My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Authors: Fredrik Backman
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her.
8
RUBBER
I t’s Wednesday. She’s running again.
She doesn’t know the exact reason this time. Maybe it’s because it’s one of the last days before the Christmas holidays, and they know they won’t be able to chase anyone for several weeks now, so they have to get it out of their systems. Or maybe it’s something else altogether—it doesn’t matter. People who have never been hunted always seem to think there’s a reason for it. “They wouldn’t do it without a cause, would they? You must have done something to provoke them.” As if that’s how oppression works.
But it’s pointless trying to explain to these people, as fruitless as clarifying to a guy carrying around a rabbit’s foot—because of its supposed good luck—that if rabbits’ feet really were lucky, they’d still be attached to the rabbits.
And this is really no one’s fault. It’s not that Dad was a bit late picking her up, it’s just that the school day finished slightly too early. And it’s difficult making oneself invisible when the hunt starts inside the school building.
So Elsa runs.
“Catch her!” yells the girl somewhere behind her.
Today it all started with Elsa’s scarf. Or at least Elsa thinks it did. She has started learning who the chasers are at school, and how they operate. Some only chase children if they prove to be weak. And some chase just for the thrill of it; they don’t even hit their victims when they catch them, just want to see the terror in their eyes. And then there are some like the boy Elsa fought about the right to be Spider-Man. He fights and chases people as a point of principle because he can’t stand anyone disagreeing with him. Especially not someone who’s different.
With this girl it’s something else. She wants a reason for giving chase. A way of justifying the chase. She wants to feel like a hero while she’s chasing me, thinks Elsa with unfeasibly cool clarity as she charges towards the fence, her heart thumping like a jackhammer and her throat burning like that time Granny made jalapeño smoothies.
Elsa throws herself at the fence, and her backpack lands so hard on her head when she jumps down on the pavement on the other side that for a few seconds her eyes start to black out. She pulls hard on the straps with both hands to tighten it against her back. Hazily she blinks and looks left towards the parking area where Audi should show up at any moment. She hears the girl behind her screaming like an insulted, ravenous orc. She knows that by the time Audi arrives it’ll be too late, so she looks right instead, down the hill towards the big road. The trucks are thundering by like an invading army on its way towards a castle still held by the enemy, but in the gaps between the traffic Elsa sees the entrance to the park on the other side.
“Shoot-up Park,” that’s what people call it at school, because there are drug addicts there who chase children with heroin syringes. At least that’s what Elsa’s heard, and it terrifies her. It’s the sort of park that never seems to catch any daylight, and this is the kind of winter’s day when the sun never seems to rise.
Elsa had managed just fine until lunchtime, but not even someone who’s very good at being invisible can quite manage it in a cafeteria. The girl had materialized before her so suddenly that Elsa was startled and spilled salad dressing on her Gryffindor scarf. The girl had pointed at it and roared: “Didn’t I tell you to stop going around with that ugly bloody scarf?” Elsa had looked back at the girl in the only way one can look back at someone who has just pointed at a Gryffindor scarf and said, “Ugly bloody scarf.” Not totally dissimilar to how one would look at someone who had just seen a horse and gaily burst out, “Crocodile!” The first time the scarf caught the girl’s attention, Elsa had simply assumed that the girl was a Slytherin. Only after she’d smacked Elsa in the face, ripped her scarf,
8
RUBBER
I t’s Wednesday. She’s running again.
She doesn’t know the exact reason this time. Maybe it’s because it’s one of the last days before the Christmas holidays, and they know they won’t be able to chase anyone for several weeks now, so they have to get it out of their systems. Or maybe it’s something else altogether—it doesn’t matter. People who have never been hunted always seem to think there’s a reason for it. “They wouldn’t do it without a cause, would they? You must have done something to provoke them.” As if that’s how oppression works.
But it’s pointless trying to explain to these people, as fruitless as clarifying to a guy carrying around a rabbit’s foot—because of its supposed good luck—that if rabbits’ feet really were lucky, they’d still be attached to the rabbits.
And this is really no one’s fault. It’s not that Dad was a bit late picking her up, it’s just that the school day finished slightly too early. And it’s difficult making oneself invisible when the hunt starts inside the school building.
So Elsa runs.
“Catch her!” yells the girl somewhere behind her.
Today it all started with Elsa’s scarf. Or at least Elsa thinks it did. She has started learning who the chasers are at school, and how they operate. Some only chase children if they prove to be weak. And some chase just for the thrill of it; they don’t even hit their victims when they catch them, just want to see the terror in their eyes. And then there are some like the boy Elsa fought about the right to be Spider-Man. He fights and chases people as a point of principle because he can’t stand anyone disagreeing with him. Especially not someone who’s different.
With this girl it’s something else. She wants a reason for giving chase. A way of justifying the chase. She wants to feel like a hero while she’s chasing me, thinks Elsa with unfeasibly cool clarity as she charges towards the fence, her heart thumping like a jackhammer and her throat burning like that time Granny made jalapeño smoothies.
Elsa throws herself at the fence, and her backpack lands so hard on her head when she jumps down on the pavement on the other side that for a few seconds her eyes start to black out. She pulls hard on the straps with both hands to tighten it against her back. Hazily she blinks and looks left towards the parking area where Audi should show up at any moment. She hears the girl behind her screaming like an insulted, ravenous orc. She knows that by the time Audi arrives it’ll be too late, so she looks right instead, down the hill towards the big road. The trucks are thundering by like an invading army on its way towards a castle still held by the enemy, but in the gaps between the traffic Elsa sees the entrance to the park on the other side.
“Shoot-up Park,” that’s what people call it at school, because there are drug addicts there who chase children with heroin syringes. At least that’s what Elsa’s heard, and it terrifies her. It’s the sort of park that never seems to catch any daylight, and this is the kind of winter’s day when the sun never seems to rise.
Elsa had managed just fine until lunchtime, but not even someone who’s very good at being invisible can quite manage it in a cafeteria. The girl had materialized before her so suddenly that Elsa was startled and spilled salad dressing on her Gryffindor scarf. The girl had pointed at it and roared: “Didn’t I tell you to stop going around with that ugly bloody scarf?” Elsa had looked back at the girl in the only way one can look back at someone who has just pointed at a Gryffindor scarf and said, “Ugly bloody scarf.” Not totally dissimilar to how one would look at someone who had just seen a horse and gaily burst out, “Crocodile!” The first time the scarf caught the girl’s attention, Elsa had simply assumed that the girl was a Slytherin. Only after she’d smacked Elsa in the face, ripped her scarf,
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