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eventually, unable to take any more of her whining. “Or there’s a dead hamster going on the heap!”
    It didn’t make Gerda stop sniveling, but it didquiet her down enough to make things tolerable again. And for her to leave the house without her father catching on.
    Oscarlittle was mottled white and brown and actually fairly cute with his trembling whiskers, and I was happy not to have to do away with him. The cage, on the other hand, was heavy and unwieldy, and the road to the sawmill unendingly long. We should have borrowed Holy Karl’s trailer. We hadn’t, so we took turns carrying. Gerda too. There was no reason for her not to take her fair share of the aching shoulders Ursula-Marie and I were getting. It took an age to reach the field and the sawmill, and Oscarlittle squeaked the entire way as if I really was going to kill him, but eventually we got there and could put the cage with Oscarlittle down in the half-light inside the door.
    We let Gerda line the cage with some old sawdust, and after she had given Oscarlittle an extra portion of hamster food and a bowl of fresh water,I climbed up the stepladder and placed him and the cage on top of the heap.
    I climbed down again, dragged the ladder away, and stood to admire the heap with the cage like a star slightly crooked on top. Then I noticed how quiet it was in the mill.
    Quiet. Quieter. All quiet.
    It was so quiet I suddenly couldn’t help but notice how big and empty the place was, how many cracks and crevices there were in the concrete floor that could just be picked out beneath the dirt of the sawdust, how thick the cobwebs were that clung to every beam and joist, how many holes there were in the roof, and how few windowpanes were still intact. I surveyed the surroundings from one end of the mill to the other, up and down, down and up, then finally turned my gaze to my classmates.

    They were still staring silently at the cage.

    It was as though Oscarlittle had added something to the heap of meaning that neither my green wedge sandals, nor Sebastian’s fishing rod, nor Richard’s soccer ball had been able to. I was pretty pleased with myself for having come up with the idea, so it stung that the others seemed less than enthusiastic.
    It was Otto who came to my rescue.
    “Now there’s something that’s got meaning!” he exclaimed, looking away from Oscarlittle and toward me.
    “Pierre Anthon’s never going to top that,” Huge Hans added, and no one seemed to be protesting.
    I had to bite my tongue not to blush from pride.
    ————
    It was getting late, and most of us had to be getting off home for supper. We took a final admiring look at our bulging heap, then Sofie turned off the lights and closed the door behind us. Jon-Johan put the padlock on, and we hurried away in all directions.
    It was Gerda’s turn.

VII
    Gerda wasn’t particularly inventive and said only that Maiken was to hand over her telescope. We all knew Maiken had invested two years and all her savings into her telescope, and that she spent every evening, when the sky was clear, observing the stars, for she was going to be an astrophysicist. Even so, it was a disappointing choice.
    Maiken herself, though, proved more adventurous.
    Without needing time to think about it, she looked directly at Frederik and said:
    “The Dannebrog.”
    It was like Frederik started to shrink—he grew thinner and smaller and more and more red in the face and began to shake his head vigorously.
    Frederik had brown hair and brown eyes and was always dressed in a white shirt and blue pants with creases the other boys did their best to ruin. And like his parents, who were married and not divorced and never would be, Frederik believed in Denmark and the Royal House and was forbidden to ever play with Hussain.
    The Dannebrog, our proud flag, had descended from the skies in twelve-hundred-and-something, Frederik maintained, in order that the Danish king could prevail over the enemy in Latvia. What the