Read Online Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist - Free Book Online Page B

sounded like a small machine. In the corner of his eye Oskar saw the girl get up from her perch in the monkey bars. He kept working, creating a new onecolored side. The girl stood still. He felt a flicker of worry in his stomach but took no notice of her.
    "You here again?"
    Oskar lifted his head, pretending to be surprised, let a few seconds pass and then:
    "You again."
    The girl said nothing and Oskar twisted the Cube again. His fingers were stiff. It was hard to tell the colors apart in the dark and so he only worked with the white side that was easiest to differentiate.
    "Why are you sitting here?"
    "Why are you up there?"
    "I came here to be by myself."
    "Me too."
    "So why don't you go home?"
    "You go home. I've lived here longer than you."
    Take that. The white side was done now and it was harder to keep going. The other colors were one big dark gray blur. He kept moving pieces, at random.
    The next time he looked up the girl was standing on the railing and getting ready to jump. Oskar felt a quiver in his tummy when she hit the ground; if he had tried the same jump he would have hurt himself. But the girl landed as softly as a cat, walked over to him. He turned back to the Cube. She stopped right in front of him.
    "What's that?"
    Oskar looked up at the girl, at the Cube, then back at the girl.
    "This?"
    "Yes."
    "You don't know?"
    "No."
    "It's a Rubik's Cube."
    "What did you say?"
    This time Oskar overenunciated the words.
    "Ru-bik's Cube."
    "And what's that?"
    Oskar shrugged.
    "A toy."
    "A puzzle?"
    "Yes."
    Oskar held the Cube out to her.
    "Want to try it?"
    She took the Cube from his hand, turned it, examined it from all sides. Oskar laughed. She looked like a monkey examining a piece of fruit.
    "You really haven't seen one before?"
    "No. What do you do?"
    "Like this . . ."
    Oskar got the Cube back and the girl sat down next to him. He showed her how you turned it and that the point was to get the sides to be one color. She took the Cube and started to turn it.
    "Can you see the colors?"
    "Naturally."
    He snuck glances at her while she was working on the Cube. She was wearing the same pink top as yesterday and he couldn't understand why she wasn't freezing. He was starting to get cold from sitting still, even though he was wearing his jacket.
    Naturally.
    She talked funny too, like a grown-up. Maybe she was older than him, even though she was so puny. Her thin white throat jutted out of her turtleneck top, merged with a sharp jaw bone. Like a mannequin. But now the wind blew in Oskar's direction and he swallowed, breathed through his mouth. The mannequin stank.
    Doesn't she ever take a bath?
    The smell was worse than old sweat; it was closer to the smell that came when you removed the bandage from an infected wound. And her hair ... When he dared to take a closer look at her—she was completely absorbed by the Cube—he noticed that her hair was caked together and fell around her face in matted tufts and clumps. As if she had put glue or ... mud in it.
    While he was studying her, he happened to breathe in through his nose and had to suppress the urge to vomit. He got up, walked over to the swings, and sat down. Couldn't be close to her. The girl didn't seem to care.
    After a while he got up and walked over to where she was sitting, still preoccupied with the Cube.
    "Hey there, I have to go home now."
    "Mmm..."
    "The Cube ..."
    The girl paused. Hesitated for a moment, then held the Cube out to him without saying anything. Oskar took it, looked at her and then handed it back.
    "You can keep it until tomorrow."
    She didn't take it.
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "I may not be here tomorrow."
    "Until the day after tomorrow, then. But you can't have it for longer than that."
    She thought about it. Took the Cube.
    "Thanks. I'll probably be here tomorrow."
    "Here?"
    "Yes."
    "OK. Bye."
    "Bye."
    As Oskar turned and left he heard softs creaks from the Cube. She was going to stay out here in her thin top. Her mother and father must be . ..