Nothing Read Online Free

supposed to convince Pierre Anthon that it did?
    He was going to see right through us.
    Squat. Zilch. Nothing.
    Again Jon-Johan called us together, and it wasn’t long before we had to admit that certain things did matter to us, even if it wasn’t much and even if they weren’t all that important. Still, it was a better take than the one we had.
    Dennis was the first. He brought a whole stack of Dungeons & Dragons books he had read over and over and almost learned by heart. Otto, however, soon discovered that four of the series were missing, and he said that Dennis was going to have to give them up too.
    Dennis blew up and told Otto to mind hisown business, that we all knew that wasn’t part of the scheme, and we were so mean, all of us. But the more Dennis yelled, the more the rest of us maintained that the books plainly mattered a whole lot to him. And hadn’t we just agreed that it was the things that meant most to us that had to go on the heap if it was ever going to convince Pierre Anthon to climb out of his tree?
    When Dennis had first handed over the last four of his Dungeons & Dragons books, it was as if the meaning started to take off. Dennis knew how fond Sebastian was of his fishing rod. And Sebastian knew that Richard had a thing about his black soccer ball. And Richard had noticed how Laura always wore the same African parrot earrings.
    We should have stopped even before it got this far. Now it was somehow too late, even though I did what I could.
    “This isn’t going to work,” I said.
    “Ha!” Gerda scoffed, and she was pointing atmy green wedge sandals that I’d spent all summer persuading my mom to buy me, and that she’d only just gotten me recently for half price in the sales.
    I knew it was going to come. And to be honest, that was probably why I tried to stop the whole affair. It would only be a matter of time before someone got around to my sandals. The fact that it was Giggling Gerda, little bye-baby-bumpkin, only made things worse. At first I tried to pass it off, as if I hadn’t even noticed what it was she was pointing at, but Laura wasn’t letting me off the hook.
    “The sandals, Agnes,” she said, and there was no way out.
    I squatted down and was about to untie them, but then I couldn’t get myself to do it and stood up again.
    “I can’t,” I said. “My mom’s going to ask where they are, and then the grown-ups are going to figure the whole thing out.” I thought I was smart. But I wasn’t.
    “You think you’re any better than the rest of us?” cried Sebastian. “What do you suppose my dad’s going to think I’ve done with my fishing rod?” As if to underline his words, he grabbed hold of the line and fishhook that dangled from the heap.
    “And what have I done with my books?”
    “And where’s my soccer ball?”
    “And my earrings?”
    I’d lost, and I knew it. All I could do was ask for a few days’ respite.
    “Just until summer’s over.”
    There was no mercy. Even if they did let me borrow a pair of sneakers from Sofie, so I wouldn’t have to walk home barefoot.
    Sofie’s sneakers were too small; they pinched at my big toe, and the way home from the sawmill was a whole lot longer than usual. I was crying as I turned into the street and walked the last part of the way up to the house alone.
    I didn’t go in, but sat down in the bike shed,where I could be seen neither from the street nor the house. I pulled Sofie’s sneakers off my feet and kicked them into a corner. The image of my green wedge sandals on top of the heap of meaning wouldn’t go away.

    I looked down at my bare feet and decided Gerda was going to pay.

VI
    It took me three days to find Gerda’s weak spot, and during those three days I was sweetness itself with her.
    I had never liked Gerda. She had a way of spitting when she spoke, even more when she giggled, which she did almost all the time. Besides that, she would never let Ursula-Marie alone, and Ursula-Marie was my best friend and