Samurai Summer (8 page)

“No,” Kerstin smiled, “he’s just stupid.”

I laughed. It felt good. She was sharp. You had to be on your toes with her. Weine didn’t stand a chance. And yet it was only words.

I couldn’t see Sausage anywhere and no one else had seen him either. I asked but nobody knew.

“I think he was going to do some diving over on the other side,” said Micke. “But that was a while ago.”

There was a jetty on the opposite side of the headland where the water was deeper. Anyone who wanted to do real diving had to go over there. Once Sausage had learned to dive, that was all he ever wanted to do. He had become more daring. He’d throw himself way out.

The counselors had just said that it was time to get our things together and march back to the penitentiary. The sun had begun to go down.

I started to walk toward the other side of the headland.

“Where are you going, Tommy?”

Normally I wouldn’t have answered, but this time I turned around.

“Sausage isn’t here. I’m going to get him.”

“His name isn’t Sausage.” The counselor had put her hands on her hips. “He’s hardly a sausage is he?”

I had a bad feeling that something had happened to him.

“Run and fetch him then,” said the counselor.

I continued toward the jetty behind the headland. Then I started to run between the pine trees as I heard cries. Sausage cries. I rounded the headland and saw the jetty and the beach.

Weine and one of his idiots were standing there knee-deep in the water, and between them Sausage was trying to kick himself free. His cries were abruptly cut off when his head was plunged beneath the water.

Weine hadn’t seen me. He was too busy trying to drown Sausage. I ran past the last pine tree. This time just words wouldn’t be enough against Weine, but I didn’t have a sword. It was lying wrapped in my towel. I hadn’t been able to smuggle it with me when the counselor was looking at me.

Weine glanced up when I started wading through the water.

“Let go of him!”

He let go of Sausage. The other idiot had already let go.

Sausage sounded like he was about to throw up. He tried to get up but fell back into the water.

I raised my fists.

“Don’t you have the guts to pick on someone your own size?”

“Stay out of this, Tommy.”

“Kenny,” I said.

Weine looked like he couldn’t make up his mind whether to go for me or Sausage. But Sausage had already started to crawl up toward the shore. The other idiot didn’t move.

“And you’re two against one,” I said, “and you’re each bigger than he is.”

Weine still didn’t move.

“You were really after me, weren’t you?” I took a few steps closer. “This is about me, isn’t it?”

“He was acting cocky,” said Weine. “That’s all. He was cocky and he needed to be taught a lesson.”

“I’ll teach
you
a lesson,” I said and took another step.

Weine’s flunky looked like he didn’t want to be there anymore.

“Tommy! Weine!”

The counselors’ shouts echoed high above the lake. You’d have thought Weine and I were on the other side. I caught sight of the sailboat. It must have rounded the headland just as I’d crossed over it. Maybe there was someone on the deck right now watching me through a set of binoculars.

“You get up here this minute!”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do with you, Tommy.”

Matron was sitting behind her writing desk. I had no idea why she even had one. Nobody had ever seen her write anything.

“You pick fights,” she continued, “and you won’t eat your food.”

At supper the oatmeal would be brought out again. It would be colder and the milk bluer or maybe even greener by now, like the bottom of the lake.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

Matron got up and from where I was sitting she loomed like a tower. She blocked the sun that had nearly sunk behind the lake by now.

“You can’t keep behaving like this.”

You can’t keep behaving like this
, I thought.
We’ll just have to wait and see who can keep this up the longest.

“We’re not going to give up,” said Matron, seeming to read my thoughts. Though come to think of it, that might not have been all that hard just then. “Don’t you go thinking that, Tommy.”

“Kenny,” I said.

“Right, and then there’s all
that
silly childishness.”

She sat down again and the rays of sunlight hit me right in the eyes. Matron was like a shadow.

“You’re sowing disorder among the others, Tom-m-y.”

She drew out the name.
Tom-m-y
. That was what she was like. She wanted to show that she had all the power. Grown-up power.

That was the worst kind.

“Like on the swimming trip. You started fighting.”

“I wasn’t fighting,” I answered, “and I didn’t start it.”

“The other boy said you did.”

“It’s a lie.”

“You’re sitting there trying to tell me that other people are lying?”

“I wasn’t fighting,” I repeated.

“You went after that boy. Weine.”

I didn’t answer. It was pointless. It didn’t matter what I said. I looked at Matron’s thick arms. I didn’t want her to grab me again and twist my ear. Or do something worse.

“If this continues we’ll have to send you home, Tommy.”

She said my name normally now. Only it wasn’t my name.

“If this continues, then you’ll be sent away.”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked because I felt I had to. “If
what
continues?”

“What I’ve just been talking about! Your refusal to eat.
And the fighting. And all this about accusing us of having stolen a bag of Twist!”

She looked out toward the lake. It seemed she didn’t want to look me in the eye. “I’ll have you know there are hundreds of children who would love to come out here for the summer.”

She looked like she was considering the simplest way to drown hundreds of kids.

”Hundreds,” she repeated.

She looked at me again.

“Do you hear me, Tommy?”

I nodded.

“If you don’t eat up the good food we give you tonight, we’ll have to send you home tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, right after breakfast,” said Matron. Then she smiled. “After the breakfast you don’t eat.”

