The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t listen. If we want our lives to change, we must do something ourselves,’ said Martha, getting up so quickly that her chair fell over. ‘Brains and I are determined to make a better life for ourselves. Are you going to join us?’
    ‘Indeed!’ cried Brains and he got up too.
    ‘Yes, let’s meet in your room and enjoy a glass of cloudberry liqueur?’ Christina suggested. She felt a cold coming on and wanted something tasty.
    ‘Cloudberry liqueur again? Well, I suppose it will have to do,’ muttered Rake.
    A few moments later, the five of them entered Martha’s room in single file and squeezed onto the sofa—all except Rake, who chose the armchair instead. The previous day he had happened to sit down on Martha’s knitting-in-progress and he didn’t want to risk a repeat of that experience. When Martha had got out the liqueur and poured it into glasses, the discussion got started. Their voices grew louder and in the end she had to bang her stick on the coffee table.
    ‘Now listen to me! We’re not going to get anything for nothing; no, we will have to work for it,’ she said. ‘And to do that, we must get into better physical condition. Here is the key to the staff gym. In the evenings we can sneak down there and do some exercises.’ She triumphantly held up the master key.
    ‘But that won’t work, surely?’ objected Christina, who preferred dieting to exercising in a gym. ‘We’d be found out.’
    ‘If we tidy up after us, then nobody will notice we have been there,’ said Martha.
    ‘You said that about the kitchen upstairs too. And my nails will break straight away,’ Christina complained.
    ‘And I thought I’d be able to take it easy in my retirement,’ moaned Rake.
    Martha pretended not to hear, but exchanged a few meaningful glances with Brains.
    ‘After a few weeks’ exercise in the gym, we’ll be fit for anything and we will all be in a better mood too,’ she enthused, only half-truthfully. Because at the moment she couldn’t share what she
really
meant: that if you wanted to be a criminal, you had to be fit enough to commit crimes. The previous day she had nodded off in front of the TV, and when she opened hereyes again they were screening a documentary from a prison. This had immediately woken her up. She had snatched up the remote and eagerly pressed record. With growing amazement, she had followed the reporter into the workshop and the laundry and had seen the prisoners showing him their rooms. When the inmates gathered together in the dining hall, they could choose from fish, meat or a vegetarian meal and could even have fries to go with it. And there was salad and fruit too. Martha had then hurried off to see Brains. They watched the recorded program together and, despite the late hour, they talked on until midnight.
    Martha raised her voice enough to emphasize her point, but not enough to attract the attention of the three members of the staff at Diamond House.
    ‘We
are
going to improve our condition, aren’t we? In that case, we must get fit. And we must do it now! Time is precious for us all.’
    Martha knew how important it was to keep trim. In the 1950s, when her family had moved to Stockholm, she had joined the Idla girls. For many years she had exercised regularly to improve her general condition, coordination, speed and strength. Despite the fact that she never managed to be skinny, she still felt healthy. But then she had become careless and put on too many pounds, even though she had tried to diet. Now she had the chance to do something about it.
    ‘Exercises in a gym! Talk about a slave-driver!’ Rake exclaimed and downed his cloudberry liqueur as if it had been a shot of neat vodka. He started coughing and looked angrily at Martha. But that plump little lady just smiled at him and looked so friendly and sweet that he felt embarrassed. No, shewasn’t a slave-driver, she just wanted what was best for them.
    ‘Now listen! I think we should give Martha a