He held the piece of bread and jam as level as possible and at the same time tried to flip the little animal over the sand pile it was so desperately struggling to climb, but it kept falling back down. It was a beetle with yellow stripes down its black back, not pretty at all, almost ugly, but it was so sad when it tumbled backwards, so he thought he had to help.
And in the end he did it, an elegant twist of his foot and the beetle was over, and even if he didn’t expect any gratitude, beetles are quiet creatures, then at least a sign, a wave from one of its legs perhaps, but no. The beetle just headed straight for the next sand heap probably thinking Arvid would give assistance once again, like some super-hero, Superman perhaps, but now this was it. Disgusting insect. With the tip of his shoe he kicked the beetle, and it flew in a large arc over the sandpit, but instead of crashing into the log on the other side it unfolded two small wings, looped the loop and banked beautifully across the road and was gone behind Johansen’s Opel Kadett. Why the hell didn’t it do that straight away?
Now it had gone there was nothing else to concentrate on, and he knew that soon he would have to turn round. He could hear them, their soles scraping sand on the tarmac, and they were whispering to each other.
He stared down at his feet as he took a bite of his bread, and they were odd, seen from above, large and alien, as though they didn’t belong to his body at all. He had checked in the mirror a few times, but they were not the same feet at all, because the ones in the mirror were OK. Those strange feet sticking out, and the knees. But the knees were his, he could tell by the grazes. Yet they were strange, nobbly and big, and then someone laughed a nasty laugh, and he would rather have been beaten up than listen to what was coming now, but it came anyway and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Arvid fucks his mum! Arvid fucks his mum!’
They chanted in unison, but that didn’t make it more true, he was only eight years old and hadn’t fucked anyone, and so far he had flatly denied that anyone did such a thing and least of all his mother, but if there was one thing the boys knew about it was his opinions on fucking. That was why they went for him as soon as they had a chance.
‘Arvid fucks his mum! Arvid fucks his mum!’
They would not stop, they just chanted louder and louder, and he felt his fury rising as it always did, even though he tried with all his might to hold it back, and perhaps the worst thing was the way he blushed. With willpower alone he tried to stop it from spreading, but he failed, for just to say that one word aloud was like pulling a trigger, and he had no control over anything, and then he turned and through a mist he saw their faces expanding into huge grins.
It was too late to stop now, so he just smacked his sandwich into the face of the boy closest to him, splashing jam everywhere. The little group howled with joy and shouted:
‘Here it comes! Here it comes! He’s lost it now! Look at him!’
He flailed around, aiming for a face, hit one, maybe two, but then there was a thud above his right eye and he went down with a boy on top of him, and it was Bjørn, who else. Bjørn, who was ten years old and almost a teenager, who had seen all kinds of things and was as strong as the bear he was named after, and Bjørn grabbed Arvid’s hair and forced his head back so they were staring into each other’s eyes. Arvid could feel the tarmac rubbing against the back of his head, and then with rage in his voice Bjørn shouted:
‘When will you get it, you moron. People fuck, or else there wouldn’t be any babies!’
‘Only pigs fuck!’ Arvid screamed back.
‘No! People fuck just like pigs or dogs or horses or monkeys in a cage! Get that into your thick skull!’ Bjørn was almost in tears he was so angry.
‘People aren’t animals! People are people!’
‘Jesus, you’re so hopeless,’ Bjørn said. ‘You won’t even get through school.’ He got up, turned to the others standing round them in a circle, and said:
‘We’re wasting our time. He’s a complete idiot. He’ll end up in remedial class and become an arselicker.’
And so they left, shaking their heads, roaring with laughter, and Arvid was lying on the road, staring up into the air, and he was crying. But they were right, he knew that now, for he had asked Dad, and although Dad coughed and looked away and both of them blushed, he didn’t deny it. It was the only explanation, but it was a lot to take for someone who had just stopped believing in God.
People fucked. Or else there wouldn’t be any babies. That’s the way it was. But he would never do it, wouldn’t want to or dare to or manage to, and he couldn’t care less whether he had children or not. But he felt strangely sad when he thought about that particular thing.