The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,9

a teacher. Especially one like Max: good-looking in the obvious way that girls like Vanessa Dahl find attractive – greenish-brown eyes, curly dark hair and sinewy forearms.

It’s double maths and Minoo dives headlong into the work she has in front of her. She loves maths. Clear rules. Crystal-clear answers. Right or wrong, no grey areas.

Now and then she looks up to catch a glimpse of Max.

She remembers what her mother said, that it isn’t good to bottle up your feelings. But there’s no way she’s ever going to tell anyone how she feels about Max. Least of all him.

When the first lesson is almost over, Max empties his coffee cup, closes his briefcase and leaves the room.

There’s a ten-minute break. Ten minutes with nothing to do, but be alone and pathetic for everyone to see.

They’re on the third floor. There’s a corridor that leads up to the attic. It’s a dead end and Minoo has noticed that no one use the toilets up there. It’s the perfect place to be left in peace. She hurries up the stairs and turns the corner.

When she opens the door to the toilets, she is struck by the smell of cigarette smoke. A mirror is smashed. Shards of glass are strewn across one of the sinks. The window is wide open and a girl is huddled on the ledge, smoking.

She’s wearing a black tank top, a flared knee-length skirt, with pink skulls on a black background, and long white socks. A notepad is propped up on her knees. She’s writing in it intently with a felt-tip pen.

Only when the door slams behind Minoo does she look up. Her fringe almost covers her eyes, which are rimmed with thick black liner. The rest of her hair is gathered into two wavy pigtails.

It’s Linnéa Wallin.

They were in the same class in year seven. Everyone knew that Linnéa’s father was an alcoholic and that her mother was dead. Linnéa was constantly skipping school, until one day at the start of year eight, the teacher had announced that she wasn’t coming back. Rumours floated around that she had gone to live with distant relatives or was dead. Later it turned out that she had been in a home. That sparked more rumours: she had tried to kill herself, her father was a paedophile, she was dealing drugs, she was selling sex on the Internet, she was a lesbian. Since then, Minoo has seen her only with others from the alternative crowd.

And now she’s staring at Minoo with disappointment in her eyes.

‘Hi,’ Minoo says.

‘I thought you were somebody else,’ Linnéa says.

Minoo glances at the smashed mirror.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Linnéa says.

‘I didn’t think it was,’ Minoo lies. Her ears turn red as always when she gets embarrassed. She tries the handle to one of the cubicles as coolly as she can. The door’s locked.

‘That one seems to be out of order,’ Linnéa says.

Minoo doesn’t answer. Instead she opens another cubicle.

She locks the door and rests her forehead against the cool tiles. Through the thin door she hears Linnéa light another cigarette.

Minoo lets an appropriate amount of time pass before flushing the unused toilet and coming out again. She looks at herself in the mirror as she washes her hands. She glances at Linnéa, and feels a sudden pang of envy. Linnéa is cute and thin but, worse, her skin is clear. Minoo has suffered regular outbreaks of acne since she was thirteen. In year eight, Erik Forslund had asked if she’d been hit in the face with buckshot. Grown-ups always tell you it goes away when you get older. But, like so much of what they say, that doesn’t seem to be true.

Linnéa interrupts her thoughts: ‘You don’t need to pretend.’

Minoo’s ears turn bright red again. ‘What?’

Linnéa has laid aside her book. ‘You only come here to hide, don’t you?’ she says.

‘I like to be on my own,’ Minoo mumbles.

Linnéa smiles inscrutably. They look at each other for a moment.

‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ she says, waving the cigarette.

‘What you do is none of my business.’

‘Exactly.’ Linnéa tosses the cigarette into the sink. It fizzes as the lit end extinguishes against the wet enamel. She jumps down from her spot by the window. The pen rolls off her notepad on to the floor, past Minoo and under the locked cubicle door.

Minoo bends down and looks for the pen beneath the door. The pen is lying in something dark and sticky. Further inside she sees a black cloth bag and