The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,92
Minoo be loyal to her?
She puts the key into her pocket and glances at herself in the full-length mirror.
She doesn’t look bad. If she squints she can almost pretend she’s pretty.
It’s snowing and a centimetre-thick layer of snow has settled over the playground. Minoo is early. Only a few pairs of footprints wind their way up to the entrance.
When she enters the school she’s hit by the pungent smell of cleaning fluid. The graffiti that had adorned one of the walls is still visible, despite attempts to scrub it off:
IF U WANNA SAVE THE PLANET KILL UR FUCKIN SELF
Minoo doesn’t know if it’s the smell or the message that makes her feel sick. She looks away and continues towards Nicolaus’s office at the far end of the corridor. Her footsteps echo desolately beneath the buzz of the fluorescent lighting.
She hears something else: a muffled scraping sound behind her. Like something dragging itself along the floor.
Minoo spins around.
The corridor is deserted.
‘Minoo?’ someone whispers.
She turns back. Nicolaus has appeared in the doorway of his office. She casts a glance over her shoulder before she heads into his room.
Nicolaus is dressed in a threadbare grey suit. He looks threadbare and grey too. As if he has aged a few decades since the principal dismissed him.
‘Hi,’ Minoo says. ‘I have to show you something.’
‘Oh?’ Nicolaus says, raising one eyebrow. ‘Has that woman given her permission?’
‘No,’ Minoo answers gravely. ‘I haven’t said anything to her. And I’m not going to either, if you don’t want me to.’
A little smile spreads across Nicolaus’s face before he catches himself and switches to a more dignified expression. ‘Very well. Show me.’
Cat comes sneaking up, jumps on to the desk and gets comfortable.
Minoo glances at it and it looks around the room. Minoo gets the feeling that it’s trying to act disinterested. She takes out the key and hands it to Nicolaus, who turns it over in his hand as she tells him how she came by it.
‘This unholy animal vomited up this artefact?’ Nicolaus asks, almost proudly, as if Cat were his child, who had just done something amazing.
It lets out a miaow and rubs against Nicolaus’s hand. He pats its head distractedly, a little too roughly, Minoo thinks. But the animal looks content as it closes one eye halfway and starts purring.
‘I think I know what it opens,’ she says. ‘My parents have a safety deposit box where they keep their valuables. I checked their key, and this one is the same type. I thought of it because I saw Cat outside the bank on Storvall Square the day Rebecka died. I suspect it has a safety deposit box in your name, and this is the key to it.’
‘Why in my name?’
‘That’s the only logical conclusion I could come up with. Cat turned up here first, didn’t it?’
‘Verily it did,’ says Nicolaus, thoughtfully, ‘and I have to admit that I’ve started to grow rather fond of the flea-ridden beast.’
Cat mews approvingly.
‘You’re right,’ Nicolaus concludes. ‘I ought to go over there and enquire.’
‘Good,’ says Minoo.
‘I have just one question. What is a safety deposit box?’
Minoo bites her lip. ‘I’ll go with you,’ she says.
‘I won’t allow it. We mustn’t be seen together. The powers of darkness—’
‘Okay, okay!’ Minoo cuts in. ‘But we don’t know what’s in the box. You shouldn’t go alone.’
‘That’s precisely why I must go alone. I have no intention of exposing anyone else to danger,’ Nicolaus says.
Minoo sighs. She can’t let Nicolaus go off on his own. They still know nothing about the cat and what it’s after.
She’ll have to ask Vanessa for help, even though she has no desire to see any of the Chosen Ones after her embarrassing exit from the fairground.
When Minoo steps out of Nicolaus’s room, the corridor is filling with students. She spots Linnéa talking to a girl with blue hair. Luckily she doesn’t see Minoo when she gets her books out of her locker and hurries down the corridor.
She is just about to walk up the stairs when she hears Gustaf call her name. She turns. There he his, in his thick down jacket, his cheeks rosy from the cold.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ she answers.
She feels that people rushing past them on the stairs are looking at them. What does a guy like Gustaf Åhlander have to say to someone like Minoo? He’s more popular than ever after Rebecka’s death and the interview in the paper. Naturally, the school is teeming with girls eager to comfort him.