Someone Like Hodder

By Bjarne Reuter

Hodder sat for a moment, blinking and feeling slightly dazed. The fairy’s last words still lingered in the room like a faint echo. He climbed out of bed and went over to the window, where he peered out at the drizzling rain that was rolling down the windowpane in tiny, hesitant droplets. The night was utterly black, without a trace of moonlight. The whole apartment building was quiet. Hodder went out into the hallway, where a light was always on – in case he had to get up and go to the bathroom. He went in to his father’s room and then to the living room, where a light was also on – in case Hodder felt like having a midnight snack.

   He looked everywhere, but the fairy had vanished into thin air.

   Then he went back to his own room and opened a drawer to pull out the brown notebook that was his personal diary. He wrote: Tonight a fairy came. A blonde fairy. Hodder hadn’t had enough practice at writing to be able to write down everything he wanted to say, and lots of the small letters still gave him trouble. The fairy was very nice and friendly and told me that I was specially chosen.

   Hodder was hardly ever chosen. Instead, he was the one nobody wanted whenever teams were picked at school or the kids were allowed to choose whom to sit next to. It was always a question of who would be unlucky enough to be stuck with Hodder. Quite often it was a girl named Kamma Gudmansdottir. She was from Iceland and had very big feet and some rather strange eating habits.

   “So I guess it’s your turn again, Kamma Gudmansdottir,” Hodder would say.

   “Yes,” she would reply, “I was born under an unlucky star.”

   “And I was born at the City Hospital,” Hodder would tell her.

   Maybe it’s a mistake, but the fairy said that I was supposed to save the world. But the world is really big. Bigger than Denmark. It stretches all the way to Africa. And I’m going to save all of it. That’s why I’m going to take a bath right now.

   Hodder closed his notebook and took off his pajamas. He folded them up and placed them under his pillow, the way people do in hotels. He and his father had once stayed in a hotel in Jutland, and it was so fabulous that they didn’t leave their room for two days.

   “What luxury!” said his father, looking out at the town of Herning.

   “Yes, this is the life!” replied Hodder from the bathtub.

   “This is how movie stars live. How about it, Hodder – wouldn’t you like to be a movie star?”

   “I’ve thought about it. I guess movie stars are the ones who make the big bucks.”

   His father nodded. “Either movie stars or people in the plumbing trade,” he said.

Translated by Tiina Nunnally