Free The Story of the Blue Planet by Andri Snaer Magnason Page B

at last reached the beach Jolly-Goodday stood all alone on the shoreline folding up his deck chair.
    “Ignorant, ungrateful children,” he muttered. “I’m leaving!”
    “Why have we become so old and weak?” asked the children.
    “You sold me your youth for more fun.”
    “But now the fun’s over, can’t we have our youth back?”
    “It’s mine now. You sold me your youth and I’ll decide what I’m going to do with it.”
    “What are you going to do with our youth? We don’t want to be gray-haired and weary.”
    “Youth is the most precious stuff in the world. It’s more valuable than gold or diamonds and it fuels my spaceship. With your youth I should be able to reach the next solar system, and if I have any youth left I can buy myself lots of friends.”
    “Don’t you have any friends?” asked the children. Jolly-Goodday didn’t answer, and they looked sadly at him. The spaceship’s fuel tank was almost full.
    “Are you going to use our youth as fuel and money?”
    “Are you going to leave us so old and gray-haired?”
    “But you think it’s cool to be gray-haired, it’s in fashion,” said Jolly-Goodday and he picked up his loudspeaker:
    “Once upon a time there was a woman who had a dog called Latest Fashion but it got lost while she was in the shower and the woman ran out onto her balcony stark naked and cried out: ‘Latest Fashion! Latest Fashion!’ And after that everyone walked around stark naked because they thought it was the latest fashion.”
    No one laughed at the joke.
    “Will you please give us our youth back?” asked Elva gently.
    “But my spaceship runs on youth. Perhaps you’d rather I stayed here?”
    No one answered.
    “Are you going to remove the nail from the sun first?”
    “I don’t do anything for ungrateful children.”
    “But only you can remove the nail from the sun,” said the children. “It must be removed otherwise the children on the other side will die.”
    “It’ll cost you to have the nail removed from the sun, kids.”
    “How much?”
    “Only a single drop of youth from one child’s heart.”
    “Pooh, that’s not much, how much youth do we have left?”
    “There’s exactly a single drop in each heart.”
    “You’re mad! The last drop is irremovable from the heart!”
    “You can easily get a heart of stone to replace it,” said Jolly-Goodday.
    “But one little drop can’t make any difference, you’ve already got a full tank.”
    “The last drop is the most valuable of all. A dying king on another planet would give his kingdom for the last drop from a child’s heart.”
    “We can’t let you have the last drop!” shouted the children. “We’d rather die than get a stone heart.”
    “It’s up to you,” said Jolly-Goodday. “Either one of you receives a stone heart or all the stupid children on the other side of the planet will die in the darkness.” “You are a space monster,” said the children.
    “Aren’t you the ones who wanted to have fun at night and nail the sun in the sky?”
    “Yes.”
    “And aren’t you the ones who voted not to remove the nail from the sun?”
    “Yes.”
    “The majority is always right and I only did what the majority wanted. I’m no monster, you’re the monsters. You voted to let the children in the darkness remain in the darkness. It seems to me you already have stone hearts in your breasts.”
    No one answered.
    “If someone will volunteer to give me their last drop of youth I’ll remove the nail from the sun and everything will be as it was before. Otherwise I’m out of here.”
    Jolly-Goodday stepped into his spaceship and was about to zoom away and burn up all their youth while jetting far away into space where other planets awaited him.
    But then a voice was heard from the crowd of children.
    “You may have my last drop if you remove the nail from the sun.”
    The children gasped in amazement. It was Brimir who had spoken.

Steel-hearted or Stone-hearted
     
    The children stood