Free A Fairy Tale by Jonas Bengtsson Page A

it doesn’t say anything.
    I look across at my dad; he’s asleep in the chair. I pull at him until he gets up and staggers over to the couch. I ask him if the King and the Prince will make it.
    â€œWho knows?” he mumbles, and goes back to sleep.
    The boss holds up a clock I’ve just reassembled, one of the first to be finished. He looks moved to tears.
    â€œYou need something for it,” he says while we eat lunch.
    At first I don’t realize he’s talking to me so I carry on eating; I try to keep the pickled beetroot in place on top of my liver pâté sandwich.
    â€œHello, boy,” he shouts. “Hello, boy! What do you want?”
    I don’t know what to reply.
    â€œI know I laughed when I called you child labour, but I’m starting to feel bad about it. So what’s it gonna be?”
    I look at my dad. He nods to give me the go-ahead, for me to just say it. I hesitate. I don’t want the boss to laugh at me, throw me out. I want to stay here, be with my dad. Work up a sweat and get splinters in my fingers. They both look at me while they wait.
    â€œA bicycle,” I say. “A blue bicycle.”
    I regret it immediately. I should’ve asked for something smaller, like a toy car or a new football.
    But the boss just smiles. “Well, of course it’s got to be blue. You don’t want a girlie bike, do you?”
    We ride through the city. The slush splashes up and hits my cheek; it makes the butcher’s bike wobble. I lie down in the big basket and look up at the dark sky. I almost fall asleep. Tomorrow we’ll make more furniture look old. Tomorrow I’ll be allowed to handle nitric acid. My dad has promised me. As long as I’m careful. Tomorrow we’ll get lunch from the sandwich shop again. Possibly an egg sandwich with a single herring on top. Or beetroot salad, which makes my lips go pink.
    Tomorrow I hope the boss will tell me once again that I’m good.
    I’m lying in my bed. The frog is still swimming with the King and the Prince. It starts to tread water again.
    Before it has time to say anything, the King asks his son: “Why don’t we kill ourselves a frog? It’s been a long time since the last one.”
    The Prince replies: “Yes, a fortnight, at least.”
    â€œYou eat frogs?” the frog says, and tries to turn its big green head to see if the King might have a knife or a small sword. A weapon it might have overlooked when they climbed onto its back. “Do you really eat frogs?”
    â€œNo,” the King replies. “We’ve never done that.”
    â€œWe just kill them,” the Prince says. “Some people like flying kites, others love riding bicycles. We kill frogs. It’s what we do.”
    â€œBut not me,” the frog says, now sounding more reassured.
    â€œWhy not?” the Prince asks.
    â€œBecause then you’ll drown.”
    â€œI agree, I don’t think we can swim ashore, either,” the King says. “It’s too far. The water is too cold, the fog too dense. But we kill frogs. It’s what we do; it’s what we’ve always done.”
    The frog has started shaking a little.
    â€œBut perhaps we could make an exception,” the King says.
    The frog resumes swimming. Faster than before. It makes small, unhappy grunts all the way to the shore.
    The King and the Prince jump off its back. They’re wet, cold, and hungry, but they can’t help laughing out loud. The birds’ twittering sounds like hundreds of tiny beaks saying welcome, welcome . You’ve won. You’re here now. You’re still alive.
    The grass under their bare feet is so green that it hurts their eyes. They hurry away from the frog, still submerged in the lake, only its eyes sticking out of the water.

M y dad is standing in the yard, cursing. He has accidentally broken off a chair leg while he was sanding it down.
    â€œDo we have any more panel