There was a clonk. Marion Munch opened the hatch to see what was there. A bottle of squash this time, that was good. But the food looked revolting. There was something made from potatoes, and that green stuff again. Broccoli. She took the plate and the bottle out of the lift and sat down on the chair by the desk. She picked at the food with the fork which had accompanied it. She didn’t have much of an appetite now. Most of all, she wanted to cry. Not eat, just cry. She could feel the tears pressing, but she steeled herself. There was no point in crying. Not in this room. No one would come. No matter how many tears she cried. But, even so, she couldn’t manage it. Holding them back. She sat with the fork in her hand while she watched the tears drip down on her plate.
What if she didn’t eat the food? She had no idea where that thought had come from. Suddenly, it just appeared in her mind. What if she didn’t eat the food, then what? Would she stay awake? Would she hear the lift go back up again? She glanced at the hatch in the wall. How did she get that idea? Out of nothing and into her head. Because it was a brilliant idea, wasn’t it? If she didn’t eat the food, would the lift still go back up? She quickly got up and went over to the hatch. She opened it and peered inside. She could fit inside it, couldn’t she? She had hidden out in much smaller places. Once, they had played hide and seek and she had hidden in the saucepan cupboard in the kitchen, and no one had found her; in the end she had had to give herself up. And that cupboard was really tight; no one had suspected a thing, they had all been terribly impressed. She was going to trick the lift, that was her plan. She would pretend to eat the food but empty it into the lavatory bin, then put the plate in the corner with the others and lie down on the bed. The lift must go when she slept. Perhaps it would still do so if she pretended to be asleep? Marion positioned herself with her back to the lift and picked up the plate from the table. It was important that the lift didn’t see what she was doing. Or it might change its mind. She carefully raised the paper lid from the bin and tipped the food into it as swiftly as she could. She quickly sat down again and glanced at the hatch in the wall.
‘Oh, my tummy is all full now,’ she said out loud and patted her stomach a few times.
The lift did nothing. It had clearly not noticed anything was amiss.
‘Oh, I feel so tired now,’ she said, letting out a fake yawn.
She put the plate in the pile with the others and went to bed. She lay facing the lift and closed her eyes. She lay very still with her thumb in her mouth. She was good at lying still. That time she had hidden in the kitchen cupboard, she had lain still for… well, for a long time. So long that her parents had started calling her name. Marion squeezed her eyes shut and lay still, waiting for the lift to move. There was no sound. She could feel herself getting a little impatient. This was not like lying in the kitchen cupboard when she knew that there was someone outside. That someone was looking for her. Who would be delighted to find her. Here, there was no one. She felt the tears press against the inside of her eyelids again, but she managed to keep them at bay. If she was crying, then she couldn’t be asleep. The lift would probably know that. She stuck her thumb even deeper into her mouth and tried to think of something else. When she had curled up in the kitchen cupboard, she had made up a game in her head. A story. A story based on Monster High, a story she hadn’t seen on television, one she had invented all by herself. The time had flown by; it hadn’t been a problem at all. She pretended to be DracuLaura, who has forgotten to do her homework. This was a big mistake because the teacher would come soon, and then she would have to say that she hadn’t done her homework, and she didn’t want to do that. DracuLaura might seem like a tough girl, but she wanted to do well at school; the others might not think so, but that was what she wanted. But now she had forgotten it, her homework. She hadn’t meant to, it had just slipped her mind. There had been so much else going on. Marion was just about to decide why DracuLaura had forgotten to do her homework when she suddenly heard the lift starting to stir. Brr, vrr. On impulse she leapt out of bed and ran to the hatch. She quickly pulled it open and crept inside the hole in the wall. The lift was very small, and first she couldn’t get her foot inside. She pulled it in with a jerk and, suddenly, all of her was inside it. She was inside the lift! And it was going up!
The lift squeaked and creaked its way upwards through the wall, and she couldn’t see a thing. Marion curled into a tiny ball and tried not to be scared of the dark. Her heart pounded inside her small chest; she was almost afraid to breathe. Brr, vrr. It moved slowly, slowly upwards, and then, suddenly, clonk. The lift had stopped. The lift had stopped without noticing that she was inside it. She carefully nudged the hatch and discovered to her delight that it opened. Marion Munch climbed out of the hatch and stood on the floor with a gawping expression on her face.
She was in a living room. In a house she had never seen before. There weren’t any windows here either – no, there were, but the curtains were closed. There was a woman in a chair by a table in the middle of the room. Marion looked around and reluctantly walked up to the her. She had her eyes closed and grey tape covered her mouth. A tube with water or something from a bag was going into her hand.
Marion Munch stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do and glancing around frantically. There was a hallway with shoes and boots, just like at home. And a door. A front door. Marion tiptoed to the door. The stupid dress made it difficult for her to walk, and it also made a lot of stupid noise. Did she dare open the door? How would she know what might lie behind it? In this house where everything was so strange?
‘Stop!’
Marion Munch jumped when she heard the shrill woman’s voice behind her.
‘Stop! Stop!’
Marion Munch put her hand on the door handle, pushed open the door and ran out into the darkness as quickly as her little legs could carry her.
Chapter 84
Karianne Kolstad hated selling lottery tickets. Selling lottery tickets was the worst thing she knew. The fourteen-year-old had considered quitting the Girl Guides simply because of those stupid lottery tickets. She didn’t mind fundraising activities – she had picked strawberries and cleared rocks from fields for farmers – it was just these stupid lottery tickets she couldn’t stand. Karianne Kolstad was shy; that was the reason she hated selling lottery tickets. She had to ring people’s doorbells and talk to them.
Karianne Kolstad tightened her jacket and walked down the road to Tom Lauritz Larsen’s farm. She didn’t mind knocking on his door; she knew he would be all right. The pig farmer was a bit eccentric, but he was nice and she had spoken to him before. The last time she called he had bought practically all her tickets. She hoped she might be just as lucky today. Karianne Kolstad opened the gate and entered the farmyard.
Tom Lauritz Larsen had become something of a minor celebrity after someone had decapitated one of his sows. Their local newspaper, Hamar Arbeiderblad, had written about it several times. First, when the head went missing, and then when it reappeared. ‘Local pig found on stake in Babes in the Wood case’ had been the headline, and there had been photographs of Larsen, as well as his farmhand.