Read Online Nothing by Janne Teller - Free Book Online Page A

anything, was nervous and abrupt and couldn’t get to the sawmill quick enough. Only Richard seemed unperturbed, though only until they reached the sawmill and the code on the lock didn’t work. Then he went berserk, yelling and screeching and kicking at the door to the sawmill and then at the trailer, so Jesus on theRosewood Cross fell and broke his other leg too.
    Holy Karl went completely hysterical and said that it was blasphemy to break the legs of Jesus, and now they couldn’t give Jesus on the Rosewood Cross back to the church after they’d convinced Pierre Anthon that Jesus was part of the meaning, and Holy Karl would never be able to show his face in church ever again. Then Jon-Johan barked at Holy Karl and told him to shut his mouth, for wasn’t it Jesus himself who said that all sinners would be forgiven if only they believed in him? And this actually made Holy Karl shut up and almost smile again, and then they got the lock to work, since they’d just remembered the code wrong.
    But now a new problem arose.
    When they lugged Jesus on the Rosewood Cross into the sawmill, Sørensen’s Cinderella went amok.
    Amok. More amok. Amokker-fokker, stupid dog!
    Cinderella started barking like crazy andsnapping at them every time they tried to carry Jesus over to the heap of meaning. And eventually they had to go home and leave Jesus lying in the moldy sawdust in the middle of the floor.
    ————
    It was a real problem, the matter of Jesus and the rosewood cross in the sawdust.
    There were others besides Holy Karl who didn’t think it proper. Cinderella, however, didn’t care whether it was proper or not and refused to let Jesus anywhere near the heap of meaning. It didn’t matter what we did.
    Did. Diddle. Diddly-dog!
    No amount of coaxing or tidbits made any impression on her, and none of us wanted to get on the wrong side of those snapping jaws. After several hours we were feeling like giving up and going home. It was getting close to suppertime. But then I remembered the night we’d taken the coffin with little Emil Jensen inside.
    “Maybe she thinks it’s Jesus who took Sørensen away from her,” I suggested.
    “So it was, too,” Otto said, laughing.
    “No, seriously,” I persisted.
    “Yeah, seriously.” Otto laughed, and I got mad.
    Elise broke in and said I was right, and that we’d never get Jesus and the rosewood cross onto the heap of meaning as long as Cinderella was keeping guard of it.
    We thought about what she said for a long while, for Jesus on the Cross somehow wasn’t going to matter much in the final count if he didn’t get onto the heap.
    “We’ll just chop him up into smaller pieces,” Huge Hans suggested.
    “No!” exclaimed Holy Karl.
    And even though none of us could care less about Holy Karl as far as this was concerned, neither did any of us think it was a good idea. It was like the meaning would go out of Jesus if we chopped him up into pieces.
    “Then we’ll paint him black, so Cinderella won’t recognize him,” Sebastian suggested.
    “No, it won’t be the same,” Jon-Johan protested, and all of us agreed with him: A black Jesus wasn’t quite the same.
    “What if we put Jesus on the heap while I’m out walking Cinderella?” suggested Elise, and now no one had any objections.
    The same evening after supper we went back to the sawmill.
    ————
    Elise put Cinderella on the leash, and as soon as they were out the door, Jon-Johan and Huge Hans took a hold of Jesus and lugged him over to the heap of meaning. Jesus was too heavy to be put on top, so instead they placed him so he stood leaned up against the heap. The Dannebrog was aloft, a boxing glove slid down and disappeared from sight, the snake in formaldehyde rolled ominously, and Oscarlittle squealed.
    Jesus on the Rosewood Cross was a part of the heap of meaning!
    Out of consideration for Cinderella’s feelings, we’d placed Jesus as far from little Emil’s coffin as he could get, way over on the