Chapter 4: The Vacation begins
There was a buzz outside Jenny´s
house the morning of departure. Everyone was excited. Jim and Mike had been up
as early as 5 in
the morning to get ready and when they arrived, Jenny and her parents had
already set up the family´s luggage in the gigantic courtyard prepared for
packing. The entire setup had Jenny´s dad, Robert, written all over it.
Suitcases and bags had been sorted in size and type and placed in well defined
rows and columns. He was a Captain in the army reserves and loved the
systematic approach to any problem, that being people, animals or objects. He
was just coming out with a cooler box in his hands as Jim and Mike came
strolling down the driveway with one bag each for the week. He set the cooler
down and welcomed them heartily.
“Gentlemen!” he greeted them his
arms wide apart. He shook their hands after turn while commending them for
their foresight to not bring more luggage than they did. Then he leaned forward
and said in such a low voice he might as well have whispered:
“Those women in there don´t know when
to stop.” He glanced over his shoulder to ensure they hadn´t come out yet and
then continued:
“You should think they were going
to a deserted island for several years with all that rubbish they want to
bring.”
He paused for a bit and then
leaned forward again.
“Don´t tell them I said so,” he
pleaded, “or I´ll be in big trouble.” They both nodded in agreement and Mike
even saluted Mr. Mason.
“Yes, sir!” he snapped, “you can
count on us, sir! We won´t say a word!”
“About what?” Jenny said. She had
just come out of the house and was setting down the biggest trunk, any of the
two boys had ever seen. ‘Flump!’ it sounded as the one side hit the rubble.
“What aren´t you going to say a
word about?” she repeated as she approached them.
“If we were to tell you, we would
need to use words, wouldn´t we?” Jim said, “and that´s exactly what we promised
not to do, isn´t it?” Jenny looked to Mike, but no winnings there either. She
set her arms in her side and straightened up.
“I might just begin to regret I
even invited you on this trip,” she said, but with a smile on her face to let them
know she was just kidding.
“Oh, no, daughter dearest,” Mr.
Mason broke in, “first of all, though it was your idea to begin with, you did
not invite these fine gentlemen. Your mother and I did. Secondly, this will be
my first vacation since I married your mother, where there will be other male
participants and I´d be an idiot if I let that chance pass me by. So, my dear:
they´re staying! You mark my words, young lady.”
Jenny looked at them one by one
trying to keep up appearances, but it didn´t last long. She burst into laughter
and started tripping her feet and waving her arms wildly above her head.
“We are going to Denmark
All that dancing and singing
brought Jenny´s mum outside. She held a plate in one hand and a drying towel in
the other.
“What´s going on out here?” she
asked. Jenny passed her by with a secretive look on her face.
“The boys have secrets,” she
said, “and they are not willing to share them with us.”
Mrs. Mason lit up in a big smile.
“Everyone is entitled to have
secrets,” she said, “In fact, I´ve got a few of my own, waiting in the kitchen
for you besides toast, bacon and eggs. Come get your breakfast before it gets
cold.”
The last bit she yelled out to
the three gentlemen still standing by the car, but as soon as Mike heard the
word ‘breakfast’ he practically flew over the bags and boxes and rushed inside
with Jim and Mr. Mason on his tail.
It was a breakfast for royals and
they all dug in deep, except for Jim who barely touched his food.
“You´re awfully quiet this
morning,” Mrs. Mason remarked, “Isn´t there anything here that appeals to you?”
He looked up.
“I´m sorry, Mrs. Mason, “ he
answered, “It really looks great. I´m just not in the mood for anything.”
“I´m sorry to hear that,” Mrs.
Mason said, “You do look a bit sad. I thought you would be thrilled about the
trip.”
“I was,” he replied, “till last
night, that is...” She gave him the ‘and now?’ look and he continued: “Well, I
might as well tell you now.” He looked round the table hoping for comfort. Both
Jenny and her parents looked at him. Mike was still busy eating. Then he
dropped the bomb.
