Fish in the Sky by Fridrik Erlings Read Free Book Online Page A

to kick the ball into the goal. Of course, these guys get loads of money for this, and that’s exactly what Tom dreams of doing. He’s going to be a professional. I can’t understand how anyone can be interested in games long gone by which this team or that team won at one time or the other. It’s a huge heap of meaningless garbage; everything revolves around a victory frenzy for a fraction of a second, and then the fighting starts all over again. All the running is for nothing in the end. It’s like a desperate attempt to kill time, just to have something to do, rather than doing nothing. Tom runs screaming over the field and jumps head over heels if he scores, but sinks into a heap of desperation like a flat tire, hiding his head in his hands, if he doesn’t, just as his idols do on TV. Tom’s fight for victory is as meaningless as the fly’s when it struggles up the windowpane. You could set the fly free by opening the window. But even though somebody would open the window for Tom and point out to him some other possibilities in life, he probably wouldn’t understand what that meant. And as long as he’s in my class, I have to accept that his masculinity, his attitude, and his fighting spirit will always win in the race for her attention, the one whom I love with all my heart.
    I’ve got to hide my love away.

There’s only one person who hates gym more than I do, and that’s Ari Penapple, nicknamed the Pineapple. He stands like a ghost in the school yard every recess, and he never does anything or says anything. For as long as I can remember, he’s been teased because of his name and because he is so tall, but at the same time like a heap. But he never does anything or says anything — not even when Thomas Magnus, the jackass, ever the hero, is right in his face. Then Ari just turns around and walks away. His face never changes. I’ve never seen him laugh. If he’s forced to answer some questions from the teacher, it’s just a low mumble that nobody understands, so the teacher has to walk right up to him to hear. But what he says is almost always correct, and he is usually the one with the highest grades.
    But gym is the worst for Ari because he can hardly run at all. And that’s bad. He’s big and heavy, with legs like an elephant and hips like a woman. And the gym teacher, Ray Axel, enjoys torturing him, ordering him to run faster, do more, jump higher. Once he made Ari try to jump the pommel horse five times while everyone else waited and watched. But Ari couldn’t jump the horse; Ari wouldn’t be able to jump a cat, and Raxel knows that very well. Ari landed on the horse with a heavy thud and sat there, stuck, five times in a row. But when Ari has had enough, which rarely happens, then he does what I find really admirable: he stops obeying, sits by the wall, and doesn’t move. Nobody else would dare. But Ari is just as tall as Raxel, and even though he’s the Pineapple, he can sit quite still under Raxel’s scolding and his face doesn’t move. It’s like he’s thinking,
Raxel wants me to jump, but I can’t jump. He knows it, I know it, and he knows that I know he knows it. Now, I’ll just sit here and wait till gym is over; I’ll shut my ears and turn myself off.
And then he shuts his ears and turns himself off. Sometimes Raxel kicks him out of class with degrading remarks. It’s the only time I’ve seen a change in Ari’s face; he smirks, and I know it is his greatest relief when he’s kicked out of gym.
    I wish I had Ari’s courage, because I dread Raxel. His name alone sounds like a threat. He’s got a limp, and he walks with a cane. His face is made of stone and his voice is low, except when he’s angry; then he shouts. Then it’s best to lie low, but the trouble is, it doesn’t take much for him to lose his temper. He expresses himself mostly with his yellow training whistle, which he always holds between his teeth. And God help those who don’t understand the meaning of