The Last Boat Home by Dea Brovig Read Free Book Online Page B

had been lost staring at the pages of a textbook, reading and rereading a single line but seeing clowns bouncing on the humps of trotting camels. Her excitement mounted with each day that brought the circus closer to town, quickening like a pulse under her skin whenever she overheard her mother muttering, ‘Knut Tenvik must be out of his mind.’
    The afternoon before the first performance, Else climbed Torggata on her way to the bakery. Petter tagged along, having just remembered that he, too, had promised his mother he would buy a loaf after school. He walked with his eyes on the pavement,skirting the puddles that had collected during the morning’s rain. His silence made Else awkward. She wished he had not come or, better yet, that Lars had come in his place.
    The bakery smelled of cinnamon when she opened the door. Inside, Ingrid Berge handed a paper bag to a customer.
    ‘Who’s next?’ she asked.
    ‘One loaf,’ said Else.
    ‘ Kneip ?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    Petter ordered the same, as well as two raisin buns. He gave one to Else, who bit into its crust while Ingrid wrapped Petter’s loaf. A shout from Torggata made her turn to the window, but all she could see was a slice of the empty street.
    ‘In all my days,’ said Ingrid. ‘Someone is making a racket.’
    The second holler was nearer than the last. Petter pocketed his change and dashed outside after Else, who collided with a boy racing up the hill.
    ‘Watch where you’re going!’ said Petter over the trumpet of a car horn. Else looked up the road to the parade that the boy had been running to meet. Twenty cars or more rolled through the town behind a van. Across its bonnet, the words ‘Circus Leona’ were painted in purple and red.
    ‘They’re here,’ Petter said.
    The van’s horn blared. Several others answered its call.
    ‘Do you hear that?’ he said. ‘Else, do you see them? Come on!’
    He set off at a sprint up the hill, leaving her to stare at the chain of cars that was edging towards her. The van’s driver leaned out of his window to wave and grin at the crowd that was multiplying on the pavement. His face was flushed. The hair on his head crawled onto his cheeks in fat sideburns that fused in a bristly strip under his nose.
    ‘Thursday! Friday! Saturday!’ His letters tripped off his tongue with an exotic trill. ‘Come see the animals and acrobats!’
    The bakery door opened at Else’s back.
    ‘What’s going on?’ said Ingrid Berge.
    ‘Thursday! Friday! Saturday!’
    ‘Oh, my,’ she said.
    One after another, the cars passed. Vehicles in all shapes and sizes followed after the van. Volkswagens in various stages of disrepair towed trailers and caravans, while lorries and buses rattled in and out of potholes. From their seats in the cavalcade the circus troupe dealt out smiles to the townspeople, their dark eyes shining in dark faces. Else spotted a muzzle poking through an open window. A pair of nostrils quivered in the air, then disappeared.
    The final car in the procession pulled a caravan whose walls had been mended with sheets of canvas and timber.
    ‘Oh, Lord,’ said Ingrid and bent her knees for a better peek at its driver. He was larger than any man Else had ever seen. His shoulders sprouted arms as thick as two knuckles of meat. He kept his eyes on the lorry ahead of him, not seeming to notice the crowd that inspected him with dropping jaws. Else felt the dip in her belly that always came when she cradled one of onkel Olav’s coffee cups in her palm. Only after he had driven on did she realise that she had been holding her breath.
    ‘Well,’ said Ingrid, ‘and now I’ve seen that, too.’
    Ingrid withdrew into the bakery as soon as the spectators began to scatter. A staunch group made up mainly of children lingered at the rear of the parade, marching after it down Torggata and cheering with each bleat of the van’s horn. Else searched the faces of those who remained and, when she did not find Petter, started to