming who need to talk to you,” she says after a pause.
“The police?”
“Why do you think that?” Ms. Granberg clasps her hands in front of her.
“Rasmus was alone. Axel is gone.”
I have to swallow before I can continue.
“The police wouldn’t come otherwise, would they? If you’d found him already.”
Ms. Granberg doesn’t answer; she just stares at me with those pale-blue eyes. Too pale. A shade of blue that’s almost white.
“They have to figure out what’s happened.”
She looks at the untouched orange and flashes that fake smile again.
“Eat some fruit, Tuva,” she says.
She gets up, gives me a strange little nod, and goes to leave.
“Can I have my cell phone?” I call just as she shuts the door behind her.
The wall clock reads one minute past four.