Read I Refuse for Free Online Page B

the sergeant told the twins. Hell, you can’t give my sisters away, Tommy said. From the corner of his eye he saw the carpenter standing by his van, he was smoking, he was leaning against the bonnet. One of the back doors was open, and his equipment was inside, a toolbox and a pile of boards, and the carpenter too was waiting and staring up in the air letting white wisps of smoke stream from his mouth into the sunshine. The twins lifted their bags and started walking. Hey, girls, hang on a moment, Tommy said, and they stopped and turned and looked at him and smiled. We can call you, they said. But for Christ’s sake, Tommy said, no one here has a telephone, that’s just something you’ve seen in a film, people calling each other, but they shrugged and made identical funny faces. That was also something they had seen twins doing in a film, but Tommy couldn’t remember which film. And then they set off again, down to the road and then across it and up the flagstones from the dustbins on the other side, and when they reached the house Herr and Fru Lien took them each by the hand and led them in and closed the door.
    Is this all we’re allowed to take, Tommy said, we’ve got much more than this, he said, and the sergeant said, the people at child welfare say it’s best you start afresh somewhere else, they say there’s been too much going on in this house, and the police chief agrees, so it’s all decided, you just take what’s in the bags. It’s not decided, Tommy said and ran to the door and pulled it open and charged through the hall and into the living room where everything was spick and span, they had washed and tidied everything and they’d done it on Saturday when Tommy was well again. They had turned the house into a home, Siri and he had managed it all by themselves, they had aired the rooms and chased the cigarette smoke out, cleaned every single nook and cranny and made food and looked after the twins, and watched TV together in the evenings, no one could have been happier, and he ran up the stairs to their room and dived under the bed. There was the rounders bat back in its place, and he crawled out again, and on the shelf he found the book by John Steinbeck, it was a present from Jim but he hadn’t read it yet, and he went over to the window and flung it open and called to Siri, is there anything you want. My diary, she called. He went to her bed and took it out from under the pillow, where he knew it was, where she knew he knew it was. He had never read it although he could easily have done so. And then he went back downstairs.
    When Tommy came out of the house with the bat in his hand, the sergeant said, no, no, no, that’s no good, not the bat, for Christ’s sake, are you stupid or what, he said, but Tommy wouldn’t let go of it, and the sergeant didn’t want to fight, not in the road where everyone could see, in case he lost. Hey, Tommy. Do you think it’s smart to take the bat, Jim said. I don’t know, Tommy said. Maybe not. But he wouldn’t hand it over. You two sit in there, the sergeant said, and Siri got in, and Tommy said to Jim, see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow,Tommy, Jim said, don’t be sad. I’m not, Tommy said, and he got in. He gave Siri the diary, and she took it and squeezed it hard to her chest. Thank you, she said. Where are we going, Tommy said. You’re going to Mørk. Will we be together, Siri and I. Are you stupid, the sergeant said, of course you won’t be together. You two living together, are you stupid, he said, don’t you get it, and he put the car in gear and set off slowly and then picked up speed.
    A couple of hundred metres further up Jonsen came running from his house, it was a sight to see, he looked awkward, and clumsy, and he came right out on to the gravel road and stopped in the middle with his hands on his hips. The sergeant groaned and hit the brakes. He rolled down the window. What is it now, he said. Jonsen came round the car, he was thinking, I have