The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen

Author:Mette Jakobsen [Jakobsen, Mette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780393345933
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

‘That’s all I have, dead boy. But I will write more later,’ I promised.

I wondered if my story might be true. Perhaps the dead boy really had longed to travel, and that’s how he ended up on a ship. Was it possible that he, like Uncle, had visited every corner of the world? I thought of Uncle and how he had said that out of the many places he had been, some large, some small, our island was by far the most wonderful.

Uncle arrived the morning after the shoe funeral. Papa and I had just gotten up when the boat horn sounded the first time. Dirty plates and glasses still littered the kitchen table from the night before. Papa rolled up his sleeves and began to wash the dishes while I swept. I found five of Priest’s paper napkin buffaloes next to the stove where No Name had slept. They were all chewed up, wet and out of shape, and looked more like little balls than buffaloes.

I had watched the funeral from the lighthouse, seeing them all stand in front of the church, dark clothed and stiff from the icy cold. Papa tried to talk me into coming, but I told him that there was no point: Mama wasn’t dead.

I could see Boxman weep, while Papa hammered the wooden cross into the hard ground. The cross itself was quite crooked; Boxman had offered to help, but Papa had insisted on doing it himself. He worked on the kitchen table for a whole day and made lots of noise. The first two attempts didn’t turn out so well, and we ended up using them to separate the fishing nets when they hung to dry against the wall.

Uncle had never met Mama, and Papa said it was therefore important that the house looked exactly the way she would have wanted it.

‘We need to give your Uncle a good impression,’ he said, handing me a bucket with clean soapy water, ‘of who your mama was.’

Personally I didn’t think Uncle would mind a bit of dust. He had been to every continent, travelled up mountains, down valleys and walked along muddy tracks. He had ridden horses, donkeys and even a cow once, and had definitely seen more than most people. He often sent us long letters about ghost hunting and paranormal phenomena, which is, Papa explained, when you see something that doesn’t make sense.

Papa read the letters out loud over dinner. Sometimes he would pause in the middle of an important sentence and say proudly, ‘More people should hear about this.’ Then he would look at me. ‘It is significant research, Minou.’

Mama would make tea while Papa read. One day, while handing Papa a steaming cup, she said, ‘I thought you were a man of reason. How can you believe in ghosts?’

‘It’s a university study,’ said Papa. ‘They do research.’

Mama shook her head.

‘And he teaches,’ insisted Papa.

Every letter we received from Uncle started the same way, ‘Oh, mon dieu, mon dieu, it’s been too long!’

‘What language is that?’ I asked Mama.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.