The Dinosaur Feather

pick up a new car and wouldn’t be back until the evening. Cecilie and Jens were entertaining old college friends and the lawn was teeming with children. The sun was shining, there was squash and sandwiches, and swallows were dive-bombing the garden. Troels watched the chaos, rather intimidated; he hadn’t been expecting this. Two boys, Troels’s age, were playing football, but Troels didn’t want to join in. He sipped squash and Cecilie introduced him to everyone.
    ‘This is Troels. He’s at school with Anna.’
    ‘He’s gorgeous,’ Anna heard Cecilie’s friends whisper.
    Jens decided they should all play a game of rounders. Everyone leapt from their chairs; four large stones were found, along with a bat and a yellow tennis ball, and two teams picked. The mood in the garden was light-hearted and boisterous. Anna and Karen rolled their eyes at the silly grownups. They both were wearing make-up, but none of the adults had said anything. It was Troels’s turn to bat. He said, ‘I don’t want to’ – not very loudly, but loud enough for Anna to hear it, and she was some distance away. Troels sent her an apologetic smile.
    Jens’s old friend, Mogens, who was bowling, encouraged Troels.
    ‘You can do it,’ he said warmly. He positioned himself behind Troels and guided his arms in a horizontal arc through the air.
    ‘Keep the bat high,’ he instructed him. ‘Don’t let it drop.’ He tapped Troels’s drooping elbow. ‘And watch the ball.’
    Troels’s arm was still limp.
    ‘Come on! Concentrate. It’s not that hard!’ Mogens called out. Anna instinctively glanced at her mother. Cecilie wanted to say something. She raised her hands as if to object. Next to Troels, Mogens was a gentle giant.
    ‘What do you think this is, eh?’ Mogens roared with laughter and grabbed Troels’s white, freckled arm and dangled it. ‘Flab?’ he chuckled. Troels looked vacantly at Mogens who was ducking and diving like a boxer, throwing mock punches at Troels.
    ‘Come on, son, show us what you’re made of!’
    Troels raised the bat and hit Mogens over the head.
Clonk
. Mogens clutched his head. Everyone went very quiet.
    ‘What did you do that for?’ Mogens gasped.
    Troels ran off and Cecilie chased after him. They had been gone for nearly an hour when Anna decided to look for them. She found them on the back seat of the car. Troels looked red-eyed and lay with his head in Cecilie’s lap. She stroked his hair. He didn’t want to go back to the party, even though Cecilie assured him that it would be all right. That Jens would definitely have explained to Mogens why Troels had hit him. This puzzled Anna. Troels refused point-blank. He wanted to go home. Cecilie hugged him, and she and Anna watched Troels cycle unsteadily down the road before his speed increased and he was gone.
    In the garden, the mayhem had come to a halt and people were sitting round again. Mogens was pressing an icepack against his head. He still looked stunned. An eerie silence reigned.
    ‘Are you all right?’ Cecilie asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Mogens replied. ‘I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Yes, you humiliated him,’ Cecilie replied.
    ‘Hey, listen,’ Jens objected. ‘That’s not fair.’
    ‘No, I mean it. Not deliberately,’ she said, addressing Jens. ‘I know that. And 99 per cent of boys would have reacted differently. But not him.’
    ‘No, it was a real pity,’ Mogens said, miserably, and touched his sore head again.
    When Troels turned seventeen, he had his tongue and his nose pierced and he started wearing tight trousers and Doc Martens. The skinny boy had gone. Troels now measured more than one metre eighty, he had large, supple hands and broad shoulders. He had come close to being expelled from high school, but Cecilie intervened and pleaded his case. He didn’t visit them as often as he used to, so Anna and Karen no longer knew as much about what he did or who he was with, but he told them that he sometimes took the train to Århus or Copenhagen, to go to a gay club. The girls thought it sounded very exciting.
    One day, Troels stopped by to ask Anna if she wanted to come for a bike ride. After they had cycled for a while, he grew hot, pulled his jumper over his head and bared a mottled torso.
    ‘What on earth’s happened to you?’ Anna was shocked.
    ‘I went home to see my dad and to wash my clothes,’ Troels said, giving her a cheerful look.
    ‘He hit you?’ Anna whispered.
    ‘Yes, but I hit him back.’
    Anna stepped