She’ll have to go to Göteborg. But how?

“You can walk on the ice all the way to Hjuvik.” Wasn’t that what the woman in the post office said? Hjuvik’s on the mainland. There would be a bus from there to Göteborg.

On Saturday, Stephie says to herself. When we get out of school early. I’ll have to save my lunch sandwiches, or try to make a couple of extra ones without being seen. I’ll dress warmly, and take the little compass Uncle Evert taught me to use.

twenty-six

On Saturday Stephie puts on double stockings and her thickest sweater. She sneaks the compass into her knapsack and tells Aunt Märta she’s planning to go sledding after school, so she’ll be staying out.

“Be home for dinner,” Aunt Märta tells her.

“May I pack an extra sandwich?” Stephie asks. “To have at the sledding hill if I get hungry?”

Aunt Märta says yes. Stephie folds her father’s letter into her coat pocket along with the holiday letter with all the good advice from the relief committee. There’s an address on the back of the envelope. When she gets to Göteborg she’ll find her way there.

In the warm classroom her stockings begin to itch. Stephie squiggles like a worm in her seat, trying to scratch her thigh without anyone noticing.

“What’s going on? Have you got fleas?” Britta asks. Since Christmas vacation she has forgiven Stephie enough to at least be on speaking terms again.

“It’s these stockings,” Stephie replies. “They’re new.”

Britta nods in complicity. She knows very well how itchy new woolen stockings can be.

After school Stephie pulls her sled down to the harbor, but she doesn’t want to go out onto the ice in plain view. Someone might see her and wonder where she’s headed. So she turns left and walks a little distance along the shore, until she is out of sight, behind a pointed headland.

Not until Stephie has stuck the sled under a bush does she realize that she will somehow have to get back to the island, too. Until that moment her plans have been focused entirely on walking to the mainland across the ice and taking the bus to Göteborg. She hopes the coin she has in her pocket will be enough for the bus fare. Once she arrives in Göteborg, she will ask how to get to the address on the envelope.

But what will happen after that? Will she have to walk all the way back out to the island? Or will the relief committee give her the money for a boat ticket? The best thing would be if she could just wait in Göteborg for Mamma and Papa to arrive.

She thinks her parents would be happier in the city than out on the island. Papa could take the boat to collect Nellie, and they could all rent an apartment in Göteborg. It wouldn’t have to be a big one, if only they could all be together again.

Stephie tests the ice with one foot. It doesn’t crack. She takes a few cautious steps. The snow-covered ice feels just as firm as the ground.

She checks her direction using the compass, as Uncle Evert taught her. Her plan is to walk straight east. Surely that will take her to the mainland.

For a short while she is protected from the wind by the island, but once the shore is far behind her a cold wind sweeps in off the ocean. It’s lucky she’s warmly dressed.

She turns around to look back. This may be the last time she ever sees the island. It’s strange to see the harbor, the docks, and the boathouses from out here, to be walking on what is usually open water.

The wind has swept the ice free of snow. She runs a little way to pick up speed, then slides on the smooth ice.

In front of her she sees a little islet with three houses and a couple of sheds. Margit, who’s in her class, lives there. She and her brother row to school every day, except now, when they can walk across the ice.

Stephie hurries past the area where she might be seen from the houses, and passes a point. Out of sight, she sits down on a rock at the shore, opens her knapsack, and removes the sandwiches. She can have one now, but will have to save the other. She has a long way left to go; she doesn’t know exactly how far it is to the mainland.

Swallowing the last bite of the sausage sandwich, she rinses it down with a swallow of milk from her bottle. Then she gets up, checks her direction again, and walks on.

When she has put the islet behind her, there is nothing but a huge sheet of open ice ahead, endless whiteness as far as the eye can see. The only things sticking up out of the ice are other occasional rocky islets.

The chill penetrates the soles of her boots, making first her feet and then her legs feel very cold. She ought to have stuffed her boots with straw as she remembered reading about people doing in the Alps. Though there wouldn’t have been room for much straw in her already too-tight boots.

Stephie stops to check her direction again. Feeling around in her knapsack for the compass, she can’t find it. She takes everything out-her sandwiches and schoolbooks-shaking the sack upside down. The compass just isn’t there. She must have forgotten it when she stopped to eat.

She turns around and sees the islet far behind her. Should she go back? That would take at least half an hour, and then another half hour to return to this spot. If she just continues straight ahead, she can probably manage without the compass.

The expanse of ice seems never-ending. Now Stephie is cold through and through, in spite of her heavy sweater and double stockings. She eats the last sandwich as she walks. The milk in her bottle has frozen to a white slush.

The worst part is that it’s already getting dark. The dusky air is blue, and her shadow on the ice is eerily long and thin. It looks like she’s on stilts.

Night falls quickly. Soon she won’t be able to see at all. If she stops where she is, she will freeze to death during the night. The snow creaks, and the ice makes clicking sounds. In the far distance she sees the flashing red light of a lighthouse.

When it is nearly pitch black, she sees the contours of land ahead. She begins to hurry. Exhausted and freezing cold, she steps back onto land. She’s standing on a stony beach. To the right there’s a dock and a boathouse…

Stephie raises her gaze. Straight ahead she sees a white house with high stone steps. It’s a house she recognizes.

She must have walked in a circle instead of straight ahead, turning back out to sea instead of toward the mainland as she thought. She walked right around the island in such a wide arc she couldn’t see it until she swung around again and struck land on the west side. The lighthouse she saw must have been the same one she usually sees from the top of the hill.

Her whole long trek was completely in vain. She’s back where she started. She hasn’t been able to do a thing to help her mother and father, not a single thing.

The kitchen window is bright. When she opens the front door she smells fried pork.

“Stephie,” Aunt Märta calls from the kitchen, “is that you?”

Aunt Märta heats up the baked beans for her, scolding her for being late.

“For once you could try to keep track of the time,” she says. “Didn’t I tell you to be back for dinner?”

“I didn’t have any way of knowing what time it was,” Stephie replies.

“Were you at the sledding hill all this time?”

Stephie shakes her head. “No, we had a bit of a walk on the ice as well.”

“What a thing to do,” Aunt Märta says. “I hope you’re careful. There are places where the ice is very thin, you know.”