We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [32]
We didn't know much about her, though we suspected she was the root cause of our woes. People said that she regularly pummeled Isager with her huge, hamlike fists and that it was this humiliation that sent his spectacles high up on the bridge of his nose.
Now here was the dog trotting down the street, with the easy air of a creature at home in its own drawing room, and perhaps that's where it thought it was, since none of us had ever seen it in town on its own before.
"Karo," Hans Jørgen called, clicking his fingers.
The dog stopped. Its jaw hung and its tongue protruded between its teeth. We could feel the rage building inside us; suddenly we hated that dog. Fat Lorentz kicked out at it, but Hans Jørgen held up his hand and started singing the old nursery rhyme we'd chanted when we were little and wanted a snail to stick out its horns. Holding hands, we danced around Karo in a circle.
Snaily, Snaily, show us your horn,
Here we come to buy your corn.
Are you a man or are you a mouse?
Come outside or we'll burn down your house!
Karo jumped about, yapping.
"Come here, boy, come here." Hans Jørgen enticed him and started running.
The obese animal lumbered after Hans Jørgen in happy anticipation. We circled him and started racing up Markgade. Anyone passing us would have seen nothing but a gang of boys on the move. We passed Vestergade. Ahead of us lay Reberbanen. Farther out, the fields started, and it was here we'd roam when the town got too small for us and we needed to let off some steam. The road was flanked by ancient pollarded poplars, split by old age. We'd marked our ownership of them with wooden planks and nails, transforming them into tree houses with steps, rooms, and attics. These were the castles from which we lorded it over the fields. But we had to recapture them constantly because the farmers' sons claimed them too. They were children of the soil, sturdy and sullen, and they felt that the wide-open fields were their birthright. But we outnumbered them. We only turned up here in gangs, always ready to do battle, and we'd always leave the field victorious. The farm boys were the natives and they defended their soil with the passion of savages. But we were stronger and we showed them no mercy.
"Can he run this far?" Niels Peter asked.
Saliva hung in strings from Karo's black lips as he bounded along, struggling to keep up with us. This was better than life as a lapdog with the teacher's fat missus.
"If Lorentz can do it, so can Karo," Josef said, and slapped Lorentz on his chubby shoulder. Lorentz was already puce from the strain of running: his shoulders and chest heaved, and he wheezed as though something inside him had punctured. His face was thick with fat and when you slapped his cheek hard, it would quiver hilariously: even his lips shook, and only his pudgy nose stayed still. His eyes would assume a pleading expression, as if to apologize for his shameful size.
"Look at him, he's disgusting," said Little Anders, pointing at Karo. "He's dribbling, yuck!"
"And he's got legs like a chest of drawers. What kind of a dog does he think he is?"
Karo responded by yapping merrily. He had company, and he had no idea of what lay in store for him. Why should he, the blameless creature? But in our eyes, Karo was no innocent. He was Isager's dog, and he couldn't escape the hatred we felt for our tormentor. As we ran alongside Karo, we pointed out the many similarities between the animal's ugly squashed face and our teacher's.
"All that's missing is the spectacles," Albert said, and we all laughed.
We were heading for the high clay cliffs before Drejet, but Karo, used to only the short journey between his basket and his food bowl, was soon defeated: his stumpy little legs gave out and he collapsed on his belly, drooling from exhaustion.
But he was going to have to stick with it. What we had in mind wasn't something for the open fields.
Hans Jørgen picked him up and cradled him in