“To the museum to find Dr. Tybjerg.”
“Does it have to be right now? Can’t you stay for a while? I have to go soon, and I don’t want to leave . . . until we’ve made up.”
“That’s not my problem,” Anna said, icily.
She heard Johannes heave a sigh as she walked down the corridor to the museum.
Dr. Tybjerg could invariably be found in one of three locations: his basement office, the cafeteria, or at the desk below the window by the door to the Vertebrate Collection, measuring bones. She tried the collection first. No sign of Tybjerg. Then she tried the cafeteria. Still no Tybjerg. Some young scientists had gathered around a table. Anna could smell pipe tobacco. That left only his office.
Anna had been puzzled by Tybjerg’s office ever since she first saw it. Dr. Tybjerg was one of the world’s leading dinosaur experts, but his office was small and damp as though the faculty were trying to keep him out of sight. Two walls in the tiny room were filled with books from floor to ceiling, Tybjerg’s desk stood against the third wall, and at the fourth, below the basement windows, was a low display cabinet with dinosaur models and Tybjerg’s own publications. The door to his office was locked, and Anna peered through the window but it was empty and the light was off. She called him on her cell phone. No answer. Finally, she found some scrap paper in a trash can and wrote him a note: We need to talk. Please call me to arrange a new meeting. She stuck the note to the door.
At that moment the light in the corridor timed out and she realized just how dark it was. Outside, someone walked past the low basement windows, and she saw a pair of legs wearing red boots, heels slamming against the cobblestones. Her heart raced as she stumbled along the corridor. She found the switch near the door to the stairwell and turned on the light. It was empty and quiet.
Anna and Karen had been friends since they were children. They were in the same class at school and were always together in the village of Brænderup, where they grew up. One day, while roaming around Fødring Forest, they met Troels. A hurricane had raged recently and there were fallen trees everywhere, their roots ripped out of the earth like rotten teeth. The girls had been told not to play in the forest under any circumstances.
They were jumping on the slimy leaves and daring each other to leap into the craters because they had heard stories that the wind might cause the trees to swing back up and crush you. Karen was the braver; she stood right under the roots of a dying tree and clumps of earth sprinkled onto her shoulders as she reached out her hands toward the sky in triumph. They had strayed further and further into the forest, until they remembered a giant ladybug made from the stump of a tree that had been felled. They wondered what might have happened to it during the storm and decided to investigate; after all, they weren’t far away. What if the ladybird had been uprooted and was lying with her legs in the air?
They discovered Troels sitting on the ground, leaning against the ladybird. They didn’t notice him at first. They were busy chatting and patting the ladybird. It wasn’t until Anna climbed up on its wooden wings and had made herself comfortable that she spotted a tuft of hair sticking up on the other side. It belonged to a boy with freckles and a sad look on his face.
Anna said “hi” and tossed him a pine cone, which he caught. The next hour they were absorbed in their play. The darkness came suddenly, as if big buckets of ink had been poured between the trees. Troels grew anxious and said: “Shouldn’t we be going home now?” The girls nodded. Oh yes, they ought to. The three of them skipped through the forest and, as they reached the edge, the beam from a torch picked them out and they met Troels’s father for the first time.
Cecilie’s reaction would have been: “Where on earth have you been, you horrible little brats,” then she would have hugged them and pretended to be mad.
Troels’s father said nothing. He slowly pointed the torch from one face to the next.
“Sorry, Dad,” Troels whispered.
“See you later,” Anna said, taking Karen’s hand. If they cut across the field, they could be home in twenty minutes.
“Oh, no,” Troels’s father said. “You’re coming with me. You’ll walk to the parking lot, where my car is, like good girls, and I’ll give you a ride home. Is that clear?”
Anna had been told her whole life never to go with strangers. Never ever. The three children plodded down a gravel path in total silence, past dimly lit houses, in the opposite direction to where Anna lived.
When they reached the parking lot, she tried again: “We’ll be fine from here. Thanks for walking us . . .”