“I´m adopted,” he shrugged
looking lost. Jenny put down her fork and knife and they all had their eyes
fixed on him. Even Mike who had his mouth full of delicious pan cake stopped
chewing.
“You´re what?” Mike spat pieces
of pan cake as he spoke.
“My parents told me last night,”
Jim explained, “right after the twins were tugged in. I´m adopted.”
Mrs. Mason felt his dispair and put
her arm around his shoulder.
“They wanted to wait till after
summer,” he continued, “but I found the papers and they had to come clean.” A drop
of salty water crawled down his left cheek, but he didn´t want them to see, so
he pretended to not notice. Then maybe, they wouldn´t notice either.
“Look at me, Jim!” the
authoritive, but kind voice of Mr. Mason commanded. Jim did and met the comforting
eyes of Mr. Mason.
“It doesn´t matter, Jim,” Mr.
Mason said, “I know this must be a chocker right before leaving for vacation.
But it doesn´t matter, Jim. They love you! Your parents? They love you! I know
they do, because I know your parents... and they love you!” There was a short
silence and then Mrs. Mason pulled him closer.
“And so do we, Jim,” she said
wholeheartedly.
“I know,” Jim said, “That they
love me, I mean. It´s just that... I don´t know... I just feel...”
Mr. Mason helped him out.
“Lost?” he said.
“Well, yeah... I suppose I do...”
Mr. Mason leaned forward.
“Jim,” he said, “it´s only natural
to feel lost, but you´re safe and sound with us and we are going to have a
splendid holiday these 3 weeks. Let it sink in and we´ll talk some more later,
okay?“
Jim nodded with a smile and they
ate the rest of the meal in silence.
***
Thor´s
quiet staring made Loki uneasy. He really hated that look and found it hard to
decide if it was meant as caring or demeaning.
“I´m
sorry?” Thor said.
Most
of the crew probably hadn´t noticed, but Loki heard the anger behind his soft
voice.
“That´s
what I said,” Loki explained, “somehow the console was moved and they are
researching it as we speak. That´s why I chose to speed up the gathering on the
Island . Both Tjalfe and Roeskva are on their
way, but I´m afraid they brought some friends with them...”
He
shrugged as he continued: “...and I can´t see how we can contain it, unless we
bring them up to date.”
Thor
looked at his friend trying to hide his disappointment, though he wasn´t very
succesful.
“And
how long have the scientists known about the console?” he asked.
Loki
breathed in and leaned back in his chair.
“Well,
I suppose that´s the good news. They´ve had the console for almost a century,
but they still haven´t figured it out...”
***
“Come on girls. We´re leaving,”
Mr. Mason called from the car, “We´ve got a boat to catch and it´s not waiting
for us. We´re not the royal family, you know!” Mike and Jim were already
sitting in the car, but as usual Jenny and her mum had very important facial
refurbishing to do before they could leave. Mike had his mouth full of a candy
bar he had brought with him, but when Jenny appeared in the door his jaw
dropped to his chest and the suliva smerged chokolate fell into his lap. His
eyes were wide open as he looked upon the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
It was as if the light of the sun tenderly caressed her red hair and she was most
definitely glowing.
“Wauw!” he let out, “She is HOT!”
Mr. Mason turned around in his
seat.
“Ahem!” he said, ”That´s my
daughter you´re talking about, Mr. Baker.”
Mike was startled and confused.
“Oh, I´m sorry... I... I.. I
didn´t mean to...” he tried explaining himself.
“Take it easy, Mike,” Mr. Mason
smiled to ease Mike´s terrified look, “I´m just fooling around.”
Then he leaned a bit toward the
back of the car his eyes narrowed and fixed on Mike.
“Unless of course your intensions
are less than honorable, Mr. Baker!”
“No, Mr. Mason!” Mike replied,
again bewildered, “I don´t like Jenny... I mean, not like that... I mean...