Matron looked like she meant it. I didn’t know if she could really do that. If there were laws or rules that gave them the right to do that. But I suspected that Matron and the counselors did as they pleased.

“But… my mother isn’t home,” I said.

“There are other camps,” said Matron. “If they’ll take you, that is.”

She stood up.

“So now you know.”

“What?” I asked.

“What happens if you don’t eat your breakfast tonight, of course.”

She smiled a smile that made no one happy. She didn’t even look happy herself. I thought about the day-old oatmeal. Matron’s head looked like a moon, a black moon, as she looked down at me. Her teeth glinted. She moved her head back and forth as though she wanted to make sure it was firmly attached at the neck.

T
he troop was waiting for me outside the building. Everyone else out front was waiting for supper. I was hungry myself, but I didn’t want to think about it. A samurai had to be prepared to endure anything. I needed to have total self-control. I couldn’t show any feelings, especially where my stomach was concerned. Everything came from the stomach. A samurai’s life force was in his stomach. No one was going to come and tell me what to swallow. It was a question of honor. I could choose to leave all this with the help of the little sword and a single cut to the stomach.

Hundreds of samurai had chosen to leave everything that way. But I wasn’t ready to do that. Things hadn’t gone that far. Not yet.

“What did Matron say?”

Sausage still looked like a drowned cat. His eyes were red,
his face was blue, and his hair looked like it might never dry. On the march back his teeth had chattered like a rattlesnake.

“Weine and his gang are keeping their distance,” said Janne. “They’re proving what cowards they are.”

“We’ll deal with them later,” said Lennart and patted his sword.

“Tell us what she said,” Sausage repeated.

“They want to send me home,” I said.

“They can’t do that, can they?”

“They can do anything.”

“Then they’ll have to send us all home,” said Janne.

I looked at Janne. He was in no hurry to be sent off to that farm. He said “home” because he didn’t know what else to call it. There wasn’t any word that I knew of for a place that was home and yet wasn’t.

“I’m not gonna go,” I said.

“Hurray!” said Sausage.

“What, so it’s been decided?” asked Micke. “They want to send you away?”

“I’ve been given one last chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“The oatmeal.”

“Oh shit,” said Lennart.

“We can pull the same trick as last time,” said Sausage, “and send the dish down to the girls.”

“It won’t work a second time,” I said. “They’ll be watching now. And I wouldn’t want to do it anyway.”

“What did she say—that girl—when she didn’t have to eat the liver the last time we passed it down?” asked Sausage.

“Ann. Her name is Ann.”

“So what did she say? To the counselor? They didn’t make her eat it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t you ask her? Maybe she’s got a secret. Maybe you could do the same thing.”

Sausage didn’t know. None of the others in the troop knew. The price for that secret was that there would be girls in the castle. I would have to explain. I didn’t want to have to do that right now. I had other things to think about.

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask her,” said Janne.

“So, can we see the castle?” asked Ann. “You promised that we could see it.”

I found her on the branch that reached out over the water. It was the first place I looked. Kerstin was sitting next to her. That was no surprise either.

“There’s not much to see,” I answered. “It’s still only a hut right now.”

“Don’t even try it,” said Kerstin.

“It’ll be more fun to see it when it’s finished,” I said.

“Then you’ll have to wait, too, to know what happened in the mess hall,” said Ann. She held up her hands and it looked like she was carrying a plate.

“Yeah, I get it.”

I looked around. It was completely still. Nobody was spinning on the merry-go-round. Nobody was playing on the swings. Nobody was throwing or kicking a ball around. Everyone was waiting for supper. Many of them were ready to eat anything. The camp’s method was to let the children starve and then they’d eat whatever you put in front of them.

“Okay,” I said finally, “tomorrow.”

“We can see the castle tomorrow?” asked Ann.

“That’s what I just said.”

“You want to hear what happened in the mess hall with the plate of liver?”

“Tomorrow.”

I didn’t want to know just then. I wanted to deal with it on my own in the mess hall. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to try to handle it by myself.

The sun was still going down. It took hours. It seemed like the sun was also waiting to see what would happen in the mess hall that evening. It was curious so it sent rays everywhere to check up on things.

The mess hall was noisier than usual. I felt dizzy when we went inside and sat down. My ears were buzzing, almost like someone had slapped me.

When the counselor set the plate of oatmeal in front of me, everyone quieted down. She did it before anyone else got their food.

“Eat that up and you can try some of the other good food,” she said.

There was a smell of macaroni coming from the kitchen. There might have been sausage too. I looked at Sausage. He was waiting like everyone else. I looked at the plate in front of me even though I didn’t want to. It was waiting too. The oatmeal and milk were waiting to work their slimy way down my throat and settle in. Start to grow. Soon rotten oats would be growing out of my mouth. When I thought about it I almost had to throw up. My head was spinning. I closed my eyes and felt them well up with tears. If I opened my eyes now, everyone would see my tears.

I thought about how I’d had a plan, but it was too late. The tears had ruined everything. Someone said something
but I didn’t hear what. My head was spinning even more. I continued to keep my eyes closed. It felt like I was sitting on the merry-go-round out on the playground and someone was spinning it faster and faster.