Olli had a new friend request. Aino added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Aino in order for you to be friends on Facebook.
Olli accepted Aino’s friend request and went to look at her page. There wasn’t anything on it; it looked new. At the top of the page was the usual comment box. It said Write something.
Olli wrote: Where are you?
Aino had four other Facebook friends besides Olli. The first three were “mutual friends” of Olli’s: Leo, Richard and Anne Blomroos.
Contrary to what Olli had by some peculiar logic instantly expected, Aino’s fourth friend wasn’t Greta.
Olli felt sick. His stomach clenched and black spots danced in front of his eyes. He had to go lie down on the sofa.
20
That Karri has been such a strange boy lately.
The breakfast table is set among the apple trees on a lawn still wet with dew. Olli and the Blomrooses are talking cheerfully. They’re waiting for Karri to join them so they can leave on their expedition. They often have to wait for Karri these days. When Aunt Anna suddenly says out loud what Olli has been noticing since the beginning of the summer, everyone stops talking and Olli’s cheeriness fades.
The sky over Tourula is misty and the sun is a dull tenpenni piece. The sparrows are chirping noisily in the trees and bushes. Then the neighbour’s grey cat slips in under the fence and the birds go mum.
The silence that has fallen over the group gradually deepens until it’s uncomfortable.
Riku is the first to break it and try to lighten the mood. With mock concern and a shake of his head he says sombrely that if you ask him Karri Kultanen has always been a strange boy. A laugh escapes from Leo.
Anne stiffens and looks at her brothers angrily.
“Karri is not strange, he’s wonderful,” she says in a voice that mixes cold control with a hot fury. Olli almost expects steam to come out of her nose. Anne smiles patronizingly. “He’s so wonderful that not everyone can even understand him. While you two cretins are reading Tex Willer, the sports page and Riku’s sticky old porno magazine, Karri is reading books. Real books. Classic novels and plays. Philosophy, medicine, art history. Biology. He thinks about things and he knows more than a lot of teachers do. He has his own ideas, which is more than I can say for you two fine gentlemen.”
Then she turns to address Aunt Anna. “Don’t worry about your son. Believe me, Karri is going to be something truly special. He’s going to surprise all of us, me included—although I already believe in him.”
Riku smiles teasingly and the usually serious Leo shakes his head pityingly. Anne meets their gaze without flinching, but can’t hide the blush in her cheeks.
It upsets Olli to realize that he’s still hopelessly infatuated with Anne, who obviously has feelings for Karri, although falling in love with her own cousin probably isn’t quite normal.
Aunt Anna is lost in thought, staring emptily into the distance. Her usual liveliness is gone; she hardly seems like the old Aunt Anna. She looks like she’s having some kind of attack. Olli and the Blomrooses look at each other in alarm. They feel as if they’re sitting there with a dead person.
When Anne finally bends to touch her aunt’s arm, Anna jumps and frightens them all.
The familiar, cheery smile returns to her face. She thanks Anne for her words and smiles until her eyes squint. “Well, we’ll see how my Karri turns out. Maybe he will surprise us all.”
The air is cool. Aunt Anna’s large breasts stretch the fabric of her blouse so tight that the buttons look as if they might pop off, and, as always happens in cool weather, her nipples press hard and dark against the cloth. Olli certainly notices them—a person couldn’t help noticing them unless he was “a hardened old homo” as Riku once said—but this time he can’t take any interest in the Blomrooses’ voluptuous aunt. He isn’t even interested in the treats set out on the table, which Leo, Anne and Riku have started to eat.
He’s busy worrying about Karri, about the future of the Five, and especially about his own place among them.
Karri has been strange for a long time. He’s becoming even stranger. There are little things that only Olli notices. For instance, Karri often watches Olli, and sometimes the others too, from under his hood, as if he were planning something having to do with them. And although Karri has always been shy, his shyness has changed to withdrawal and poorly concealed hostility towards the other members of the Tourula Five—though he does still seem to think of Leo as a sort of big brother figure.
Olli has thought about this and decided that Karri may be planning to kick him out of Tourula and out of the group, or even planning to disband the Five altogether. Karri still comes with them on all their outings and takes them to the secret passages, but maybe he does it more out of duty and a desire to please Leo than from any enthusiasm.
Maybe Karri hasn’t ever really accepted Olli. Now that he thinks about it, Karri has always treated him with a sort of edgy wariness.
Leo is still the leader of the Five and in a way Olli is under his protection. But Karri is the only permanent resident of their summer place. It’s something they all have a habit of forgetting. The place that they think of as their own summer place is Aunt Anna and Karri’s home in the winter, too. And besides, Karri is the only one who knows how to find the secret passages. So if Karri wants Olli out, he’s out. In fact Karri has the power to end the whole thing.
The Blomrooses don’t realize it, but the Tourula Five is in danger of breaking up.
The first crisis came when Timi disappeared. That was when they realized that a lot of bad things could happen in the secret passages. What happened to Timi could happen to any one of them.
This realization cast a shadow over their carefree adventures. That was why Anne was so serious after what happened to Timi, even though she had never liked the dog. They took a break for three weeks before they decided to go back to exploring the secret passages. What else could they do? Like Riku said, they weren’t brave adventurers, they were hopeless passageway junkies. As long as there were secret passages to find they would keep going back to them, no matter what happened underground.
Karri has never been one to show his feelings or share his thoughts with other people. But once, when Timi had been gone for a week and Olli was sitting alone outside his grandparents’ apartment at the rifle factory, Karri appeared beside him in his dirty sweatshirt.
He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Listen, I just wanted you to know… I’ve been looking for Timi every day ever since he disappeared. In the passages. I haven’t found him. I’m sorry.”
Olli thanked him. He waited for him to leave.
But Karri stepped closer, hesitantly took Olli’s hand, and looked out from under his hood straight into Olli’s eyes. It was disconcerting. Olli didn’t know how to react. Afterwards he realized that Karri might have never looked him in the eye before, at least not from so close. Something about his eyes surprised Olli.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Timi,” Karri said. “He was the best dog I’ve ever met.”
Timi had certainly always liked Karri more than the other members of the Five—except for Olli, of course—and Karri had warmed to the dog.
Now it occurs to Olli that maybe Karri only put up with him because of Timi.
And now there is no Timi.
That can’t be good.
The thought of future summers without the Tourula Five or Aunt Anna or the secret passages troubles Olli. At home in Koirakkala he doesn’t have any friends. In Tourula, everything is different.