She... ehm... I...”
Mr. Mason burst into laughter.
“Ha!” he said, “Gotcha!”
Jenny and Mrs. Mason entered the
car and of course they noticed the sudden silence.
“What´s going on?” Jenny asked.
Mr. Mason started the engine and
they moved up the driveway.
“Men´s stuff,” he said,
“Honorable men´s stuff!”
It was a long trip from the Mason
residence down to Harwich, where the boat departed. Almost two hours of heavy
traffic. The first half hour Jenny, Mike and Jim had a marvellous time chit
chatting in the back of the car, where they sat on a row playing cards.
But after a while, Jim found
himself drifting away and looking out the window.
The typical English rain had set
in, making the scenery outside looking like something from an old silent movie,
only with a hint of color in the else gray picture.
Coming out on the motorway Mr.
Mason sped up to the allowed 70
mph , no more, no less. With this speed it was more
difficult to make out the scenery out there, but nevertheless, Jim still
enjoyed watching the trees. As they went under a bridge near Springfield
A bang and a flash broke the sky
into pieces again and slowly it faded back in its right place. The zig-zaggy
lines of the flash sort of disappeared into the dark gray. Except for one place
where it seemed to stay for a while. Bang! Flash! Again the lines faded away
and once again he noticed that little spot in ske skies where the light didn´t
disappear. After a while that one light even seemed to glow. Stronger and
stronger it glowed. What is that? He
thought to himself, but before he could give it anymore thought, the light
started moving. Swoosj! Right across the sky it swooped like something from one
of those old fashioned Science Fiction movies from the 50´s. The light went
over a hill top and was gone.
“What?” Jenny said. She was
sitting next to Jim and had just pushed her elbow in his side.
“What did you just say, Jim?”
He turned his head toward her. “I
didn´t say anything,” he answered.
“Yes, you did,” Mike supported
her, “What was it?”
Jim looked at them. What are they getting at? Is this a joke? If
it is, it´s not a very good one.
“Look, guys, it´s not funny,” he
said clearly annoyed, “I didn´t say anything, okay?”
“Alright,” Mike said leaning back
in a defensive position, “if you say so.”
Jim was really getting irritated
now gazing at them with a fierce look in his eyes.
“Okay, then,” he said, “what do
you think I said?”
They both shrugged.
“Don´t know,” Mike said, “didn´t
make any sense. You just made some weird noises, really.”
“Yeah,” Jenny contributed, “or some
kind of strange language.”
Jim looked puzzled and angry at
the same time.
“Weird sounds? Strange language?”
he said, “Could you make up your minds, please?”
“Kind of the same to me,” Mike
said, “But it sounded like...”
Mike paused and looked to Mr. and
Mrs. Mason to be sure they weren´t listening in. Then he leaned over Jenny and
whispered:
“like ‘Ass and Ham’ or
something...”
“Mike!” the ever behavior focused
Jenny scolded him, “language!”
Her eyes squewed at her parents,
but they didn´t seem to notice anything.
“Well, it did!” Mike defended
himself, “You heard it too!”
They were silent and looked at
each other for a while, but then Mr. Mason startled them.
“There we are!” he proclaimed
loudly, “The port to The Viking Nation awaits our presence!”
Outside the rain had stopped and
the sun lurked through the white edged clouds casting beams of cheerful light
on both port and boat. The windows of the boat reflected the sunlight as it
swayed calmly on the water as if it knew they were coming and wanted to let
them know how welcome they were.
Mr. Mason drove through the
paying booth and parked the car as directed by the staff placed strategically
throughout the parking zone. They had to wait for half an hour before they
could drive aboard, so Jenny´s parents allowed them to stretch their legs.
“Don´t go too far, mind you,”
Jenny´s mum said, “you should always be able to see the car.”
The three of them began walking
toward the water.
