The Runaways Read online

  THE RUNAWAYS

  1.

  OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL, maple leaves glowed red and gold. I watched them through the window and thought: It’s strange how leaves are brightest the moment before they fall.

  “Come and look,” I said. “It’s really pretty.”

  “I don’t want to look,” Grandpa thundered. “I’m not allowed out.”

  I was visiting him in hospital all by myself. I’d been there lots of times with Dad. So I knew how to get there. First you take the subway. Then you catch a red bus and get off when you see the church on the hill to your left.

  It wasn’t hard.

  Dad didn’t often want to go, because Grandpa was difficult. He always had been, but now he was worse than ever. He got angry and shouted. He spat out the pills that could make him nice and calm. And he yelled at the nurses.

  “I’m shut in here like an animal!” he shouted. “What do you think I am? An ape?”

  His face turned bright red and he swore, so Dad and I had to cover our ears. Dad thought I didn’t need any more swear words than the ones I already knew.

  I disagreed.

  I liked it when Grandpa got angry. It made life a bit more exciting.

  But it made Dad tired and sad. He felt awful seeing his strong, fat father lying there getting weaker and thinner. That’s why he didn’t like going to visit.

  “Why can’t he be like other people?” he sighed.

  That was on Thursday. Dad came out of the dental surgery, hung his white coat on its special hook and padded around the house winding up the clocks. He always did that on Thursdays. There were nine of them. I followed him around.

  “Can’t we take Grandpa out of there?” I asked.

  “No,” said my father, winding up the grandfather clock in the dining room.

  “Why can’t he live in the old people’s home here? Then we could see him every day.”

  We had a rest home next door to our house. On our street there were usually plenty of old people wandering around who didn’t really know where they were. Grandpa could join them. Then he could come over to us for dinner. I could see him as much as I wanted.

  “This isn’t Grandpa’s part of town. You know that.”

  “Well, he could live with us. He could sleep in my room.”

  “I said no,” said Dad. “He can’t walk upstairs. His heart’s too big and weak. And he’s too sick and angry and stubborn and crazy. You know what happened last time.”

  “That was just bad luck,” I said.

  “Bad luck?” Dad snorted. “He’d just had his broken leg pinned. Then he decides to have a go at lifting a great big rock and it breaks again. You call that bad luck?”

  “I like him not being the same as other people,” I said. “Shall we visit him on Saturday?”

  “We’ll see,” said Dad.

  I knew what that meant. When Saturday came around Dad would say that unfortunately he had too much to do.

  He sat down in his special armchair, put on his headphones, looked at the ceiling and turned the music up loud enough to deafen any thoughts he had inside him.

  “I’m going on Saturday in any case,” I said. “I like Grandpa. And I don’t want him to be lonely.”

  Dad nodded.

  He hadn’t heard a word.

  2.

  I USED FOOTBALL TRAINING as my excuse.

  I asked for my weekly allowance. It would be enough for tickets. Then I packed my bag with the football socks, blue shorts and proper football boots I’d insisted on getting.

  I had to think of everything.

  “If you want something to eat, look in the fridge,” said my mother.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I made one cheese sandwich and one with pickled herring.

  That surprised her. “Have you started to like herrings?”

  “No. It’s for the salt,” I said. “You sweat so much when you do training.”

  It was a shame Dad didn’t hear that. He liked it when anyone was scientific. But he was fully occupied with the Saturday crossword puzzle.

  When I was alone in the kitchen I took something to drink as well.

  “It’s lucky we decided not to go and see Grandpa, now that you have training,” said Dad when I said goodbye.

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  I told them I’d be home a bit late because afterwards I was going with one of the football kids to work on our geometry homework, because I was worst in the class.

  Dad looked up from his newspaper. “It’s good that you’re doing something useful instead of coming up with silly ideas.” He smiled.

  “Mmm,” I said.

  And off I went.

  The silly ideas were waiting for me.

  First I went a short way towards the football field because my mother was at the window waving, same as always. After a bit, I swung off towards the subway station.

  I bought a ticket and when the train turned up I got on.

  I could see my face in the train window, half see-through: a good ghost on a forbidden mission.

  I got off at Slussen and switched to the red bus.

  But before that, I lingered on the platform to look at what was, according to Dad, the city’s most beautiful neon sign: a giant tube squeezing out a shining worm of toothpaste onto a yellow toothbrush.

  It made me think of Dad. And Grandpa. And how different they were. Dad was long and thin. He had sad eyes. Grandpa was short and round and seemed to have just one feeling in his body: crossness. When he was angry you could hear it. He smacked walls, stamped his feet and swore. But when Dad was in a bad mood he was silent. He’d go off by himself.

  No wonder they didn’t understand each other.

  On the bus, I was still thinking about how different they were, while outside the window autumn shook past.

  After a while, a big woman in a blue coat sat beside me. She smelled of sweat. I moved a bit closer to her. My clothes might absorb some of her sweaty smell as proof that I’d been at football practice.

