Adventures with Waffles (10 page)

It was true. All the boys had been in awe of Lena that day.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” Lena said sadly.

“What do you mean?”

Lena didn’t answer.

When we got home, Isak was there. That was good, because Lena’s hand hurt terribly.

“He’s got such a hard face, that Kai-Tommy,” she said, giving Isak the letter. He passed it on to Lena’s mom.

“Oh, Lena love, what are we going to do with you?” said her mom.

Isak thought Lena might have fractured her hand again.

“He must have flown miles, that Kai-Tommy,” he said, pretty impressed.

I paced out the distance for Isak on the kitchen floor, adding a couple of paces to be extra kind to Lena.

I
t’s difficult to know when winter is on the way, because it comes so quietly. But when Mom says that I’ve got to wear my long johns, then it’s not long to go. And now the long-johns day had come. They felt horrible at first, especially as I was wearing jeans on top. I walked around the house three times to get used to them before I rang Lena’s doorbell.

“Have you started wearing your thermals?” I asked.

Lena hadn’t. She was going to wait until the snow came.

Going outside to investigate, we saw that it wouldn’t be long before Lena would have to put on her long johns too. There was ice on the puddles. And beyond the fjord, God had sprinkled powdered sugar on the highest mountaintops.

“I’m looking forward to the snow,” I said to Lena.

“It won’t be too bad,” she replied, not in the best of moods. I couldn’t understand what was wrong; Lena usually gets wildly excited about snow. But I didn’t want to annoy her. That definitely wouldn’t help.

In the afternoon, I got to go with Dad to Auntie Granny’s again. Auntie Granny wasn’t looking forward to the snow coming, she said, because she can’t shovel it away. She’s too old. I think I’d like winter even more if I couldn’t shovel snow. It should be allowed to lie there until it disappears by itself. Or until Dad shovels it.

Auntie Granny told stories while Dad and I ate waffles. They were even better than usual, since it was so cold outside. I sat with my legs on the sofa, snuggled up by Auntie Granny, and was so happy that it almost hurt. Auntie Granny has the biggest and warmest heart I know of. There’s only one thing wrong with her, and that’s her knitting. Especially now that Christmas was getting closer.

When Auntie Granny went to the kitchen to fetch more waffles, I had a quick peek into the basket behind the sofa. There was her knitting. In big piles. She always gives us knitted things for Christmas. It’s strange that, being as wise as she is, she doesn’t understand how awful it is to wear knitted sweaters. They itch, and they look odd. I would much rather have a present from a store, but Auntie Granny doesn’t know about such modern things, even though I’ve tried to explain it to her a thousand times.

Before we left, I went into her bedroom and looked at the picture of Jesus above her bed. Auntie Granny came in too, and I told her how Lena had been trying to play Jesus when she fell down from the Peaks. As I was telling her, I remembered how scared I had been.

“I’m often scared of losing Lena,” I said. “But I don’t think she’s scared of losing me.”

“Maybe Lena knows that she doesn’t need to be scared of losing you,” said Auntie Granny. “You’re such a loyal boy, Trille.”

I searched my feelings and felt that I was loyal.

“Is it true that you’re never scared, Auntie Granny?”

Auntie Granny put her hand on the back of my neck and patted me.

“Maybe I am a little scared sometimes, but then I just look at that picture and remember that Jesus is taking care of me. You don’t need to be scared, Trille, my boy. It never helps anyone.”

“It’s a nice picture,” I said, and promised to come back when the snow arrived. I could do the shoveling, even though it was boring. Then Auntie Granny gave me a nice wrinkly Auntie-Granny hug and promised me a stack of waffles whether I did the shoveling or not.

On Sunday, the snow came.

And on Sunday, Auntie Granny died.

It was Mom who woke me and told me. First she said that it was snowing, and then that Auntie Granny had died. That was the wrong order. It would have been better if she had said that Auntie Granny wasn’t alive anymore first and then cheered me up with the snow afterward. Something inside me fell to pieces. I stayed lying on my pillow while Mom stroked my hair.

It was a strange day. Even Dad and Grandpa cried. That was the worst part. The whole world had been changed because there was no Auntie Granny anymore. And outside it was snowing.

Eventually I put on my snowsuit and went over to the barn, where I lay down. My thoughts flew around like snowflakes, and everything was a mess. Yesterday Auntie Granny had been just as alive as me, and today she was completely dead. What if I died too? It can happen to children. Lena’s second cousin died in a car accident. He was only ten. Death is almost like snow; you don’t know when it’s going to come, even if it tends to come in winter.

