That was when I broke down. I couldn’t take it anymore. I staggered across the broad street in front of the hotel and over the wide sidewalk to the steel-tube fence that ran along the edge of the water, where people stood to take in the spectacular view of the palace and the older town. And I started to cry.
I buried my face in my hands and didn’t look up for a long time. But after a few minutes I felt my grandfather’s hand on my shoulder…not his real hand. I imagined it.
I thought about what he would say if he were here beside me. He’d tell me to get ahold of myself, to get off my butt and find a way to locate him, no matter how impossible the situation might seem. I straightened up. I had passed a number of policemen since I’d crossed the last bridge, and there were several within sight right now. I should go into a restaurant, a fast-food place, there were American ones here, and go to the washroom and clean myself up and then find a cop and speak to him in a clear, mature voice and convince him that I wasn’t a street kid and that I needed help. Wouldn’t he help someone like that? But the terror I’d been feeling started invading me again. What if he wouldn’t listen? I was in deep trouble in this foreign city. I dropped my head again and fought myself, trying not to collapse. This is stupid, I told myself. Just talk to someone, anyone—they’ll help you. Then I felt a real hand on my shoulder. It was smaller than Grandpa’s and gentler.
“Mr. Adam?”
I looked up and saw Greta, the weird girl, peering at me. I pretended to notice something across the water and turned my face toward it, running my hand quickly across my eyes and wiping them as best I could.
“Were you crying?”
“No.”
“You’re awfully sensitive.”
“Stop saying that!”
“I only said it twice!”
“I’m not crying. It’s windy out here. The wind is in my eyes.”
“Sure,” she said, popping up the stand on her bike and then leaning against the railing with me, looking out across the water as if we were together or something. The monkey stared out with us, one of the gang. None of us uttered a word for a while. All we could hear were the sounds of Stockholm…and maybe my pounding heart.
“I’m not a crier,” she said suddenly. “Haven’t cried once, ever.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Well, maybe once or twice, but not very often. I bet you don’t believe that.”
“I don’t care.”
“I bet you think all girls are criers. If I went around crying all the time, I’d be in deep trouble. In fact, I’d be dead.” She smiled. It was a pretty goofy smile, wide and genuine, framed by that red hair and ponytails, and it almost made me smile back. I looked away quickly.
“I really don’t care,” I said.
“You should never judge a book by its cover or a girl by her appearance.” She paused for a few seconds and smiled again. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”
“Not bad,” I said.
“I hope you don’t grow up to be one of those guys who judges girls by their looks. A lot of guys turn out that way, and it sucks. It’s what’s inside that matters, you know. Character…that sort of thing.”
“Aren’t you the philosopher.”
“No, I’m not a philosopher, I’m a kid, and I plan to grow up to be the prime minister of Sweden, or maybe the secretary-general of the United Nations. I don’t think being a philosopher would pay well.”
“I didn’t mean that you actually were.”
“Well, you said it.”
Wow, what a fruitcake.
“So are you going to spend the rest of the night here, leaning against the fence crying?”
“I wasn’t crying!”
“Man, you really are sensitive.”
I started walking away, but she kicked up the stand on her bike and followed me, her monkey shrieking and pointing at me as if to say, He’s getting away! Follow him!
“I’ve got a dare for you,” she said.
“Go away.”
“I bet you are going to stay around here somewhere and eyeball the hotel until whomever it was you were with, some adult, comes back and saves you. Failing that, you’ll give up and with a trembling heart ask some other adult, some stranger, to solve everything for you. Who are you with? Who is your knight in shining armor?”
“It’s my grandfather, David McLean, and what if I am waiting for him?”
“It’s boring, and what if he never comes back? What if he has abandoned you?”
A bolt of terror shot through me. I wished she would just shut up.
“He’ll be back. He has to come back.”
“Why?”
“Because he cares about me and because he came here with me and will, you know, kind of notice that something seems to be missing. I’m sure he’s frantic and out there somewhere”—I looked at the city—“desperately searching for me.”
“People who are close to you and loving you sometimes just disappear,” she said in a lower voice, almost as if she were saying it to herself.
I tried not to look petrified. What if Grandpa had really done that? Why had he brought me to Sweden in the first place? I thought about all the meetings he’d had, visiting mysterious “friends.”
“It’s absurd to wait around here,” said Greta. “You’re only doing it because you are afraid. You could never live on your own like I do.”
“Yes, I could.”
“Then prove it. Here, I’ll give you a few kronor,” she said, and she reached into her pocket and brought out some colorful Swedish money. “See if you have the courage to go off on your own into Stockholm for a while, just a while, and buy a meal, and survive, like I do… like a girl.”
I looked down at the money and then up at her face, which was set in a hard expression, her lips held tightly together, her eyes narrowed.
“You can’t do it, can you?”
I paused for a second and then swiped the money out of her hand and walked in the direction of downtown Stockholm, away from the hotel and the Gamla Stan and everything that provided me with even a touch of comfort, including Greta Longrinen.