Shadows in the Twilight Read Online Free PDF Page B

see
her when he had just experienced a miracle.
    In which case she could have avoided painting herself
blue!
    She sat down opposite him and eyed him solemnly.
    'I was so frightened when I heard what had happened,'
she said. 'I nearly had a heart attack! Just think
if you'd been killed, and I never saw you again, Joel.'
    Joel felt a lump in his throat. He was forced to bite the
inside of his lip to prevent himself from bursting into
tears.
    He tried to think of something else. Of the rucksack
he'd hung from a branch in the forest. That Sunday
afternoon, when he'd abandoned the big Geronimo
puzzle and gone out into the forest instead, to prove that
you could get lost on purpose.
    That seemed so long ago! Such an incredibly long
time ago!
    Gertrud still looked very serious. It struck Joel that it
was very odd for a person with a blue face to look so
serious.
    And especially Gertrud! Mad Gertrud!
    'It must have been a miracle,' said Joel. 'What else
could it be?'
    'God performs miracles,' said Gertrud. 'He performed
one for me.'
    Joel knew what she meant. Gertrud had once tried to
commit suicide. It was just after her operation had gone
wrong and she'd lost her nose. She didn't think she
could live without a nose. She would be too ugly to face
up to life. She had filled her pockets with old-fashioned
heavy irons, and jumped into the freezing cold river. But
she hadn't drowned. She had got stuck in an uprooted
tree in such a way that her head was above the water.
Nor had she frozen to death. Mr Under, the horse dealer,
had been walking along the river bank looking for a
horse that had escaped from a paddock. He saw her face
and thought it was the horse that had fallen into the
water. He ran to fetch a rowing boat, pulled her out, and
she survived.
    She'd told all that to Joel herself. Not so very long
ago. One evening they'd been building an igloo out of
white sheets in the middle room, and telling each other
True Stories. Joel had told her about Mummy Jenny
who'd gone away and left Joel and Samuel on their own.
And Gertrud had told him about the time when she
threw herself into the river.
    That's good, Joel thought. She knows what a
miracle is.
    'What do you do?' he asked.
    'Do?'
    'When you've been on the receiving end of a miracle?
Do you have to say thank you?'
    Gertrud smiled.
    'You don't have to say thank you,' she said. 'But you
can be grateful.'
    Joel wasn't satisfied by that answer.
    'I don't want the miracle to be reversed,' he said. 'I
don't want to be run over by the Ljusdal bus again.'
    Gertrud eyed him thoughtfully.
    'Do you believe in God?' she asked. 'Like I do?'
    Joel shrugged.
    'I don't know. I suppose I'm the same as Samuel.'
    'What's he, then?'
    'A lost soul.'
    Gertrud burst out laughing. She laughed so much that
the blue paint ran down her face and onto her white
blouse.
    'Who said that?' she asked. 'Who said your dad is a
lost soul?'
    Joel shrugged again. He always did that when he
wasn't sure what to say.
    'Miss Nederström is always talking about lost souls,'
he mumbled.
    Gertrud shook her head.
    'God's not like that,' she said. 'But if you want to
show that you are grateful for the miracle, you can do a
good deed.'
    That was it! Of course! He would do a good deed.
Why hadn't he thought of that himself? He'd read about
it in books. People who had been in great danger but
survived expressed their gratitude by doing a good deed.
    Now he knew.
    He nodded to Gertrud.
    'I'll think of something,' he said. 'I shall do a good
deed.'
    Gertrud suddenly looked sad.
    That was probably the hardest thing about Gertrud to
cope with, the fact that she was always changing her mood.
Joel could also become angry or sad very quickly, but
something had to happen to cause his mood change. As
usual, it was different with Gertrud. She could be sitting
there laughing, and suddenly her laughter could change
into tears. Joel simply couldn't understand how laughter
and tears could be inside a person at the same time.
    He was never quite