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the middle of the night.
    ————
    The next day there was an odd kind of suppressed restlessness about the class.
    There were no jokes being told, no one sending notes around, no one throwing paper planes. Not even when we had a substitute for math. Yet there was still a whole lot of noise. Chairs rocking backward and forward, tables being shoved first one way, then another, pens scratching at table edges, and pencils getting chewed at the ends.
    The lessons dragged on and went by too fast all at once.
    It was the afternoon we were nervous about.Everyone except me. I smiled calmly from behind my desk and gained a couple of merits for being the only one able to pull myself together to answer Eskildsen’s questions about weather, winds, and water in America, both North and South. Once in a while I let my finger run along the black, gilt-edged cards in my bag, just to be sure I could still make out the rough edges of four of them.
    ————
    When the bell rang for the end of the final lesson, we had already packed our bags, and we set out in threes in different directions. There were four different routes we could take to the sawmill, and we never went there in groups of more than a few at a time. We didn’t want any grown-ups getting suspicious and starting to nose around.
    It took only twenty minutes from the bell ringing until the last three arrived. I pulled out the black cards from my schoolbag and handed them to Jon-Johan. He studied them for a longwhile, and I had to look away so as not to stare too obviously at his hands as they seemingly felt for telltale marks. Yet I couldn’t help but smile as he eventually signaled his satisfaction and started to carefully shuffle the deck.
    Jon-Johan cut and placed the stack on a board laid across two sawhorses.
    “Right,” he said. “To avoid cheating, we all take the topmost card. Aces high, deuces low. Everybody in line …”
    Jon-Johan added something, but what it was I didn’t hear. Suddenly I had to pee badly. I was freezing and felt like I was about to get sick. If only I’d taken the other option and now had a deuce in my back pocket!
    There was nothing that could be done. I had to step in line somewhere in the middle behind Ursula-Marie and could only play along.
    Everyone was fidgety with nerves, and it was as if the line was moving even when it was standing still. Solely Otto and Elise looked unmovedas they stood there alongside us, watching and sniggering and making fun, unperturbed by the fact that no one was inclined to join in.
    Gerda drew the first card and looked neither relieved nor disappointed, just held it against her chest as soon as she’d noted what she had drawn. Huge Hans burst out laughing and held up a three so we all could see. Sebastian laughed too, but not quite as loud; he’d drawn the eight of diamonds. One by one, the line moved forward. Some were ecstatic, others turned silent, but most did the same as Gerda and held their cards close to their chests while the others drew.
    Then it was Ursula-Marie’s turn. She hesitated for a moment before lifting the uppermost card and heaving a sigh of relief. She had drawn a five. It was my turn.
    I knew straightaway it wasn’t a deuce on top. The first visible rough edge lay several cards down. For a moment I thought about toppling the stack like it was an accident, then gatheringup the cards with the deuce just happening to be on top. But Richard was rushing me from behind, and all I could do was pick up the topmost card with its unblemished gilt edging shining at every corner.
    Ace of spades.
    Thirteen out of thirteen is thirteen.
    ————
    I didn’t faint.
    But the rest of the draw took place without me registering a thing. I didn’t come round until I found myself standing in a circle together with Otto, Elise, Jon-Johan, Richard, and Holy Karl. From now on, Otto was in charge.
    “We meet up at eleven by Richard’s bike shed. From there it’s only a short way to the