The Merman Read Online Free PDF

could see the roof of the detached house where Tommy lived. I ought to ask him for advice. Maybe go over and visit him, even though he was ill, and ask to speak to him, or ring him up later that evening. Or make another attempt to get hold of the Professor.
    After everything that had happened, there was no question of going back to school that day. When Gerard and his gang had disappeared, I took my brother by the hand and went over to the cycle racks. Somewhere inside the school building, some teachers had just recorded us as absent. Perhaps they had asked our classmatesif they knew anything. I could see in my mind’s eye how everyone in the class shook their heads and tried to look innocent, except for Gerard, Ola and Peder, who just giggled, totally cool and calm. A report would be sent to the school welfare officer. A letter would be sent to Mum, which she would not even endeavour to open. I myself would be summoned to a meeting with L.G., our head of year, and as usual I would deny that there was any particular reason that I had gone off with my brother and played truant that afternoon; oh, no, nothing in particular had happened, we just felt a bit out of sorts, I’d say. And it was Friday and there were only three lessons left.
    â€˜Let’s go down to the sea,’ I had told my brother. ‘We’ll get a new pair of trousers for you first, though, and wash off what they wrote on your forehead.’
    So we took our cycles to Glommen, my ladies’ bike which I had found in a skip last spring, and Robert’s little bike, which I had managed to scavenge from the Professor so he’d have something to get around on.
    We would cycle to Glommen quite often in the summer, to meet up with Tommy or to look at the boats when they returned with their catch. But it felt strange to be there on an ordinary school day in October. Desolate, somehow. No kids running around. No tourists. No fish vans arriving from the wholesalers. Maybe it was the silence that caused me to peer out towards the fisherman’s hut where somebody had been playing music. Two silhouettes moved about behind the dirty window, bent down, tried to lift something heavy, gave up, straightened up and caught their breath.
    â€˜Where do you think Lazlo is keeping himself?’ asked my brother. He had taken his glasses off and was looking at them indecisively.
    â€˜I don’t know. Maybe in town. Or maybe he didn’t want to have any visitors and was hiding under his bed. He’s like that sometimes.’
    We had cycled past the Professor’s farmhouse on our way to Glommen. I had got it into my head that we ought to tell him what had happened. Not because I expected he’d be able to help us, butthere are some things you just have to let out. We had peeked in through the kitchen windows. It looked the same as usual inside: a load of books and notebooks where he wrote down things he’d read somewhere and thought were interesting. Medicine bottles scattered around on shelves and tables. And then all the stuff he collects: stuffed birds, fossils, old coins and stamps... We had gone round the house and peeked into the barn: the Amazon was still there, which indicated that he wasn’t far away. We called out for him a few times, but if he was in the vicinity he didn’t reply. And so we cycled on to Glommen.
    That was what I was thinking as we sat there on the quayside: not even the Professor had been any help, and there were two whole days to go until Monday. Two days of an all-too-brief chance to catch our breath before the school week started up again...
    â€˜I hate these glasses,’ my brother said. ‘I look like a nutter in them. Like a monster in a pair of cyclops glasses. That’s why everybody’s out to get me. People can’t stand being around a freak.’
    I took them from him, adjusted the earpiece that was bent, polished the lenses with the sleeve of my jumper and handed them