Girls, Jello-O, and Song

THE NEXT AFTERNOON there was a party at the crooked blue house at the top of Cannon Avenue. And since the sun was shining even more enthusiastically than the day before, Doctor Proctor, Lisa, and Nilly had brought dining-table chairs, the holey sofa, and the barbecue out into the yard. The entire thrown-together-at-the-last-minute Cannon Avenue band plus neighbors and friends were there. The melting snow gurgled and laughed in the gutters and storm drains as the guests ate their grilled hot dogs. And these weren’t just any old grilled hot dogs; they were South Trøndelag grilled hot dogs, brought to the party by a special guest who had landed his hang glider in the yard earlier that day. And who was now playing Chinese checkers with another special guest.

“I do believe, Your Royal Highness,” Petter said with his mouth full of hot dog, moving the last blue and yellow marble into place, “that I just won.”

The king looked down at the game board and mumbled, “Well, I’ll be!”

Petter tipped his head back and yelled at the blue sky, “Fight, Petter! So wonderful, Petter! Three cheers for Petter! I’m the one and only Petter . . . !”

And then Nilly tapped on his glass with a knife to let everyone know he was going to say something. Silence settled over the snow-covered yard. Nilly leaped up onto his chair and cleared his throat:

“People are strange,” he began. “When we feel like strangling someone, it’s usually one of the people we love the most.”

“Yup!” Nilly’s sister called out.

“We elected Yodolf as president,” Nilly continued. “But it is very human to be fooled and to make mistakes. Yes indeed, even I readily admit that I myself have been wrong on two occasions.”

Lisa, who was sitting next to Nilly, elbowed him in the side. Nilly cleared his throat again:

“Maybe even three times. But what’s important is that you’re brave enough to admit that you made a mistake. In fact, people really ought to make mistakes sometimes. Because how else would you ever get the chance to correct your mistakes?”

Nilly paused to give everyone a chance to mull this over. Then he continued:

“We are here today to celebrate the fact that we fought for something. But what did we actually fight for? The right to be little and know how to spell? Is that important enough to risk wafflization for?”

He looked around.

“Yes,” Lisa said, standing up too. “Because it’s not just about the right to be little or good at spelling. It’s just as much about the right to be big and be bad at spelling. It’s about the right to be both the same and different.”

Lisa and Nilly bowed and sat back down. Applause broke out and Lisa gave her commandant father and commandant mother a stern look so they would understand it was embarrassing that they kept clapping for so long after everyone else had stopped.

“That girl’s going to be prime minister one day,” the king whispered to Gregory and Mrs. Strobe. Then he tapped his knife on his glass and jumped up:

“My fellow countrymen, I too would like to say something. It has been an eventful year, and there is more to come.”

Nilly’s mother yawned so loudly that her jaws made a popping sound.

“But most of all I would like to make a proclamation,” the king said. “Two of the people here today have decided to get engaged. And I’m so proud because they asked if I would be the best man. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you . . . Rosemarie Strobe and Gregory Galvanius.”

Cheers rose through the air, and a smiling, red-cheeked Mrs. Strobe raised her glass for a toast. Then Gregory put his arms around her and asked her loudly if he could have a kiss.

Everyone cheered and Nilly raised his glass of pear juice. “Then with that I declare the war over. Let dessert begin. Because as fate would have it, Doctor Proctor and his fiancée Juliette, who returned home from Paris today, have made Jell-O.”

A long, expectant “ooooh” ran through the crowd and everyone turned toward the blue house, from which the professor and his fiancée had just emerged. Over their heads, their arms straight, they were holding the longest tray anyone had ever seen.

“Th-th-that’s a gigantic Jell-O—that must weigh as mush as a house!”

At the sound of ‘mush,’ it was like everyone in the yard suddenly froze. Everyone stared in horror at the man who’d said it.

“Uh, heh heh,” Mr. Madsen laughed, embarrassed and self-conscious, and then adjusted his sunglasses. “Just kidding.”

And cheers broke out again.

AND WE LEAVE our friends there. We take a hang glider, perhaps, and fly up into the air. Over the yard with that blue house, where they’re still shoveling the longest Jell-O anyone has ever eaten into their mouths. Over the pear tree where a bird is singing about a slightly too early spring. Over the city of Oslo, where people are still dancing in the streets and the sun is shining on everyone. And we follow one of the rays of sunlight, the one that shines down on a manhole cover, through a little hole and on down into Oslo’s jungle of sewer pipes and tunnels. We can maybe hear something smacking its lips down there in the darkness. Full and content. I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t actually believe those old stories. Do you?