Supermassive by Nina Rossing

Author:Nina Rossing [Rossing, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harmony Ink Press
Published: 2014-07-15T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

I COME home from school on Friday, happy about a full week’s winter break, and I hear Magni rustling about in the crammed barn as I enter to park my bike. I hope she’s not planning on tidying the place up now that I have a relaxing week of sleeping in and slouching about to look forward to.

I might go for a few workouts on the splendid bike, because the ride home today was a wonder: the roads lacquered with crammed hard-packed snow that gave my tires the perfect grip. Even the long truck passing me at high speed with a whoosh of surging air threatening to suck me in couldn’t shake off the sharp feeling of simple, calming joy mixed with a rush of adrenaline. The danger passing me today was a scary piece of tasty dessert enhancing the experience. It reminds me of the old Ing, the one who took risks and fell out of trees and off bikes and dived into chilly summer rivers.

“Ing! Help me move these boxes. I have to get to the back room over there, behind the car, to fetch the skis.”

“Okay, coming, must climb the mountain of trash first,” I joke. “Going skiing?”

“Yes, and you’ll use Tim’s old pair, and there are enough old ski boots to choose from too.” Me skiing? I’ve avoided that topic since my arrival, and seeing as she’s never been an avid skier herself, I lulled myself into believing this part of the northern life would skip me by, unassumingly and free of any demands. Fate and my grandmother have other plans.

“What will I do with skis? I’m not skiing. I’ve hardly ever tried it.” I’ve skied, like, twice in my life. I was eight or ten. We were at Magni’s for Christmas, and I got a brand new pair from my seafaring uncle. I cried from disappointment, since he usually got me exciting stuff like pirate chests or Japanese gadgets. Luckily, he was out on the seas and spared the sight of his ungrateful, bratty relative’s reaction.

“Well, we run the annual Midnight Ski Festival at the end of next week. You’ll have all winter break to practice. No worries.”

“Worries? I’m not skiing.” Born in a country where the natives are supposedly born with skis, I can attest to the utter nonsense of this myth. Plopping out at the nearest hospital in the middle of winter, at night during a record-breaking snowfall, no skis came attached to my tiny, naked baby feet. In an album on Magni’s bookshelf, on page one, there’s a picture of the newborn me, still yucky-sticky with goo, my bare feet sticking out from the blanket and my tiny hand grabbing my dad’s finger while my mother watches me with pure wonder in her laughing eyes.

I can’t think about it, won’t, the picture too happy to bear.

Snap out of it, snap out of it.

Magni’s babbling about the skis takes me back from the painful place.

“Sure you are!” she says. “You have to uphold the family tradition.

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