The Dinosaur Feather(40)

Troels’s father stopped and made a half turn. Anna couldn’t see his face very well.

“Get in,” he ordered them and opened the door to the back seat. Anna was about to protest, when she saw the look in Troels’s eyes. Just get in, they pleaded. The car smelled new, of chemicals, as though every fiber had been cleaned. She helped Karen put on her seatbelt. The car glided through the darkness, away from the forest and out onto the main road. Troels sat, small and dark, on the passenger seat next to his father.


Cecilie opened the door, a towel wrapped around her head. She was in the process of dyeing her hair; Anna could see tinfoil sticking out over her ears. Cecilie was wearing a faded robe. Music was coming from inside the house, and it smelled of mud.

“Hi, kids,” she said cheerfully. Then she noticed Troels’s father behind them. A deep furrow appeared on her brow.

“What’s happened?” Cecilie’s eyes widened. Had the man hit them in his car? Were they all right?

“Good evening, ma’am,” Troels’s father said. “In the future, I suggest you keep a closer eye on your children. I found them in the forest, playing under fallen trees.” He paused, then he clapped his massive palms together. “It’s a dangerous place to be.”

“Get inside, girls,” Cecilie said to Karen and Anna. Something Anna didn’t recognize flashed in her mother’s eyes.

“Thanks for your help,” she said in a monotone voice, and closed the door.

When the car had disappeared, Cecilie started pacing up and down in the kitchen, and she didn’t stop until Jens came home.

“What are you accusing him of?” Anna heard Jens say in a low voice. “Giving the girls a ride home and staring at your robe?”


After the summer break, Troels started in Anna and Karen’s class. It was five months since their meeting in the forest, but they hadn’t forgotten him. Their teacher introduced him, and Troels’s face lit up a little when he saw them. He had grown taller, but his expression was the same, and his eyes were still very dark.

During recess Karen asked him anxiously, “Did your dad get really angry last time?”

And Troels smiled broadly and said, “Oh, no, not at all.”

That afternoon Anna and Karen walked home together from school. The golden wheat swayed in the fields. At some point they stopped and decided Troels would be their friend.

A week passed. They spent every recess with him, walked home from school together, and one day, when they were about to say good-bye, Anna asked if Troels wanted to come to her house. He looked at his watch and smiled. Yes, please, he would like that very much. They played in the garden and when it started to rain, they went inside and made themselves sandwiches. The girls swapped stickers, and Troels handled the pictures very carefully and examined them closely. He, too, liked the ones with glitter babies and puppies the best.

Cecilie came home and Troels got up politely to shake her hand. The telephone rang at that moment, so Anna wasn’t sure if Cecilie had remembered who Troels was. When Troels went to the bathroom and Cecilie had sat down with a cup of tea, Anna whispered that he was the boy they had met in the forest last March. Cecilie paled.

“You can visit us anytime you like,” she said, when Troels came back. “Anytime you like.”

“Thank you very much,” Troels replied.


Cecilie bought a scrapbook and ten sheets of stickers for Troels. Anna felt so jealous she wanted to cry. Troels unwrapped his gift as though he had been entrusted with a blanket full of precious eggs. His face lit up, then he looked miserably at Cecilie.

“I can’t accept this,” he said and carefully pushed the present away. Anna picked up the scrapbook and admired the pictures. Big cherubs on clouds, glitter babies, animals, and baskets of flowers. If Troels didn’t want them, she certainly did.

“Of course you can,” Cecilie said warmly. “Now you can swap, can’t you? They’re a present.”

“No,” Troels said, still wretched. “I really can’t. I’m not allowed to accept presents.”

Cecilie narrowed her eyes and studied him.

“Hmm,” she said. “Well, you can’t take them home, obviously. They need to stay here.”

Anna stared at her mother.

“They’ll still be my stickers, you understand, but I’m not very good at swapping, so I would like you to do it for me. Extend my collection. Do you think you can do that?”

Troels nodded and opened the scrapbook with awe. With the same deference, he removed the wrapper and gazed at the stickers. Later that afternoon, when it was time for him to go home, he placed the scrapbook on the bookcase in the living room, where it remained until his next visit. The scrapbook lived there for years.