The Dinosaur Feather

ladybird. It wasn’t until Anna climbed up on its wooden wings and had made herself comfortable that she spotted a tuft of hair sticking up on the other side. It belonged to a boy with freckles and a sad look on his face.
    Anna said ‘hi’ and tossed him a pine cone which he caught. The next hour they were absorbed in their play. The darkness came suddenly, as if big buckets of ink had been poured between the trees. Troels grew anxious and said: ‘Shouldn’t we be going home now?’ The girls nodded. Oh yes, they ought to. The three of them skipped through the forest and, as they reached the edge, the beam from a torch picked them out and they met Troels’s father for the first time.
    Cecilie’s reaction would have been: ‘Where on earth have you been, you horrible little brats,’ then she would have hugged them and pretended to be mad.
    Troels’s father said nothing. He slowly pointed the torch from one face to the next.
    ‘Sorry, Dad,’ Troels whispered.
    ‘See you later,’ Anna said, taking Karen’s hand. If they cut across the field, they could be home in twenty minutes.
    ‘Oh, no,’ Troels’s father said. ‘You’re coming with me. You’ll walk to the car park, where my car is, like good girls and I’ll give you a lift home. Is that clear?’
    Anna had been told her whole life never to go with strangers. Never ever. The three children plodded down a gravel path in total silence, past dimly lit houses, in the opposite direction to where Anna lived.
    When they reached the car park, she tried again: ‘We’ll be fine from here. Thanks for walking us . . .’
    Troels’s father stopped and made a half turn. Anna couldn’t see his face properly.
    ‘Get in,’ he ordered them and opened the door to the back seat. Anna was about to protest, when she saw the look in Troels’s eyes. Just get in, they pleaded. The car smelled new, of chemicals, as though every fibre had been cleaned. She helped Karen put on her seatbelt. The car glided through the darkness, away from the forest and out on the main road. Troels sat, small and dark, on the passenger seat next to his father.
    Cecilie opened the door, a towel wrapped around her head. She was in the process of dyeing her hair; Anna could see tinfoil sticking out over her ears. Cecilie was wearing a faded dressing gown. Music was coming from inside the house and it smelled of mud.
    ‘Hi kids,’ she said cheerfully. Then she noticed Troels’s father behind them. A deep furrow appeared on her brow.
    ‘What’s happened?’ Cecilie’s eyes widened. Had the man knocked them over in his car? Were they all right?
    ‘Good evening, madam,’ Troels’s father said. ‘In future, I suggest you keep a closer eye on your offspring. I found them in the forest, playing under fallen trees.’ He paused, then he slammed together his massive palms with an ominous clap. ‘It’s a dangerous place to be.’
    ‘Get inside, girls,’ Cecilie said to Karen and Anna. Something Anna didn’t recognise flashed in her mother’s eyes.
    ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said in a monotone voice, and closed the door.
    When the car had disappeared, Cecilie started pacing up and down in the kitchen and she didn’t stop until Jens came home.
    ‘What are you accusing him of?’ Anna heard Jens say in a low voice. ‘Giving the girls a lift home and staring at your dressing gown?’
    After the summer holidays, Troels started in Anna and Karen’s class. It was five months since their meeting in the forest, but they hadn’t forgotten him. Their teacher introduced him, and Troels’s face lit up a little when he saw them. He had grown taller, but his expression was the same and his eyes were still very dark.
    During break time Karen asked him anxiously: ‘Did your dad get really cross last time?’
    And Troels smiled broadly and said: ‘Oh, no, not at all.’
    That afternoon Anna and Karen walked home togetherfrom school. The golden wheat swayed in the fields. At some point they stopped and decided that Troels would be their friend.
    A week passed. They spent every break with him, walked home from school together and one day, when they were about to say goodbye, Anna asked if Troels wanted to come to her house. He looked at his watch and smiled. Yes, please, he would like that very much. They played in the garden and when it started to rain, they went inside and made themselves sandwiches. The girls swapped stickers and Troels handled the pictures very carefully and examined