The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,136

and turns around.

Melvin is standing in the doorway looking at her guardedly. He’s wearing a blue-striped shirt, jeans with an elastic waistband, and slipper socks. His hair is longer and curly at the temples. Vanessa puts down her bag and manages to refrain from crying out, ‘Gosh, you’ve grown!’ like some elderly relative. ‘Happy birthday!’ she says instead, goes down on her knees and holds out her arms.

Melvin looks at her. Then he hides his face against Amira’s leg.

It’s as if someone’s giving her a Chinese burn on her heart. Because that’s what Melvin does with people he doesn’t know. Vanessa lowers her arms.

‘Are you shy, Melvin?’ Amira says in her sweet voice.

‘We haven’t seen each other for a bit. I don’t know if he …’ Her voice chokes. She’s on the verge of tears. She can’t let it happen. She can’t start sobbing on her little brother’s birthday and traumatise him for life.

You already have, a voice says inside her. Just by walking out of the door and disappearing. Of course he doesn’t trust you. Maybe he doesn’t even remember you.

She draws a deep breath and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘I brought you a present,’ she says, and pulls a package out of the plastic bag. She sets it down on the floor between them. ‘A birthday present,’ she says.

Melvin looks at her a little sceptically. Then he takes a few cautious steps. Stops. ‘Two,’ he says, and holds out his hand with two fingers raised.

‘Yes, you’re two years old today,’ Vanessa says, and blinks away a few tears. ‘What a clever boy you are.’

Melvin flashes a little smile. She nudges the package closer to him. Slowly he touches the paper with his chubby fingers. He rips and tears at it a little haphazardly while Vanessa secretly unfastens the tape.

Eventually he pulls out a soft toy penguin with big eyes. As soon as Vanessa had seen it she’d known she had to get it for Melvin. Now she’s suddenly uncertain about her choice.

‘Wow, what a nice penguin!’ Amira says.

Melvin holds it in front of him. If Melvin hates her present, Vanessa thinks, she’ll lie down on the floor and bawl her eyes out until Amira comes over and picks her up.

‘Do you like your penguin?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Pingu,’ Melvin says, and shakes it ecstatically.

She is pathetically happy and close to crying again.

‘Can I have a hug now?’ she asks.

She can’t hold back any longer. She so wants to take him in her arms, feel his warm little body against hers.

Melvin looks terrified. ‘No,’ he says. Then he takes the penguin by its wing and toddles out of the room.

Amira is full of sympathy. ‘He’s just a bit shy because he hasn’t seen you lately,’ Amira says.

Of course her mother couldn’t have kept quiet. And Nicke had probably described it as Jannike’s pain-in-the-arse daughter going off the rails and moving in with the town drug dealer. Vanessa wants to explain everything to Amira, win her over, but she has to leave before she starts sobbing for real.

She says goodbye and hurries out into the street.

The nursery is at the top of a hill from which she can see virtually all of Engelsfors. That disgusting little shithole full of people who think they live in the most important place on earth. God, how she hates them. God, how she wants to get away.

Now, when she’s free to cry, it’s as if her tears have evaporated.

There’s nowhere she wants to go. Not to Wille and Sirpa’s house. Not to her mother and Nicke’s. She doesn’t feel at home anywhere.

Minoo is standing outside the library trying to look relaxed when the bell rings after the last lesson. She looks at the door to Gustaf’s classroom. It remains closed. Maybe Ove Post has let a dissection run on again.

The principal is coming towards her. She walks straight up to Minoo. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, as if there’s something suspicious about her standing outside the library. She glances at Gustaf’s classroom.

‘Waiting for a friend.’

The principal eyes her lingeringly. Then she nods and walks off.

Finally Gustaf’s classmates are filing out into the corridor. Nervously Minoo switches on her mobile and hopes she appears to be writing an important text message.

She doesn’t see Gustaf until he’s next to her.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi! I was waiting for you,’ she says, in as normal a tone as she can muster.

Gustaf looks happy. ‘You were?’

Minoo tries to focus on the bridge of his nose between