The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg Read Free Book Online Page A

they had at first just talked about as a joke was in the process of becoming reality, even though it had been quite an effort to get there. It had taken them several weeks to persuade the others, and deep down Martha was afraid that one of them might bail out of the adventure. She so very much wanted to enjoy life
before
they ended up behind bars. She had had nightmares about one of the others dropping out at the last minute, or, even worse, giving them away before they had even managed to stage the first raid by the League of Pensioners.
    It had been Christina’s idea to have a group name and they all thought that
the League of Pensioners
fit their purpose perfectly. It sounded like an important and mysterious code name too.
Outlaw Oldies
, which Martha had proposed, hadbeen voted out because the others thought it sounded far too criminal.
    Thanks to Nurse Barbara, the step from helpless geriatric to prospective criminal had been quicker than expected. Martha had gone to the hardware store to buy some parts for Brains, but his handwriting was so bad that neither she nor the shop assistant could read what he had written.
    ‘We’ll have to phone your good friend,’ said the assistant, and, without thinking, Martha gave him Brains’s number. When she realized that all private conversations went through the Diamond House main line, it was too late.
    ‘There is an elderly lady here with a walker who wants to buy something, but I don’t know what it is,’ the assistant explained to the woman on the other end of the line. In vain Martha had tried to put a stop to the conversation but Nurse Barbara had already understood that somebody from the home had sneaked out without her permission. A week later the locks on the front door of Diamond House were changed and Martha cried against Brains’s shoulder and said that now everything was lost.
    ‘But Martha dear, don’t be sad. Our new life as criminals is about to start at last. We must get out of here before they put a new lock on the cellar door.’
    And then he sat down in front of his computer.
    ‘We were going to find out where the rich people are. Well, this is it!’ He smiled as he opened the home page of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. ‘Now we’ll book some rooms for ourselves.’
    ‘The Grand Hotel?’ Martha swallowed. From a little country farmhouse outside Brantevik, via a two-room flat in thesouthern part of Stockholm to … the swankiest of swanky hotels? Her parents had always said that you should be satisfied with what you have. But this was to be her next stage in life, so ignoring her nervousness, she took the plunge. ‘Yes, of course. The Grand Hotel, the obvious choice.’
    ‘We can order the celebration special—flowers, champagne and fruit so that everybody will be in a good mood.’
    ‘And fresh strawberries?’
    ‘But of course,’ Brains went on enthusiastically, but then suddenly came to a halt. ‘What if Christina and Anna-Greta have too good a time at the hotel? They might not want to go to prison afterwards …’
    ‘That’s a risk we must take,’ said Martha. ‘But in the long run it can become boring to live amidst too much luxury, or so I’ve heard.’
    Brains scrolled down the screen and after a while he had booked the most expensive hotel suites for them and ordered five celebration specials. Martha felt a pleasant thrill run through her body.
    ‘We’ve got exactly forty-eight hours to do this,’ said Brains as he turned off the computer. ‘On Monday the locksmith will be coming, and by then we must be out of here.’
    On the Sunday evening, the five of them sneaked out of the retirement home with their walking sticks and walkers. It was early March and there were still grey skies and snow in the air, but that didn’t bother them. Now a new phase in their lives awaited them.
The adventure era
. Martha closed the cellar door and locked it after them. Then shepinched her lips together and brandished her clenched fist at