The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,26

to save himself.

And that’s when Ida walks by, with Julia and Felicia in tow. She has just been humiliated in front of the whole school and now sees an opportunity to deflect the attention to somebody else. She looks at Erik, then glances down. She can’t hold back a smile. ‘Oh, baby, what have you done? Have you wet yourself?’ she bursts out, in a fake-caring voice. She says it just loudly enough that the people closest to her swing around. And then the people closest to them. Everybody laughs. One of those real tension-releasing belly-laughs and it’s just what they need.

‘Oh, gross!’ a voice says.

Anna-Karin relishes every passing instant as her dream comes true before her eyes. Erik looks at Robin and Kevin in desperation, but they just laugh with everyone else. In the confusion he meets Anna-Karin’s gaze again. ‘Erik Pisspants,’ she says calmly.

Erik runs away. At each step his shoes squelch. Anna-Karin watches him hurry off with a growing feeling of exultation. It’s as though a thousand angel choirs have burst into song.

All her life she’s listened to Grandpa’s tales of ghosts and supernatural phenomena. About dowsing, the Sami noaidi, the old man who could stem the flow of blood with his mind. Why shouldn’t it happen to her? Who is more deserving of magical powers than Anna-Karin Nieminen, the eternal victim? Isn’t this perfect justice?

9

SLOWLY VANESSA TAKES off her clothes, one item at a time. Her body is aglow in the light from the campfire. Lucky lets out a raunchy whistle, and Wille punches his arm, a little harder than necessary. Vanessa smiles.

God, she loves being drunk. All the sharp edges disappear and problems fade into insignificance. The freaky shit that happened in front of the mirror and at Jonte’s house – none of it matters. The fact that Linnéa Wallin still calls Wille doesn’t matter. Soon nothing will matter at all. In two years she’ll be an adult. In two years she’ll leave school. Then she’ll get into a car, leave this town and never look back, not once. Until then she plans to enjoy life to the hilt.

Vanessa is down to her bra and pants now. She snatches the bottle of home-brew and Coke from Wille’s hand and has a few gulps. Then she starts dancing, slowly, as if she can hear some sexy melody inside her head and just has to move to it. She wishes Michelle and Evelina were here, but on the other hand it’s fun being the only girl.

‘Christ! Do you have to put on a strip show in front of everyone?’ Wille mutters.

She ignores him and turns to the others. ‘Anybody got a cigarette?’

All five dig in their pockets. Mehmet, good-looking but too short, holds out a lit one. As she takes it from him, she accidentally brushes his fingers. He sniggers nervously. She can almost hear his erection.

‘Isn’t Jonte coming?’ Lucky asks, without taking his eyes off Vanessa.

‘He didn’t feel like it,’ Wille tells him.

‘Good,’ says Vanessa. ‘I’m so fucking tired of Jonte.’

Scattered laughter among the boys. Wille looks irritated.

‘I’m going for a swim,’ she says, and heads for the water. The full moon is lit up like a huge spotlight above the lake. The nights have taken on a deep autumnal blackness and the air smells of earth and fungi.

Vanessa flicks away her cigarette, which fizzles when it hits the water. Then she pulls off her bra and pants, tosses them behind her and dips her foot into the water. It’s colder than she expected, but she wades out. When the water reaches her waist, she dives in.

Dammsjön Lake swallows her. The coldness of the water clears her head a little, and she swims a few strokes. It’s dark and silent. The water caresses her body as she glides towards the surface and breaks through it.

Vanessa takes a deep breath. She treads water and runs her fingers through her hair, pressing it flat against her head. Then she looks back at the beach. The campfire is a little speck of light in the encompassing darkness. The forest is a compact mass swaying slowly in the wind.

Wille’s white T-shirt glows in the dark as he walks towards the water’s edge. ‘Come back!’ he shouts.

‘You come here,’ she shouts back, and fends off the mosquito buzzing around her head.

‘It’s fucking freezing!’

She doesn’t answer, and instead dives again. Her body has got used to the cold now. She does underwater somer saults, tumbling over and over until she barely knows