‘In Rowan Tree Road,’ said Lukas.
‘You said your name was Lukas. But when you take a room in a hotel, you have to give your surname as well.’
‘Johanson,’ said Lukas.
The man nodded, and smiled.
‘Of course you can have a room,’ said the man. ‘Why not lie down on that bed while I fix it for you? You can have something to drink as well, if you’re thirsty.’
‘I can pay,’ said Lukas.
‘I’m sure you can,’ said the man, taking a bottle of pop from a little refrigerator. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
Lukas took his pillow out of his rucksack. He was so tired that he could hardly stand up. But he was so proud that he’d proved he could run away.
He lay down on the bed with his head on his own pillow, and looked at the door, which was standing ajar. The man who’d been so kind to him kept looking at him and smiling. He seemed to be leafing through a telephone directory.
Lukas wondered what kind of a room he’d get, and if there would be any toys in it.
That was his last thought before falling asleep.
He noticed nothing at all when Axel and Beatrice came into the little room, and Axel picked him up and carried him out to the car.
Nor did he hear what the man with the keys said to his mum.
‘He must be very fond of his cat,’ said the man.
‘Yes,’ said Beatrice. ‘He is very fond of his cat.’
Then they drove back home to Rowan Tree Road.
Lukas didn’t notice a thing.
He was fast asleep.
Nine
The next day, when Lukas woke up, it seemed to him as if everything that had happened the previous evening was a dream.
Had he really walked all that way to town? And the man at the hotel — did he really exist, or was he also somebody who vanished the moment Lukas woke up?
But when he went to the kitchen and looked straight into Beatrice’s serious eyes, he knew that what had happened last night hadn’t been a dream. He recognised that look of hers, and he knew that something serious had happened. It had all taken place in the real world.
But how had he got home? He didn’t know. He tried to work out what must have happened. If he really had walked into town, he couldn’t simply have dreamed himself back into his own bed?
Or had he been asleep all the way back?
No, he couldn’t understand what had happened. Beatrice sighed, but said nothing. And Lukas didn’t feel like asking. He was afraid of what she might say.
Lukas ate his breakfast without saying a single word. Then he went back to his room. He didn’t know what he would find to do. Nor could he bring himself to think about Night just now. He messed about with his toys and thought about the fact that he’d be starting school soon. How would that go? What if he turned out to be the type who could never learn anything? He felt the need to find out more about that right away. He sat down on the floor with his alarm clock in his hand, and decided that he would learn to tell the time before he started school. If he could teach himself how to do that, he would have proved that he was the type who could learn things.
But he didn’t get that far. This was a very odd morning, and to make it even odder he suddenly noticed Axel standing in the doorway, looking at him. Why wasn’t he out on the roads with his lorry? Had something happened? Lukas was worried. But Axel merely smiled and sat down on the floor beside him.
‘What are you doing, Lukas?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Lukas. ‘I thought I’d try to teach myself how to tell the time.’
‘Can’t you do that already?’ asked Axel in surprise.
‘Not properly,’ said Lukas. ‘I’ve a bit more to learn yet. The little hand is hardest.’
‘I’m with you there,’ said Axel. The little hand is really hard — it moves so slowly.’
‘Why aren’t you out in your lorry today?’ Lukas eventually got round to asking.
‘I’ve taken the day off,’ said Axel. ‘I thought you and I could do something together.’
Lukas’s heart immediately started racing. This had hardly ever happened before — his dad taking time off work in order to be with Lukas. The only time he’d ever taken a day off before was when Whirlwind had fallen out of a tree and hit his head. But Lukas wasn’t ill.
Even so, Dad had taken the day off. Why?
‘What shall we do?’ Lukas asked.
‘I thought we could drive out to the camp site,’ said his dad. ‘If we put our walking boots on, we can go for a stroll in the forest. We might get to see an elk.’
Axel had hardly finished the sentence before Lukas raced out into the hall and started lacing up his walking boots.
They were soon on their way. They drove through town, past the school that Lukas would soon be attending. It was standing empty at the moment, but the summer holidays would be over before long.
Lukas suddenly realised that his father was watching him through the rear-view mirror. When his eyes met Lukas’s, he started to smile. Lukas felt almost embarrassed. He wasn’t used to his dad looking at him for no apparent reason.
They turned off from the main road, and the car bumped its way along the rough track towards the lake. Dad wound down the window, and Lukas could smell the scents of the forest.
The camp site was deserted. Caravans were empty and abandoned. Some of them had already been towed away, taken home to stand in the garden or in the garage over the long winter.
Axel walked down to the shore and gazed out over the lake. Lukas stood beside him, aping him, his legs wide apart and his hands by his sides. Dark clouds were closing in from the edge of the forest on the other side of the lake.
‘We live in a rainy-weather land,’ said Axel.
‘Yes,’ said Lukas, who didn’t really know how to respond to that. ‘It certainly does rain sometimes.’
Lukas could hear that his response sounded odd, as if he were pretending to be grown up. It was a bit like somebody singing out of tune. Grownups should sound like grown-ups, and children like children — otherwise, there was something wrong.
‘Let’s go,’ said his dad. ‘We’ll take that path over there.’
They were soon deep in the forest. They could no longer see the lake, and it was as dark as late afternoon in there among the trees. There was an occasional sound of flapping wings among the tall tree trunks.
‘The birds can see us, but we can’t see them,’ said Axel.
They came to a clearing. It was a bit lighter there. Dad took off his cap and placed it on a tree stump before sitting down on it. Lukas did the same. That’s why we have parents, he thought. So that we know when to take our cap off and put it on a tree stump before sitting down.
‘A rainy-weather land,’ said Axel again.
Lukas had the impression that Axel wanted to tell him something, but didn’t know how to begin.
‘I understand how sad you must be because your cat has run away,’ said his dad after a while. ‘You want him to come back home, of course. But you can’t tame cats. They might live with people, but they’re still wild. It’s a bit hard to explain. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Lukas. Although he hadn’t a clue what his dad was saying. How could a cat be wild and tame at the same time? Could people be like that as well? Was it the wild Lukas who had run away the previous evening? And the tame Lukas who was now sitting on a tree stump in the depths of the forest?
‘You have to understand that Night is just as happy when he’s living out in the wilds,’ his dad went on. ‘Maybe he was a cat that couldn’t be tamed. If we’d forced him to stay at home, it would have been like locking him up in a cage.’
Axel scratched away at the back of his neck before continuing solemnly.
‘I thought it would be best if we had a little chat about this, just you and me,’ he said. ‘Your mum and I are a bit worried about you thinking about Night all the time.’