  She turned to me. “Have you got ants in your pants, young man?”

  “No,” I said. What was she thinking?

  “And you’re on the bus by yourself?” she went on.

  “Yes, I’m going to visit Grandpa.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Will he come and meet you at the bus stop?”

  “No, he’s in the hospital.”

  “And your parents aren’t with you?”

  “No, Dad didn’t have time. He has to do the crossword,” I said.

  She put her arm around my shoulder. That’s good for sweat transfer, I thought. When she sighed it sounded like the bus doors opening.

  “You must like your grandfather a lot,” she said.

  “Yes, I do.” And I started to tell her about Grandpa. I don’t know why. It was if my mouth was talking all on its own. I told her about the things we’d done together in our summer holidays. And how nice it was to go to sleep to the sound of his snoring. And how he was good at all sorts of things. Like digging up big rocks. And putting new tarpaper on the outhouse roof.

  The more I talked, the younger and stronger he became.

  “There doesn’t seem to be too much wrong with your grandfather,” said the woman.

  “No,” I said.

  “He’ll soon be back on his feet again.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Then I started to think about Grandpa’s big heart and his pinned-together leg and how Dad had said that it would never be right again.

  Then we were at the church on the hill already.

  I saw it through tears.

  “’Bye then,” I said as I got off the bus.

  “Goodbye,” said the woman. “Tell your dear grandfather that there isn’t a nicer grandson to be had.
”

  “I will,” I said.

  3.

  MY DEAR GRANDFATHER had just pushed the alarm button that dangled over his bed. He didn’t stop pushing until the nurse came.

  “What is it now?” she hissed.

  She was irritated, and no wonder. Grandpa pushed the alarm button all the time. Because he was bored. To be naughty. Because he had nothing else to do. No holes to dig. No big rocks to roll. No roof to climb on so he could clean the chimney.

  “Get a glass of juice and a bun for the boy,” he ordered.

  “No,” said the nurse. “This isn’t a cafe. And please stop pushing the alarm unnecessarily. Otherwise I’ll cut the cord.”

  “That’s the most…” And he swore.

  The nurse looked at me. “Have you ever thought about getting married?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Probably.”

  “In that case, don’t speak like him. Learn to speak nicely instead.”

  And off she went. I think she meant to slam the door behind her. But there was a thing on top that meant it could only close very slowly.

  Once it had closed Grandpa pressed the alarm button again.

  When the nurse put her head in he said: “You were right about what you said. Now you can take yourself off again!”

  Before she disappeared I thought I saw a glimmer of a smile on her thin lips. It was good to see Grandpa still well enough to be bad.

  “It’s a shame about the juice and the bun,” Grandpa muttered.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I brought food and drinks with me.”

  I opened my bag and showed him the packet of sandwiches. A cheese sandwich for me and a pickled herring one for Grandpa.

  He nodded. “That’s not half bad,” he said.

  “No, and that’s not all.” I took out milk and the bottle of beer from the fridge at home that I’d hidden in one of my football socks.

  “The beer’s for you. You like beer, Grandpa.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said.

  I emptied water from the glass on his bedside table and poured in beer instead. Grandpa smacked his lips. And he put on his reading glasses so he could see the little bubbles rising. Then he took a teeny tiny mouthful of beer. And a teeny tiny mouthful of pickled herring sandwich.

  That’s not how he used to eat and drink. Normally he shoved food in like a bulldozer. But not here in hospital. Here he didn’t want to eat anything at all.

  “Ah,” he said. “This is good stuff, this.”

  He had tears in his eyes from how good it was.

  “I hate the food here,” he said. “They’ve taken all the joy out of it. Not even the water tastes any good.”

  “Perhaps you should run away,” I suggested.

  “I did a lot of that when I was young,” he said. “But I think it’s a bit late now. Do your mother and father know you’re here?”

  “No, I ran away. I said I was going to football practice.”

  Grandpa’s false teeth grinned happily.

  “You’re a clever monkey, Gottfried Junior,” he said. “You take after me. And your running-away idea is worth thinking about. There are one or two things I want to do. As long as it’s not too far from here. Not with this leg.”

  Gottfried! No one else called me that. It was Grandpa’s first name. And my middle name. I thought it sounded stupid. But when Grandpa called me that I liked it.

  It made us a sort of pair.

  We ate and drank, enjoying our sandwiches and drinks and the fact that we were so clever, both rebels, and we had the same name.

  By the time I had to leave for the bus, we’d made a plan. Grandpa asked me to get his wallet, hidden in a sock in a shoe in the wardrobe.

  “See you next Saturday,” he said. “It’ll be as much fun as…” And he swore.

  The last thing I heard him say was: “Lingonberry jam.”

  I didn’t understand.

  4.

  THIS WAS THE PLAN: I’d come to the hospital the next Saturday and there would be a taxi waiting outside. The money I’d got from Grandpa would pay for the car. I had to “for pity’s sakes!” make sure Dad didn’t come too. I had to think up a good reason to be away. Maybe overnight.

