The Dinosaur Feather

hard on the pedals to keep up.
    ‘And do you know something?’ Troels gave Anna a complicit look. ‘It’s a real pain that I look like this.’ He rose up on his pedals with studied indifference.
    ‘Why?’ Anna panted.
    ‘I’ve been spotted by a modelling agency in Odense.’
    ‘You’re kidding!’
    ‘No, it’s true. They want to make a portfolio about me. They said they could get me loads of work.’
    They spent the rest of the afternoon discussing Troels’s future modelling career. Paris, New York and Milan all beckoned. Anna promised she would definitely visit him. They ended up on a fallow field where they lay among meadow flowers, gazing at the sky and fantasising about champagne fountains and silver confetti descending from the ceiling. Or rather, Anna did. Troels sat next to her. His back hurt too much for him to lie down.
    In 1997, the year Anna, Troels and Karen graduated from high school, it seemed the summer would never end. It was so hot, their clothes stuck to their bodies and the nights, too, were warm, azure and endless. The three friends were euphoric; the world was theirs and they felt that if they exhaled simultaneously the heavens would expand for ever. They went to parties in houses owned by people they didn’t know and drank themselves senseless. Houses empty of their friends’ parents who were away on holiday, where neglected pot plants were shoved aside so the windows facing the fields could be flung wide open, where they could crash and sleep under the sky, if they felt like it, or accidentally start a smallfire, as happened early one morning in late July. The teenagers watched in contrite silence as the fire engines pulled up, and then stared at their feet while a fireman held up a cigarette stub to their faces and lectured them. Of course, it wasn’t the actual stub that had started the fire, merely one of the many strewn across the garden. The next day, the party carried on as if nothing had happened, pot plants were pushed aside and the windows thrown open.
    Later, when Anna looked back on that summer, she wondered if things might not have ended so badly between them if it had rained. They rarely slept and when they weren’t partying, they hung out in Karen’s small flat in Odense, eyeing each other like wild animals.
    It all happened one night when Karen had scored a wrap of cocaine, and they snorted it all in one go. Anna went to the lavatory and when she returned, Karen and Troels had got the bright idea that now was a great time to try group sex. Well, why not, Anna thought. Her mouth felt dry like sandpaper, and she went to the kitchen to drink water from the tap. When she returned, Karen and Troels were dancing around, naked from the waist up.
    ‘I thought you were gay,’ Anna exclaimed. Troels and Karen collapsed in heaps of laughter.
    ‘And we thought you were open-minded,’ Karen called out. They gestured for Anna to join them.
    They climbed into Karen’s bed, and Anna and Troels started kissing while Karen pulled off his trousers. Troels started laughing into Anna’s mouth, because Karen was fumbling, and temporarily let go of Anna to come to Karen’s aid. Troels and Karen began kissing and Karen managed to pull Troels’spants down. His dick was pierced. Anna stared at Karen’s hand enclosing it. Troels closed his eyes, and Anna could hear him gasping with pleasure while he carried on kissing Karen. Anna rolled aside. At some point, Karen opened her eyes, looked at Anna and held out her hand to her, but before Anna had time to take it, Troels lifted Karen up and turned her over, so she lay on her back, her curls spilling over the pillow. His dick pointed momentarily at Karen and then it disappeared inside her. They both shut their eyes. Anna sat up. Everything went black. She kicked out at their joined bodies and hit Troels right on the hip, sending him rolling with a howl. His mouth opened, his erection subsided and Karen looked from one to the other, confused. Anna flew at Troels and let her clenched fists rain down on his face, his chest and his stomach, as he lay halfway across the bed. Troels’s face went white and his eyes burned.
    ‘Stop it, Anna,’ he hissed. But she didn’t stop. Karen tried to grab Anna, and Troels, who had passively let the blows fall, got up to fetch his clothes. Anna pushed Karen aside and slumped on the bed. Troels had put on his jeans and he pulled his T-shirt over his head as he left through the front door. He