The Ice Palace Read Online Free PDF Page A

have to hide somewhere, get away, not meet Siss today.
    Tomorrow it would be different but not just
now.
She could not look into Siss’s eyes today. She thought no further; the idea took hold of her with compelling force.
    Siss, whom she was dying to meet, and yet -
    In any case she would have to leave as she did every day. It was no use sitting down and saying that she didn’t want to go to school. Auntie would never accept that. It was too late to say she was ill, too – besides, she was not in the habit of making excuses. She looked at herself quickly in the mirror. She did not look the least bit ill; it was no use telling fibs. She would leave for school as usual and then make off before she met anyone. Make off and hide until school was over.
    Even though Auntie had called and woken her, she said, when Unn was ready with her satchel, ‘Are you going so early?’
    ‘Is it any earlier than usual?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘I want to meet Siss.’ She felt a twinge as she said it.
    ‘Oh, of course. Are you in such a hurry?’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘Then it’s no use my saying anything, I can see. Off you go. It’s a blessing your coat’s thick. It’s bitterly cold. Put on two pairs of mitts, too.’
    Her words seemed like fences alongside the road to school; it was difficult to climb over them, and they led straight to school. But not today! Not after Siss had run away from her last night.
    ‘What is it, Unn?’
    Unn jerked herself back. ‘Can’t find my mitts.’
    ‘Here. Right under your nose.’
    She left the house in the fading darkness. She had to find out how to keep away today as soon as she was out of sight.
    No, she had only one thought today: Siss.
    This is the way to her. This is the way to Siss.
    Can’t meet her, only think about her.
    Mustn’t think about the other now,
only about Siss whom I have found.
    Siss and I in the mirror.
    Gleams and radiance.
    Only think about Siss.
    With every step.
    Now she was at the first rime-white tree that would hide her. There she left the road. She would have to keep hidden until she could come home again at the usual time without being questioned.
    But what was she to do with herself? A whole long school day. And in such cold. The air she inhaled seemed to be trying to stop her breathing, to constrict it. It bit into her cheeks. But her warm coat, and being used to the cold this autumn, prevented her from feeling really chilled.
    Boom! went the thunder in the black, shining steel on the frozen lake.
    That was it! That was the solution. She knew at once what she would do. She would go to see the ice.
    All by herself.
    Then she would have plenty to do all day and could keep warm and everything.
    The trip to see the ice had been discussed at school during the past few days. Unn had not taken part in it but had heard enough to know what it was all about and that they would have to go very soon, for the snow might come any day now.
    There was a waterfall some distance away that had built up an extraordinary mountain of ice around it during this long, hard period of cold. It was said to look like a palace, and nobody could remember it happening before. This palace was the purpose of the outing. First along the lake to the outlet, and then down the river to the waterfall. A short winter’s day like this was just right for it.
    Splendid, her day would be filled.
    But I was going to see it with Siss!
    She chased the thought away by thinking warmly and happily: I shall see it for the
second
time with Siss. That will be even better.
    The ice on the lake shone so brightly that it did not look like ice at all. Steel-ice. Not a snowflake had fallen into the water when it froze, and not a snowflake had fallen since.
    Now the ice was thick and safe. It thundered and cracked and hardened. Unn was running towards it. It seemed natural to run because of the cold. Besides, she was running in order to get quickly away from the part where people might be – since she was going to hide all