The Merman Read Online Free PDF Page A

glasses and then put them back on; a nervous gesture I’d seen him perform thousands of times before.
    â€˜I saw what they tried to do to you. Stuff a pine cone up there... how sick can people be?’
    â€˜It’s all right. It didn’t start bleeding, at any rate. Did you see the mink over there?’
    He watched it without much interest as it swam some way beyond the quay, with its head above the surface like a little periscope, much more graceful in the water than you could have imagined.
    â€˜So what have we actually done to them, Gerard and those guys?’
    â€˜I happened to see when they set fire to a cat last winter. And now they’ve got it into their heads that I snitched on them.’
    â€˜Well, did you?’
    â€˜Nah.’
    â€˜And what has it got to do with me?’
    â€˜Not a thing. Other than the fact you happen to be my brother.’ The waves struck against the breakers in front of the outer dock. If I turned to face south I could see the old lighthouse, which whisked its light over the harbour at night. Other than the mink and the gulls, there was not another living soul to be seen. The music from the hut had stopped. Oddly, there was no wind.
    â€˜That’s not your fault, Nella. If they didn’t have a reason they would have made one up. If you’re sick enough to set fire to a cat, you can come up with anything. Do you think Dad would have been able to do something if he’d been here?’
    My little brother has a load of over-inflated hopes concerning our father. Maybe because he doesn’t know him as well as I do. It would soon be a year since the last time we’d seen him. And when you’re twelve, going on thirteen in December, that’s long enough to start to forget certain things and remember others that do not completely correspond to reality.
    â€˜I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no.’
    â€˜Well, I’m sure he could do something. When he’s back home I’ll tell him everything, I’ll tell him their names and where they live, and I promise you, he’ll sort them out. He’ll bash them so hard they won’t dare to breathe a word again.’
    He sort of nodded to himself, as if he were watching everything on an internal cinema screen, and I wondered how sick the situation had seemed in my brother’s eyes as I lay there in the woods on my front with my knickers pulled down, a pine cone between my buttocks, eating grass out of his hands.
    â€˜Actually, that’s not a wild mink,’ I said in order to change the subject. ‘Its fur is too nice. It’s probably escaped from one of the mink farms.’
    â€˜I didn’t know they could swim.’
    â€˜Dad told me once. Remember, he worked on a mink farm when you were little. Anyway, sometimes they manage to escape from their cages, and then they usually head for the sea to hunt for fish.’
    I kept my gaze fixed on the surface of the water, but the mink was gone. It had probably swum back to the dock underwater.
    â€˜Are you going to pay a thousand kronor?’
    â€˜I don’t have any choice.’
    â€˜But how are you going to get hold of that much money?’
    â€˜It’ll work out somehow... ’
    My brother picked up a stone and chucked it out into the water. The eczema between his fingers was about to split open. The cream had run out. I had forgotten to buy another tube. I mustn’t forget the next time I was in town.
    â€˜What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘Head home or stay here a while?’
    â€˜Home to what?’
    â€˜No, of course. You’re right... ’
    Maybe, I thought, it had been a mistake to offer money to Gerard so he would leave us alone. How was I going to get hold of a thousand kronor within a week? And what made me believe that he would be satisfied with that much?
    I looked over towards the houses that were huddled behind fences and dense hedges above the harbour. I