That evening, Freja stood at the kitchen table, a haze of flour dust hanging in the air. Her sleeves were pushed up around her elbows and a piece of eggshell dangled from one of her curls. The backs of all four chairs were draped with fine, long strips of fettuccine. The carved wooden seal sat amidst a pile of pasta scraps and the felt hare lay on top of a jam jar.
‘We cook with our eyes and nose and mouth and these,’ Freja said, wriggling her floury fingers. She giggled, satisfied that she had perfectly mimicked Nonna Rosa’s croaky Italian accent. Cracking another egg, Freja used her fingertips to blend it with the mound of flour on the table. Then she worked the whole into a round of smooth, silky pasta dough.
She skipped to the kitchen door and stuck her head into the living room. ‘I’m nearly finished the last batch of pasta. We can leave it out to dry overnight, then cook it tomorrow, if you like?’
‘Uh-huh,’ muttered Tobias, not really listening. He was standing in front of the desk, scratching his head with a nib pen. Red ink dripped from its point and ran down his forehead. He looked like he’d just received a nasty blow to the head.
‘I hope it washes off,’ whispered Freja, and she returned to her pasta-making.
Finnegan was working his way, slowly but surely, through the contents of the kitchen bin. So far, this evening, Freja had seen him eat a dry knob of bread, a fish head, two rejected pages of Tobias’ manuscript, a tissue, a cockroach and three rotten figs. Now he was chewing a pork sausage covered in ants. The ants were obviously annoyed at the idea of being eaten and kept escaping his mouth and biting his lips. Finnegan thrashed around the kitchen, shaking his head, swiping his nose with his front paws and banging into the cupboard doors. A carton of milk toppled over on the bench and milk dribbled onto the floor, so once the dog had rid himself of the last pesky ant, he slurped that up too.
‘Now, what to make next . . .’ Freja stared at her ball of pasta dough. ‘I know! Arctic animal ravioli!’ She rolled the pasta into a thin sheet, then used the tip of a knife to cut out a seal, a hare and a moose. She stepped back to survey the shapes.
‘Hmmm,’ she murmured, hands on hips. ‘The seal and the hare look just fine. But the moose looks blobby. I need a picture to copy.’
Finnegan licked some flour from behind her knee. Freja giggled and slipped into the living room.
‘Tobias!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing?’
But the writer did not answer. He was standing on his desk, painting an elaborate diagram across the wall of the apartment. In black ink. Except for the bits where he had used red ink. The soft, powdery plaster of the wall absorbed the colour like a sponge soaking up water.
Freja muttered, ‘That’s not going to scrub off.’ She stepped a little closer and realised that Tobias was drawing a kind of story map, including mountain ranges, climbing routes, caves and critical points where attacks, accidents and natural disasters might occur.
‘I’m just getting a picture of a moose,’ said Freja. Her scrapbook lay on the desk near Tobias’ left foot. She reached across and grabbed it.
‘Hmmm. Goodo,’ murmured Tobias, without looking down. He dipped a fine brush into a pot of black ink and drew a long dotted line from the crest of a mountain right down to the valley below. He put the black ink down on his desk and picked up the pot of red ink. He dipped in a new brush and painted a fat red question mark where the dotted line ended. He tucked the brush behind his ear and stared at the ceiling.
Freja shrugged and returned to her pasta-making once more. She finished cutting out the animal shapes and filled them with jam.
Stepping back, arms folded, she surveyed her handiwork. ‘Perfect,’ she declared. ‘Fettuccine for Tobias and me. Ravioli for Finnegan.’
Freja returned to the living room. ‘I’m finished!’ she announced. ‘It’s all ready for cooking tomorrow.’
Tobias wrote a final note on his wall diagram, screwed the lids back on his ink bottles and stuffed them into his pocket. He blinked down at the floury girl and slowly, vaguely, drifted back into the apartment and real life.
‘Well done, old chap!’ he cried at last. ‘Making your own pasta with nothing more than flour and eggs and your wits is quite a feat! We’ll make a chef of you yet . . . or a magician! In fact, you are so jolly clever, you can probably be whatever you want to be!’
Freja smiled.
Finnegan sauntered into the living room, licking a plug of pasta out of his left nostril. One of his hind feet was stuck in a yoghurt container and made a light clicking noise on the floor tiles. He stopped at Freja’s side for a pat, yawned, then stretched out beside the open fire.
Tobias half-leapt, half-slipped from the desk. A pile of journals toppled to the floor. He kicked them aside, flopped on the sofa and patted the seat beside him. ‘Time to listen up, old chap!’
Freja sat down, tucking her knees underneath her oversized pinafore — which was really one of Tobias’ knitted vests. She wrapped her arms around her legs and smiled, all teeth and sparkling eyes.
Tobias reflected her smile. ‘The thing is,’ he began, ‘we must do something about your schooling.’
‘Why?’ asked Freja.
‘Why?’ repeated Tobias. ‘Hmmm. Good question. A jolly important one to answer, I suppose. Well, let me see. First of all, there’s your future to consider. Whether you want to be a chef or an astronaut —’
‘Or a crime writer,’ said Freja.
‘Yes! Good choice! But then . . . well . . . Nonna Rosa and Vivi have both asked about your schooling . . . and then there’s your mother . . .’
‘But Clementine’s not here,’ Freja whispered. ‘She’s in Switzerland.’ She could have added ‘in the clinic’, but she hated to think of such a place. Clementine should be outdoors, sitting on a mountain top watching fawns frolic, standing by the sea watching walruses wallow. And Freja should be with her.
‘Hmmm,’ agreed Tobias. ‘Clementine might not be here with us, but I do think that she is expecting you to do a spot of schooling.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that matters,’ said Freja.