  The last bit was the easiest.

  When I got home I took my muddy football clothes out of the bag.

  “Must you get so incredibly dirty?” my mother sighed when she saw them.

  “That’s what happens when you play football,” I said.

  I’d stopped at the empty football field between the old people’s home and our house and rubbed mud into my clothes.

  You have to think of everything.

  “They have to be clean again by Saturday,” I said. “Because my team’s going away on a training camp. Overnight.”

  “Where?” she said.

  “In Sollentuna,” I said. “We’re going to sleep in a school gym. We have to take something to eat. Can you make meatballs?”

  “Of course.”

  Grandpa loved meatballs.

  And my mother loved making them.

  I suppose I was a clever monkey, as Grandpa said—a real lying machine. Even Dad seemed pleased. He was probably happy that I’d be away for the weekend.

  He patted me on the head. “Then I’ll wait till the week after to visit Grandpa,” he said. “I know how much you like coming with me.”

  “Thanks, that’d be great,” I said.

  So that just left the hardest bit to do.

  Grandpa’s idea was that we should run away to the house in the archipelago where he and Grandma had lived till she died, and where the next winter he’d fallen over and broken his leg.

  And then he broke it again and ended up in a hospital bed.

  “That’s far enough to run away to,” said Grandpa. “And besides, I have one or two things to attend to there.”

  “Promise not to climb up on the roof.”

  It was the sort of dangerous thing he often did.

  “I promise,” he said. “Listen carefully now. The boat leaves the jetty at Sollenkroka at one o’clock. Best if you’re here with the taxi at half past eleven. And it wouldn’t hurt if someone phoned to say that I’m going to be picked up so they don’t wonder about it.”

  “Who?”

  “You can sort that out, my dear grandchild,” said Grandpa.

  I thought a lot about how it would work. I couldn’t phone myself, not with my child’s voice. It had to be someone who sounded grown up. And how could I order a taxi? I was too young. The taxi driver would ask to speak to my parents.

  Then I thought of Adam.

  His name was actually Ronny, but we called him Adam because he had such a big Adam’s apple. It went up and down like an egg when he spoke. You couldn’t help looking.

  And his voice was deeper than Dad’s.

  He worked in the bakery next to the mechanic’s. It was the perfect place for him. Bread and cars were his big interests. Early in the morning he delivered bread to all the businesses around. And when he was free he went down to the mechanic’s and helped out.

  He was nice. He usually gave us kids stale buns. And if there weren’t any stale ones he gave us fresh.

  “Take this for the dog,” he’d say, even if we didn’t have one.

  I went to the bakery and told him everything, exactly how it was.

  Adam who was really Ronny stood with his arms crossed, listening with a serious look on his face, like a freckled angel in a white coat.

  “So you want me to trick people?” he said. “You want me to call the hospital and pretend to be your father?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And arrange a taxi and pretend I’m going to drive your football team to Sollentuna?”

  “Yes.”

  “But actually, you’re telling me I should help you and your grandfather run away?”

  “Yes. I’ll pay good money.”

  I showed him the money I’d got from Grandpa.

  “Are you in your right m
ind?”

  “Nope.”

  Then he took the money, shook my hand and laughed so hard his Adam’s apple jumped up and down.

  “Good as done, boy,” he said. “I’m all for freedom. And I need the cash.”

  He asked where I lived. And for Dad’s and Grandpa’s first and last names. And the name of the hospital. And the ward Grandpa was staying in.

  “You have to think of everything,” he said.

  “I know,” I said.

  He wrote everything down on a bread order list hanging on the wall beside the telephone.

  “That’s everything, then,” he said. “See you Saturday at quarter to eleven. I’ll toot three times outside your gate.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  As I was on my way through the door he threw a new-baked bun after me. I flicked a hand from my pocket and caught it mid-air.

  “For the dog,” he said, giggling.

  On the way home I chewed on the bun and tried to whistle between my teeth.

  A flock of birds sailed past, high over the roofs of the houses. And I thought: soon we’ll be on our way too.

  5.

  I WAS PACKED and ready by nine o’clock. I’d been allowed to borrow my father’s suitcase. I’d packed my football clothes, an extra pair of underpants, my blue pyjamas, a towel, soap, toothbrush and a little tube of toothpaste Dad had been given as a sample from a toothpaste company.

  My mother’s meatballs were packed neatly in a special bag. There were a lot of them. She wanted the whole football team to have a taste.

  I sat in the flowery armchair with my feet on the suitcase and the bag with meatballs beside me and I watched the clock on the wall.

  I tried humming. It didn’t sound any good.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Dad said. “What are you thinking about?”

  “About our team,” I said. “We’re going to learn penalty shots and dribbling and a whole lot more tricks. And when we go to bed we’ll tell ghost stories.”

  “You should also be thinking about brushing your teeth after you’ve eaten,” said Dad.

  “Of course.”

  But I didn’t. I thought how fantastic it felt to trick people.