Annika Thor - A Faraway Island

Taking a deep breath, she puts her right foot on one pedal. Then she lifts her left foot, tramping down with her right. She tries to get up on the seat, but it’s too high. Standing on one pedal, she rolls unsteadily down the hill, gaining speed. It feels exciting and scary, both at once.

Between two outcrops of rock, the road curves left. Stephie turns the handlebars and loses control. The bike totters, she pushes the brakes and skids in the loose gravel. The bicycle topples and Stephie is thrown into the roadside ditch.

I’m dead, she thinks.

But she’s not. One of her arms hurts, though, and so do both her knees.

At the sound of brakes in the gravel she looks up, knowing everyone on the island will hear about this and laugh at her.

“Are you all right?” Vera asks.

“I’m not sure,” Stephie answers. “My arm… I’m afraid it’s broken.”

“Let me help you up,” Vera says. She dismounts from her bike and pulls Stephie out of the ditch. “Is that your bicycle?” she asks.

“No, it’s Aunt Märta’s.”

Vera stands the bike up and inspects it. “Looks all right,” she says. “Maybe a little dent over the front tire. But that might have been there before.”

“I don’t know,” says Stephie.

She’s feeling less dizzy now. Her knees are just scraped, but her right arm aches.

“Do you think it’s broken?” she asks Vera.

Vera feels it gently through the cardigan. “Can you move it?” she asks. “Like this?”

Stephie tries moving her arm up and down. It hurts, but she can do it.

“I don’t think it’s broken” is Vera’s verdict. “Don’t you know how to ride a bike?”

It’s no use denying it now.

“I’ll help you learn,” says Vera. “You can’t just roll away, you need to know how to turn and to put on the brakes first. Want me to show you?”

“Please.”

“Tomorrow,” Vera tells her. “After school. It’s Saturday, so we won’t have homework. I’ve got to get home now, and you need to wash up and change your clothes.”

Stephie glances down at her muddy dress.

“I’ll have to come home for the bicycle after school,” she says. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Right here?”

“Fine.”

“See you,” says Vera, hopping onto her bike and riding off.

Stephie walks Aunt Märta’s bike the whole way home. It feels like it’s growing heavier and heavier. Going down the steep hill to the house demands all her strength; she has to hold back to keep the bike from taking off on its own and pulling her with it.

She leans the bike up against the house and goes in.

“I’m back,” she calls, scurrying up the stairs so Aunt Märta won’t catch sight of her muddy dress. At the wash-stand she does her best to rinse the mud off herself and her dress and to clean her scraped knees.

“I see you’re learning to ride the bike,” Aunt Märta says when she comes back down.

Stephie had been hoping Aunt Märta wouldn’t have noticed the absence of her bicycle. But it’s eight o’clock and evening prayers were over long ago. Aunt Märta probably went out into the yard and saw that the bike was gone.

“I’m sorry,” says Stephie. “I should have asked before I borrowed it.”

“That’s all right,” Aunt Märta answers. “Just take good care of it. And yourself,” she adds, glancing at Stephie’s scraped knees and stiff arm.

“May I borrow it tomorrow after school?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you.”

The next day Stephie hurries home from school. She leads the bike back up the hill again, and down to the meeting place. Vera’s already there.

“Come on,” she says, taking Stephie to a little side road. “This is a better spot. You have to practice on flat ground first. We’d better start by lowering the seat.”

Vera’s brought a wrench, and she loosens the bolt that holds the seat in place, twisting the seat gently downward and then tightening the bolt again.

“Give it a try,” she says.

Stephie tries to mount the bike as she did yesterday, but she can’t seem to make it balance.

“You have to start pedaling right away,” Vera instructs. “I’ll hold you from behind. Try again.”

Vera holds the carrier in a firm grip. Stephie swings up into the seat and starts to pedal.

“Not so fast,” Vera pants as Stephie picks up speed. “Now put on the brakes, but gently.”

Stephie backpedals and feels the bike slow down. She puts one foot on the ground.

“Again,” Vera tells her. “Steer, and apply the brakes softly when you start going too fast.”

Stephie picks up speed again. Vera runs behind the bi cycle with one hand on the carrier. Suddenly, though, Stephie stops hearing her footsteps. There’s only the crunch of the tires on the gravel. The pedals keep going around, the bi cycle follows the curves in the road easily. She’s riding all on her own!

A rock in the middle of the road is her downfall. But she manages to put one foot down so that she doesn’t crash; she isn’t hurt.

Vera comes biking up from behind.

“You’re doing fine,” she laughs. “You’ll be able to bike to school by Monday.”

Stephie bikes back and forth along the road all afternoon. Vera helps her get started at first, but after a while she can get her own balance, and Vera bikes alongside her. Their hair and skirts flutter in the spring wind. The salty sting of the sea blends with the scent of earth warmed by the sun. Light green grass is sprouting up alongside the road and between the outcrops of rock.

When they get tired of riding, Vera teaches Stephie how to pump the tires. They crouch down next to each other, hands and arms touching. The wind blows wisps of Vera’s hair so it brushes Stephie’s cheek.

There are so many things Stephie would like to ask Vera. Why she’s always clowning around in class and pretending to be dumber than she is. Why she’s friends with Sylvia and her crowd. Whether the two of them, Stephie and Vera, could be friends for real.

But she doesn’t ask anything at all. Vera gets up.

“I’ve got to get home,” she says, “and help my mother with the washing.”

They bicycle side by side out to the main road.

“Will you be able to bike home now?” Vera asks.

“I think so.”

Stephie mounts the bike. She manages to pedal all the way up to the top of the hill, but she leads the bike on the steep downhill, just to be on the safe side.

Stephie spends all Sunday afternoon practicing, up and down hills, and riding the road in both directions. Aunt Märta, who is otherwise quite strict about keeping the Sabbath on Sunday, and who always wants Stephie to do something quiet after Sunday school, agrees immediately when Stephie asks to borrow her bicycle again.

On Monday Stephie bikes to school. Having struggled up the steep hill from the white house, she has a steady decline for the next half mile, and the wind at her back. She doesn’t even need to pedal, the bike just rolls on its own. The wind brushes her face gently and the air is full of new smells.

On her way to school, she imagines arriving at the schoolyard, gently applying the brakes at the gate and then leading the bicycle over to the stand, with Sylvia, Barbro, and all the others gaping in astonishment. She plans to act as if there’s nothing unusual about her having biked to school. If they continue to stare she’ll ask, “What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a bike before?”

Then she’ll look right at Vera and they’ll smile conspiratorially. Vera won’t give her away. She’s promised.

Intentionally, Stephie takes the last stretch slowly. She wants everyone to be there when she arrives.