‘But education is of paramount importance!’ cried Tobias.
‘Oh, of course! Education is brilliant. I love it.’ She frowned. ‘It’s schooling I don’t like.’
Tobias ran a hand through his mop of hair and rubbed the back of his neck.
‘School is scary,’ whispered Freja. She picked at some loose wool at the elbow of Tobias’ cardigan. ‘I tried it once and I didn’t fit in. The other children thought I was odd. I was odd. I didn’t belong. And if you send me to school now, I still won’t fit in.’
Tobias nodded as though he understood.
‘I’m not normal,’ she whispered.
‘Good heavens!’ cried Tobias, throwing his hands in the air. His face was filled with horror. ‘Of course you’re not normal! What a ghastly thing to contemplate. No, no, no, no, no! You, old chap, are a wonderfully unique child of great intelligence, astonishing creativity and marvellous appearance. I mean, just look at your hair today. It’s like a haystack in a hurricane. Magnificent! Nobody else has anything quite like it.’
A blush spread across Freja’s cheeks and the hint of a smile returned to her lips. But the nasty matter of school lingered in the air.
‘So school is scary,’ said Tobias.
Freja nodded. ‘And it’s dull. How can I possibly learn anything important from making papier-mâché crocodiles out of egg cartons . . . or growing an onion in a vase of water . . . or writing a story called “My Life as an Avocado”?’
‘Oh dear! How indeed? Is that really what they subject you to in schools these days?’
Freja nodded again, her eyes wide and serious. ‘I think it’s always been that way.’
Tobias rubbed his chin. ‘Hmmm, yes. I seem to recall a similar range of lessons. Although, in my day, we did crayon rubbings of bark, grew wheat in a saucer of damp cotton wool and wrote a story called “My Life as a Turnip”. They were simpler times, I suppose — turnips instead of avocados and what not.’
‘You see? School is a waste of time,’ said Freja. ‘There’s just no point to it.’
‘Well, it does seem that way. It’s jolly awful!’ Tobias frowned and tugged absent-mindedly at some eggy curls that stuck out from the top of Freja’s head. ‘But the thing is, old chap, you need an education.’
‘But I’m getting one!’ Freja replied. ‘Why, just this week I have explored half a dozen historic sights, learnt about ancient Roman mythology, read a medical journal on lung failure at high altitudes, made pasta and bread, found my way around the city using a map, visited a bookstore, met a monkey, listened to music, tasted lots of new food and mastered the art of picking a lock with a bobby pin.’
Tobias rubbed his jaw, obviously impressed.
‘And there’s more,’ said Freja. Dashing to the kitchen, she returned with her scrapbook and placed it on Tobias’ lap. ‘I have filled two whole pages with all the Italian words I now know. I’m afraid there might be a couple of rude ones, but Enzo and his friends don’t always remember that I can hear them from Nonna Rosa’s kitchen.’
Tobias ran his finger down the neatly written list.
‘And then there’s this.’ Freja turned the page and unfolded a giant piece of paper that stretched from one side of the sofa to the other. A third of the page was covered in a finely drawn map that included buildings, food, people, fountains, parks, stairways and motor scooters.
‘It’s a map of Rome. I’ve been drawing it since we arrived. Every time we visit somewhere new, I memorise as many of the details as I can, then when I get home I add them to my map. I try to draw the churches and the fountains and the old Roman ruins just as they are. I’ve even included the people we’ve met and the special food we’ve eaten. Look! There’s Nonna Rosa with a bowl of gnocchi. And there’s the gelateria where we first tried raspberry gelato. It’s like your story map on the wall, except mine’s real. It’s a type of diary, so Clementine will be able to see all the things I’ve done.’
Tobias stared at the map, open mouthed. ‘It’s brilliant, old chap. So much colour and detail and joy! A true work of art. I’ve never seen anything quite like it!’
‘I’m sure there are many more things I’ve learnt,’ said Freja, folding the map back into the scrapbook, ‘but I’m too tired to recall them all right now. I have just made four chairsful of fettuccine and twelve pieces of jam ravioli in the shape of Arctic animals.’
‘Jam ravioli?’ asked Tobias.
‘Jam ravioli in the shape of Arctic animals!’ Freja emphasised.
‘Impressive!’ cried Tobias. ‘They won’t teach you that at school.’
Freja stared up at him, holding her breath.
‘Well, that’s sorted then,’ Tobias declared.
Freja let out a sigh of relief. Then, quite unexpectedly — for both girl and writer — she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’
‘Oh, it’s nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing,’ Tobias babbled, pleased and confused at the same time. ‘Now why don’t you run along and take a bath? Wash the flour and egg from your face . . . and your hair . . . and well, frankly, from the rest of you. I’ll clean up the kitchen, pull the yoghurt pot from Finnegan’s foot and wipe the jam from his ears. Then, when you’re done, I’ll tuck you into bed and read you a lovely bedtime story.’ Tobias dropped to the floor and started rustling around beneath his desk. ‘I’ll see if I can find that old KGB journal from the Soviet Union. It’s all about disguises — how to use them, how to see through them. There’s a fascinating story about an American spy. He pretended to be a clown in the Moscow Circus, but made one tragic mistake. The plastic flower that he wore pinned to his braces squirted water three metres further than the Soviet-made water-squirting flowers. Only the Americans made such efficient squirting mechanisms at the time, so it gave him away. He was arrested and thrown into a prison where he had to use a bucket for a toilet and was fed nothing but black bread and water for twenty-seven years. Fascinating stuff. Just the sort of thing I like to read at bedtime.’
‘Me too!’ agreed Freja, and she skipped away, thinking that Tobias really did have all areas of her education sorted.