Read A Bridge to the Stars for Free Online Page B

it too short.
    You ought to be able to choose for yourself what you
look like, he thinks. Go through some photographs and
say: 'That's how I want to be!'
    What annoys him most of all is that he doesn't look
like his dad at all. That must mean that he takes after
Jenny, his mother.
    It's not good, looking like somebody you've never
met, because that means you can't work out what you're
going to look like when you grow up. He pulls his hat
still further down over his forehead, so that he can only
see with one eye.
    If we lived by the sea I'd be able to go down to the
shore and look out for ships, he thinks.
    A year ago, when he was ten, it was never difficult to
go down to the river and pretend it was the sea. Now that
he's eleven, that's only occasionally possible. It gets
more and more difficult to imagine things.
    He pulls his hat down over the other eye as well. Now
he can only see out through the gaps between the
threads. He's caught his face like a fish in a net.
    He decides to go down to the riverbank and see if the
snow has melted around his rock. He pulls his hat back
up and breaks into a run.
    He tries to think about why it's getting more and more
difficult to imagine that the river is really the sea, but it's
not easy to think when you're running.
    He takes a short cut through Bodin's timber yard, and
hears all the squeaking and whistling from the saws.
Then he slides along the ice that always forms in the
spring on the hill down towards the bakery. Once he's
passed the bakery there's only the long slope down to
the riverbank left. The snow is deep there, and he has to
trudge through it. Once he's come that far, he suddenly
finds it easier to use his imagination. It's not so difficult
once all the buildings and people have been left behind.
    The snow he is trudging through is a desert. Vultures
are circling over his head, waiting for him to collapse
with exhaustion and be unable to get up again. He's all
alone in the desert, and in the far distance is his rock. If
only he can struggle as far as that, he'll be able to
survive . . .
    Suddenly, he stops dead.
    There's a boy he's never seen before sitting on his rock.
    He's completely motionless, and he's looking through
a telescope.
    Joel crouches down in the snow.
    This is the first time anybody has ever encroached on
Joel's rock.
    Who is he?
    Joel is quite sure he's never set eyes on him before.
He's a stranger, unknown.
    Why is he sitting here by the river? What is he looking
at through the telescope? Where has he come from?
    Joel cowers down in the snow like a scared rabbit, not
taking his eyes off the unknown boy for a moment.
    There is a clattering noise from up on the bridge. The
gates close and a goods train comes chugging along
through the trees. The smoke from the engine's chimney
puffs up into the sky, as if it's the trees that are breathing.
The unknown boy aims his telescope at the train.
    Joel can see that he's about his own age. Possibly
slightly older. Instead of a woolly hat he's wearing a
peaked cap with ear flaps.
    But what has he got on his feet? They look like tennis
rackets. Snowshoes!
    The stranger is wearing snowshoes!
    Joel has never seen any snowshoes before, only read
about them in one of his father's books.
    He presses himself down deeper into the snow, even
though he's starting to feel cold.
    Who is that boy sitting on his rock?
    At that very moment the stranger turns round and
looks straight at Joel.
    'What are you lying there for?' he asks? 'Did you
think I hadn't seen you?'
    Joel couldn't think of anything sensible to say. He'd
thought he was invisible, lying there in the snow. The
boy on his rock has been looking through his
telescope all the time, after all. How could he possibly
have seen Joel?
    The unknown boy jumps down from the rock and starts
walking towards Joel on his snowshoes. Joel notes that
what he has read in his father's books is true: when you are
wearing snowshoes, your feet don't sink into the snow.
    The boy stops in