“Keep your phones on, so you can
hear them if I call you,” Mrs. Mason yelled, “And don´t go too near the water,
you hear!”
“Sure, mum, no, mum” Jenny waved
and turned her back to her mother.
“She´s such a drag sometimes,”
she mumbled.
“At least she worries,” Mike
replied, “My mum´ll let me play with knifes, if I want to.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jenny replied,
“but it still can be quite annoying.”
They turned about 20 feet before the water
front and walked along the edge talking about how they were all looking forward
to three weeks of absolute freedom to do whatever they wanted.
“My dad says the Island is haunted,” Jenny said, “did I tell you that?”
“Yes, you did,” Jim answered,
“several times, in fact. I think we got it about now, though we are so
unbelievable slow in the uptake.”
She pretended to not have heard
that last bit.
“Well, it is,” she continued, “at
least that´s what the legend says. My dad says it´s just what happens in a
backward civilization when you don´t have science to explain natural events.”
“What does the legend say?” Jim
wanted to know and then Jenny got all excited and told them everything she knew
about the stories of the Island . Hjarnes Island 8500 feet wide and 7500 feet broad. It was
placed in the fjord of Horsens
The legend said that the Island
had it´s name from Hjarne, who was given ownership of the Island
as an appreciation for writing a hero´s song for King Fredegod. He and his men
were Vikings and lived on the Island as
farmers in the summer and as raiders during the winter. On Hjarne´s last
raiding expedition round 800 AD he and most of his men got badly wounded and
barely made it home. Just a few days after they returned to Hjarne´s Island
they all died and were buried in a ship setting.
“Ship setting?” Mike asked,
“what´s that?”
Jenny explained: “it´s a sort of
marking made with big stones to form the shape of a ship. The Vikings used to
place their dead on a ship and then they set the ship on fire and pushed it out
to the sea. I guess the ship setting works as a kind of substitute for the real
thing.”
“So, why weren´t Hjarne burnt at
sea?” Jim said.
Jenny shrugged.
“No one really knows, but legend
has it that the Yetten were close and prevented them from leaving the Island .”
“The what?” Mike was baffled with
all that information and he was sure his head was about to explode.
Jenny sent him a tiresome look.
“Don´t you ever listen? As I told
you before, the Viking Mythology speaks of several godly races. The Aseir are
the good guys and the Yetten are the bad guys. Pay attention, please!”
“Sorry!” Mike said defensively
and Jenny continued explaining the legend. For a long time, the generations on
Hjarne´s Island had respected these ship settings and left them alone, but
around the mid 1700´s people started removing some of the stones to use them as
building materials leaving only a few settings intact, because they were hidden
by plants and trees.
“One stone was left out in the
open,” Jenny explained, “because no one dared moving it. They were convinced the
stone was bewitched and that if anyone was to ever move it, the ground beneath
would open its mouth wide and swallow the whole Island .”
“So that one is still there?” Jim
said, “They left it there out of fear of being sucked to Hell?”
“For many generations, yeah,”
Jenny said. She was really getting excited now and her eyes were sparkling.
“But then...”
Jenny paused for drama.
“Then in the 1920´s a local farmer,
Thomas Jensen, took that stone to build a barn for his cows. The elders warned
him that the stone was cursed and that if he even touched it, bad things would
happen to him. He didn´t believe them and claimed to have touched that stone
many times and he hadn´t felt a thing. So, he took the stone, cut it in smaller
pieces and used them to build his new barn.”
Mike and Jim stopped walking and
looked at Jenny for the continuation.
“So?” Mike was eager to know
more.
“Nothing happened!” Jenny said,
“At least for a while...”
Again being the drama queen she
paused to let them fry in expectation. Then she moved on in the story:
“But then one day...”
Jenny was interrupted as her
phone rang. She spoke shortly with her mother and put the phone back in her
pocket.
“Sorry, guys, but mum says we have to go back to the
car. We are about to board. I´ll tell you the rest on the boat.”
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