He would experience a Miracle.
2
The day couldn’t have begun any better for Joel.
When his dad, Samuel, shook him by the shoulder shortly after seven o’clock, he’d been having a nightmare. He’d dreamt that he was on fire. Sizzling flames had been shooting out of his nostrils, just like a fire-spitting dragon. His fingers were blue, a bit like the welding flames he’d seen at the Highways Department workshops, where he used to have his skates sharpened in the winter. Being on fire didn’t hurt. Even so, he had felt terrified and wanted nothing more than to wake up. It wasn’t until Samuel touched his shoulder that the flames were extinguished. He gave a start and sat up in bed.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Samuel.
‘I don’t know,’ said Joel. ‘I was dreaming that I was on fire.’
Samuel frowned. Joel knew his father didn’t like him having nightmares. Perhaps it was because Samuel himself sometimes had bad dreams? Joel had often been woken up in the middle of the night by Samuel shouting and screaming in his sleep.
One of these days Joel would ask his father about his dreams. He’d noted that down on the last page of his logbook, where he had listed all the questions he didn’t yet have an answer to.
But everything had been fine this morning. Joel felt very relieved when he realised he’d only been dreaming. The fire had never actually existed. He was usually in a bad mood when he woke up and had to get out of bed. The cork tiles on the floor were far too cold for his bare feet. And then he could never find his clothes. His socks were always inside out and his shirt buttons wouldn’t fit into their holes. In Joel’s opinion the people who made clothes for children were wicked. How else could you explain the fact that nothing went right when you were in a hurry to get dressed and it was freezing cold in the room?
But this morning everything went much more smoothly. And when he went to the kitchen he found two little boxes of pastilles by the side of his cup of hot chocolate.
‘They’re from Sara,’ said Samuel, who was busy combing his tousled hair in front of the cracked shaving mirror.
Two packs of pastilles when you’ve narrowly escaped burning to death? And on a Monday morning?
It seemed to Joel that he was in for a good day. And it became even better when he opened the little boxes and took out the enclosed picture cards: they were of two footballers he didn’t have in his collection. Joel collected footballers. Nothing else. He sometimes hit the roof when he opened a pack of pastilles and found a picture of a wrestler. That was the worst thing that could happen to him. Flabby wrestlers who were always called Svensson. And their first name was nearly always Rune.
But this morning he had found two footballers at the same time.
‘Call in at the bar on the way home from school,’ said Samuel as he put on his jacket. ‘Sara will be pleased to see you.’
‘Why has she given me them?’ Joel wondered.
‘She likes you,’ said Samuel. ‘Surely you know that?’
He paused in the doorway and turned round.
‘Don’t forget to buy some potatoes,’ he said. ‘And milk.’
‘I won’t,’ said Joel.
It was good to hear that Sara liked him. Even though she wasn’t his mum, and her breasts were too big and she smelled of sweat. Of course, it wasn’t as good as hearing his mother Jenny saying it. But Jenny didn’t exist. She had disappeared. And as long as she didn’t exist, until Samuel and Joel had found her, Sara was welcome to say that she liked him.
As usual, he dawdled for so long over his cup of hot chocolate that he would be forced to run in order to get to school on time. Miss Nederström didn’t like pupils arriving late. If she was really angry, or if you had been late over and over again, she sometimes twisted your ear and it hurt so much that you had to struggle to hold back the tears. But she only did that to boys. She didn’t bother about girls turning up late. That was why Joel sometimes asked himself if it would have been better to be a girl called Joella Gustafson.
He put on his outdoor clothes, slung his satchel over his shoulder, locked the door and hid the key under Samuel’s boots on the landing. He almost cleared the stairs in two-and-a-half jumps and sped off in the direction of school. He had three possible routes to choose from. Today he chose the one along Blixtens gata. He only went that way when he was very late. It was straight and dull, and only involved one short cut, over the courtyard behind the chemist’s. But it was the shortest route.
He ran as fast as he could, and arrived dead on time. Miss Nederström was just about to close the door when he came racing up.
‘Good for you, Joel,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to see that you are making an effort to arrive on time.’
School finished at two o’clock. Joel felt pleased with himself. He hadn’t been asked any questions that he couldn’t answer. And moreover, they’d had Geography, which was the subject he liked best. He liked it just as much as he hated maths. He hadn’t a clue about numbers.
It was the same story as with children’s clothes. Whoever invented numbers must have been a wicked person.
But the best part of the day was when Miss Nederström was angry with Otto because he hadn’t been attending during a class. Joel didn’t like Otto. Otto was his sworn enemy. He was at the very top of the list of people Joel hoped would always be in trouble. Otto was having to repeat a year, and never missed an opportunity of annoying people. To make matters worse, he was so strong that Joel couldn’t get the better of him in the winter snowball fights.
Joel had suddenly had an idea during the geography lesson.
He would invent a geography game. He wasn’t quite sure how it would work, but it would involve dice and a race to see who could travel round the world fastest. He was in a hurry to get home and start working on the game. He had a collection of old maps that he could cut up or draw on.
He very nearly forgot that he had to buy some potatoes and milk. But he was in luck again when he got to Ljunggren’s Grocery Store: he was the only customer in the shop and didn’t need to wait. Then he forgot that he’d promised to call in at the bar and thank Sara for the pastilles. He was almost home before he remembered.
His first reaction was not to bother — he could just as well thank her tomorrow.
But then he changed his mind. She had given him not just one box of pastilles, but two, after all. He turned round and retraced his steps.
And that was when The Miracle happened.
He didn’t look both ways before running across the street. There was a cement mixer roaring and rattling away outside the ironmonger’s, and a lorry was sounding its horn over by the bookshop.
He suddenly found himself bang in front of a big bus. Perhaps he heard the driver’s frantic braking? Perhaps he didn’t hear anything? But just as he was about to be crushed by one of the enormous wheels he slipped and fell over backwards. The bus drove over the top of him and crashed into a lamppost outside the bar.
Joel lay perfectly still. He could smell the oil and feel the heat from the bus’s exhaust pipe that was coiled like a dirty steel snake a few centimetres away from his face.
It had all happened so quickly that he hadn’t even had time to feel frightened.
As he lay there under the bus, he didn’t understand what had happened.
Why was he lying there? And what was this thing above his face?
He turned his head to one side and saw feet moving backwards and forwards. A drop of oil hit him just below one eye. Somewhere out there he could hear voices shouting and screaming.
He heard somebody shouting that a child had been run over by the bus.