A Fairy Tale by Jonas Bengtsson Read Free Book Online Page A

come.
    â€œYou’re the lookout today,” he says. “Just like when we smeared shit on the doorbells.”
    He starts walking, knowing that I’ll follow him.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I say to his back.
    â€œWe. What are we . . .” he replies, without turning around. I’m almost certain that he’s smiling. “I could tell you, of course, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
    We pass the outhouses; we pass the stand with the rusting bicycles.
    â€œSurprises are always nice,” he says.
    I nod, he’s probably right. When I’m with him, I think more slowly.
    â€œYou’re my friend,” he says.
    By now we’re standing in front of the door leading down to the caretaker’s workshop. The boy points to a paving stone.
    â€œStand there and keep a lookout. If you hear the caretaker’s keys then run down and knock three times.”
    The boy quickly sneaks inside. I stand on the paving stone. I want to run away, but I stay where I am. I can hear the wind rustle the leaves in the trees; I can hear my own breathing, but no keys.
    Then the door is flung open. The boy waves a key over his head like a prize he has just won in a competition. He grabs hold of my arm and drags me along.
    â€œJust you wait until you see this,” he says.
    We cross the courtyard, pass a bird bath, and arrive at a different basement door. The boy quickly pulls me down the steps. He inserts the key into the lock and opens it. The darkness inside is total.
    â€œHurry up,” he says. “Don’t just stand there.”
    The door closes behind us.
    We walk down a short passage. There’s a sharp smell: glue, possibly, but I’m not sure. I hear the boy fumble with something. The light in the ceiling flickers a couple of times before it comes on. We’re surrounded by cats smoking pipes, by redheaded girls with bushy tails peeking out from under their dresses.
    Along the walls there are work tables and piles of fabric in different colours and patterns. “Surprises are always nice,” says the boy again. We’re in a doll workshop.
    I know I ought to leave, but I can’t take my eyes off an anteater with a top hat and a monkey with a walking stick and red shoes. I follow the work tables: more dolls, and giraffes with long ties that reach all the way down their necks. On a bulletin board is a photo of an old woman bent over a sewing machine. She’s stitching ears onto a rabbit and sewing paws on a dog. In other photographs she sits surrounded by children who hold the dolls on their laps. The children are laughing and she smiles proudly at the photographer. In the last few pictures there’s a little girl with no hair in a hospital bed. She’s hugging a crocodile with glasses.
    I hear a growl behind me like a dog with a bone. The boy is standing with a full-size male doll. At first it looks as if he’s embracing it, then I see that he has sunk his teeth into its neck. The boy rips off half the head and yellow stuffing spills out. Our eyes meet and he throws down the doll. The boy takes a pair of scissors from one of the work tables and ignores me while he cuts the arms and legs off the dolls. I walk backwards out of the room. The boy cuts the ears off a zebra and the trunk off an elephant. I walk down the passage and emerge outside.
    I stand on the basement steps while my eyes get used to the light. Then I hear a jingling. A large bunch of keys getting closer and closer.
    I throw myself behind the bushes along the wall. Below the leaves I can make out the caretaker’s trousers. He stops right outside the bush I’m lying behind. I press my eyes shut and hope that he can’t see me.
    He lingers for a while before he continues down the steps and opens the door to the doll workshop.
    I’m in my bed, I still can’t sleep. My dad comes home from work late. He sits in the kitchen eating a rye bread sandwich he has just