Not until she is almost on top of them does Stephie recognize Nellie and Sonja. What on earth are they doing?
“Give a coin to the Easter witches,” Sonja says, holding out her kettle.
Stephie’s furious. Her little sister, walking around the village begging, dressed in rags! Imagine if Mamma and Papa knew! She tears the flowery kerchief off Nellie’s head.
“Are you out of your mind?” she shouts. “Making a laughingstock of us for the whole island to see!”
“Stop it!” Nellie cries, pulling at the scarf. “Careful of that, it’s Auntie Alma’s.”
“Get out of those rags at once!” Stephie roars. “Go home and wash your face! You look like a beggar. What will people think?”
“You’re the one who’s out of her mind,” Nellie shouts back. “You’re dumb! We’re dressed up as Easter witches. But I don’t suppose you know what an Easter witch is. You think everything always has to be just like back home.”
“Sonja, Nellie?” other children’s voices shout. Three more little girls come running up. They’re dressed up, too, like Nellie and Sonja.
“Have you got much?” one asks.
Sonja holds out her kettle for the others to see. She shakes it and the coins rattle.
Stephie looks from one red-and-black-painted child to the next. Easter witches!
“Can I have my headscarf back, please?” Nellie says. “Everybody dresses up as an Easter witch here. Ask anyone at all, and you’ll find out.”
Stephie passes Nellie the scarf and turns away. When she gets to the post office, it’s closed.
That evening, just before dark, she, Aunt Märta, and Uncle Evert go up to see the bonfire. The sky is a beautiful, deep blue.
All the islanders have gathered, young and old, boys and girls, men and women alike. Nellie is there with her friends. They’re still in their Easter witch getups.
Per-Erik and a few of the other young men are in charge of the fire. They’ve got a bucket of kerosene to ignite it with.
“When will it be lit?” Stephie asks.
“Soon,” Uncle Evert replies. “But our island’s not first. We have to wait for the others.”
The deep blue sky shifts toward black.
“Now watch,” Uncle Evert tells her. “It’s time.”
Far, far off to the north, a distant flame flares up. And then another, a little closer by, and another on the island nearest them. Per-Erik pours the kerosene over the pile of brushwood and scrap, and then touches a match to it. A huge flame rises. The dry wood crackles and sparks.
“It’s catching well,” says Uncle Evert with satisfaction. “The boys have done a fine job.”
The relay continues on to the farther islands, the ones to the south. The bonfires burn on the highest hill of each island, making a chain of flame.
The fire is so hot, Stephie has to back away. Her face and front feel as if they’re being warmed by the summer sun. At her back, though, it still feels like winter.
Uncle Evert puts an arm around her shoulders. “Are you cold?” he asks.
Stephie shakes her head. The fire is roaring. The flames are drawn high up into the now very dark sky.
On all the islands, Stephie thinks. On all the islands people are standing around bonfires, getting warm. On every island there’s someone asking a child if she’s cold. On all the islands, people can see the fires from the other islands.
Stephie likes that thought.
twenty-eight
“Which of you will be going on to secondary school next fall?”
Miss Bergström is behind her desk on the first day of school after Easter. The children haven’t really settled back in yet. They seem to have forgotten how to sit still during their several weeks’ break.
Sylvia and Ingrid raise their hands right away. Three boys raise theirs, too.
“No one else?”
Stephie raises her hand.
“Stephanie?” Miss Bergström asks.
“Yes,” she answers. “I want to go on to grammar school, too.”
Miss Bergström nods.
“Fine,” she says. “Six, that’s more than usual. I plan to give you some extra tutoring for the rest of the semester. You’ll be staying an hour longer than the others every day from now on. Here are the titles of two books I want you to get by next week.”
She writes the names of two books on the blackboard. Stephie copies them carefully into her exercise book. One is a math book, the other is called The Tales of Ensign Stål.
When the school day is over, Miss Bergström asks Stephie to stay behind for a few minutes.
“You’re a good pupil,” she says. “I’m pleased that you are going to be able to continue your schooling. And there will be German lessons at grammar school, too. You’ll like that.”
“Yes,” says Stephie, wondering what Miss Bergström is really getting at.
“Those books I asked you to get,” she goes on, “the ones we’ll be working with this spring. Don’t worry about them. I have extras you can borrow. I’ll bring them tomorrow, and you can cover them at home.”
When Stephie leaves school, the schoolyard is empty. The piles of dirty snow even in the darkest corner are melting, and little rivulets have formed in the gravel.
Now that the snow is finally disappearing, all her classmates have got their bikes out again. After school they rush in a flock to the bicycle stands and pedal off.
There’s just one bike left. Vera’s squatting down beside it, pumping the back tire.
Stephie approaches her cautiously. This is the opportunity she’s been waiting for, a chance to talk to Vera alone.
It should be simple just to ask: “Are you heading home? Want to walk together?” But sometimes the simplest things are hardest. So Stephie decides to open the conversation by talking about something else. If she can just strike up a conversation, surely she and Vera can walk out through the gate together, Vera leading her bike, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to be walking home side by side.
Stephie walks over to the bike stand. “Aren’t you going on to grammar school?”
Vera looks up. “No,” she answers. “My mother can’t afford it. And I’m not good enough at school, either.”
“You could be, though,” Stephie replies. “If you wanted to. You could be… an actress, for instance. You’re such a good mimic.”
“Oh, well,” Vera says. “I’ll be getting married. Maybe to a rich man, one of the summer visitors. I’ll live in the city and have a cook and a housemaid.”
She stands up and looks in the direction of the gate. Now Stephie notices Sylvia and Barbro, standing on the road with their bikes. They’re waiting for somebody. Vera.
“It’s different for you,” Vera tells her. “You’re the grammar school type.”
“Hurry up, Vera,” Sylvia shouts. “We’re leaving!”
“You don’t have a bike, do you?” Vera asks.
“No.”
Stephie would rather the other children think she isn’t allowed to bike than have them find out that she doesn’t know how.
“Too bad,” Vera says. “We could ride home together if you did. Bye.”
She mounts her bike and pedals over to Sylvia and Barbro. Stephie watches them disappear down the road.
Stephie doesn’t mention grammar school to Aunt Märta that day. The next day Miss Bergström brings her the books. The math book is much more difficult than the one they use in class. It has problems with x and y instead of numbers.
Stephie takes the books home and asks Aunt Märta for paper to cover them with.
“Isn’t it late in the semester to be getting new books?” she asks. “And who gave those to you, anyway?”