Suddenly Lena was there. She was wearing her green snowsuit.

“I’ve started to wear my thermals. What are you lying here for? You look like a herring.”

“Auntie Granny is dead.”

“Oh . . .”

Lena sat down in the snow and went quiet for a moment.

“Was it a cardigan arrest?”

“A cardiac arrest,” I answered.

“Oh, no,” said Lena. “And today when there’s snow and everything.”

It’s often difficult to understand that people are dead, Mom explained that evening. It was warm and safe in her arms. She was right. I wasn’t able to understand anything. It was strange that I would never see Auntie Granny again.

“You can see her one last time, if you’d like,” said Mom.

I’d never seen a dead person before. But that Tuesday I got to see Auntie Granny. I was dreading it. Lena said that all dead people have blue faces, especially those who have died of heart attacks. I think Magnus and Minda were dreading it too. Krølla just sat up on Dad’s shoulders, grinning.

But it wasn’t creepy. Auntie Granny wasn’t blue. She looked like she was sleeping. I almost thought she was going to open her eyes. Maybe all this dying was only a mistake. I stood there for a long time, watching her eyelids. They didn’t move. I imagined she opened them and looked at me and said, “My goodness, Trille, my young boy, how handsome you look!” I had dressed up, even if Auntie Granny was dead and couldn’t see anything at all. Before we left, I touched her hand. She was cold. Almost like snow.

The funeral was on Thursday, but I’d been to one before. Lena got to come along. She’d known Auntie Granny too. I think Lena thought it was pretty boring at the funeral. I couldn’t cry.

“Now Auntie Granny’s in heaven,” Mom said when we came home.

That was hard to believe, I thought, because they’d buried her coffin down in the earth at the graveyard.

“Is it true, Grandpa?” I asked a little later, “that Auntie Granny’s in heaven?”

Grandpa was sitting in his rocking chair, looking straight ahead, wearing his best suit.

“Yes, it’s as true as the day is long, Trille lad. The angels will have a good time up there now! And here we are . . .”

He didn’t say any more.

Mathildewick Cove was in mourning now. The whole beginning of December was strange and quiet and full of bouquets of flowers. We missed Auntie Granny. Eventually Lena threw open our door with a bang and said that I should come out and throw snowballs and stop being a rotten haddock.

“What’s wrong with you? You haven’t got a concussion, have you?” She stood there impatiently in her snowsuit.

And so we threw snowballs, Lena and I. Actually, it was good. Afterward I wanted to go over to Lena’s, because it had been so long.

“You’re not allowed,” she said harshly.

I didn’t understand, but my neighbor had a very determined expression on her face, so I didn’t ask again. Maybe she had an enormous surprise Christmas present for me in there.

Christmas came that year too, but everything was different, since Auntie Granny wasn’t there with us. Nobody was sitting at her place at the table. Nobody folded up the wrapping paper and said that it was bad to throw away such nice paper. Nobody sang in a high-pitched old lady’s voice when we went around the Christmas tree, and it was Mom who had to gather us in front of the Christmas crèche and read the Nativity story. And I didn’t receive any knitted sweaters. Imagine being sad about that!

In the evening, Lena dropped in to say merry Christmas. We went up to the ropeway window. I noticed that Lena had closed the curtains in her room. What was it that she didn’t want me to see? She’d given me some shin guards for Christmas, so it couldn’t be another present. It was almost two weeks since I’d last been to their house.

“Is heaven above the stars?” Lena asked before I had a chance to ask her anything myself.

I peered up and said that I thought it must be. Auntie Granny would be puttering around up there with the angels and Jesus. I figured she’d given them knitted sweaters for Christmas.

“They’re probably itching between the wings now,” I said. “The angels, I mean.”

But Lena didn’t feel particularly sorry for the angels.

“They’ll be eating waffles too,” she said.

Then I remembered what I hadn’t told Lena: “I’ve inherited something. I was allowed to choose one thing from Auntie Granny’s house that would be only for me.”

“Were you allowed to choose anything at all?” Lena asked.

I nodded.

“What did you choose, then? The sofa?”

“I chose her picture of Jesus. It’s hanging above my bed, so now I don’t need to be afraid anymore.”

Lena went quiet for a long time. I had thought she would tease me for not choosing the sofa or something else big, but she didn’t. She just pressed her nose against the windowpane and made a strange face.

I
thought that now that Auntie Granny had died, it would be a long, long time before something sad happened again. But that wasn’t the case.

“Are you all right, Trille dear?” Mom asked on the day after Boxing Day. She sat down with me after I’d made a slice of bread with liver paste for dinner.