Free Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland, translated from the Swedish by Jill Morgan by Astrid Lindgren Page B

stopped and drank the water. It didn’t taste good, but there wasn’t any other. When I was done I turned to Pompoo. But Pompoo wasn’t there. He was gone. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that I stopped for a drink and so he continued along one of the passages, thinking I was close behind him.
    At first I wasn’t scared. I stood there at the fork and wondered which way Pompoo had gone. He couldn’t have gone more than a few steps, and all I had to do was shout to him.
    â€œPompoo, where are you?” I shouted as loudly as I could. But my cry only sounded like a ghostly whisper, I didn’t know what kind of strange mountain this was. The rock walls deadened the sound of my voice and silenced it, so that it became a whisper. And the whispers came back, the whispers echoed in the mountain.
    â€œPompoo, where are you?” whispered the dark passages. “Pompoo, where are you . . . Pompoo, where are you?”
    Then I became so scared. I tried to scream even louder, but the mountain only kept on whispering. I couldn’t believe that it was my own voice I heard, but another’s. One who was sitting far inside the mountain and mocking me.
    â€œPompoo, where are you . . . Pompoo, where are you . . . Pompoo, where are you?” it whispered.
    Oh! I became so scared! I rushed into the left passage and ran a few steps, then I rushed back to the fork and ran to the right, turned back again, and rushed into the middle passage. “Pompoo, which way have you gone?” I dared not shout, because the whispering was so awful. But I thought that Pompoo would know how terribly I missed him and wanted him to come back to me.
    The passage divided again. There were new dark passages in every direction, and I ran here and there, looking and looking. I tried not to cry, because I was a knight. But I didn’t have the energy to be a knight just then. I thought of Pompoo running somewhere else on another path, so worried and calling to me, and I laid down on the rough rocky floor and cried as much as when the spies took Miramis. Now I had no Miramis, and no Pompoo. I was all alone. I lay crying and regretting I had come here, and I didn’t know how my father the King could have ever wanted me to go off and fight Sir Kato. I wished my father the King were here so that I could talk to him.
    â€œLook, I’m all alone,” I would have said. “Pompoo is gone and you know he’s my best friend now that I don’t have Ben any more. Now I don’t have Pompoo either. I am all alone and it’s only because you want me to fight Sir Kato.”
    For the first time I almost thought that my father the King had been a little unfair wanting me to take such risks. But as I lay there crying it was like I really heard my father the King’s voice. I know it was my imagination, but I really thought I heard him.

    â€œMio, my son,” he said.
    No more. But it sounded as if he meant there was nothing to be sad about. I thought that maybe I could find Pompoo, after all.
    I rose up from the ground and something fell out of my pocket. It was the little wooden flute that Nonno had carved for me. My flute, that I had played around the campfire on Greenfields Island.
    â€œI’ll play my flute,” I thought. “I’ll play the old melody that Nonno taught us.” I remembered what Pompoo and I had promised each other, “If we ever become separated, we’ll play the old melody.”
    I put the flute to my mouth, but I hardly risked playing it. I was afraid nothing except an awful ghostly sound would come out, like when I shouted. But I thought I had to try. So I began to play the melody.
    Oh! It sounded so clear! It sounded pure and clear and beautiful inside the dark mountain, almost better than it had on Greenfields Island.
    I played the whole melody, and then I listened. From far, far away in the mountain clear notes came in reply. They sounded faint, but