“I understand that it must be a mess to work with, but I think the blackboard is much more beautiful that any modern whiteboard.”
“That’s true, I feel a bit ambivalent about getting rid of it. Maybe that’s why I haven’t pushed the headmaster very much. What can I do for you?”
Emelie gave her a recap of the plans for the Christmas market. Maria had heard of it of course, and Emelie asked if the children could be interested in performing in a Lucia procession. Maria was thrilled and convinced that they would be able to contribute with Lucia brides, maids, elves and gingerbread men. To be a ‘star boy’ wasn’t that popular nowadays, but you could never know for sure.
“Would you like to stay around and discuss it with the children yourself?” Maria asked.
Emelie happily agreed, and Maria pushed a button on her desk, making the bell above the front door chime, loud and clearly. The signal made the children come rushing in and their lively blabbering and quick footsteps made it seem as though there were many more of them than just about twenty.
“Good morning, everyone, take your seats. As you can see we have a visitor here today. This is Emelie, she is responsible something very exciting that will happen here this winter. Oh and, of course, she is also Liv and Linnea’s mum.”
Maria smiled warmly at Linnea and Liv before turning to Emelie.
“Yes, hello everyone, I know several of you already, but as Maria said, my name is Emelie, and I’ve just gotten a very exciting job. You are all too young to remember, but back in the day there used to be a Christmas market here on the island. It was a yearly tradition and lots of people used to come from the mainland to visit the market.”
A little fellow from first grade with light red hair, freckles and a big gap between his front teeth waved his hand in the air frenetically.
“Yes, Elias,” Maria said.
“My mum has told me about it, she always used to sell her jewellery there and my mum’s uncle used to be the Santa. He is a great Santa, sometimes he helps Santa at our place on Christmas Eve, when the real Santa doesn’t have enough time, that is.”
Several of the third graders started giggling but, Maria quickly hushed them with a raised finger and a stern look.
“How fun, then Stig must be your mum’s uncle, he will be the Santa this year too. That’s actually what I am here to talk to you about: we plan on starting up the tradition again and arranging a new Christmas market,” Emelie said.
The children couldn’t contain themselves any longer and lively conversations erupted around all the tables. Maria raised her hand to ask for silence and one by one, all the children fell silent, until the room was completely quiet.
“Nice trick,” Emelie said, impressed.
“It’s supposed to be a signal invented by girl scouts,” Maria said, making a hand gesture towards her to let her know that she should carry on.
Before Emelie left, she had got lots of ideas from the children about what they wanted to do. The third graders were responsible for arranging everything and Kajsa had been picked as Emelie’s contact in the class.
When she came back home, she realised that it was Friday. The days seemed to blur together nowadays, when she didn’t have a regular job to go to. She smiled to herself as she was sitting with her coffee cup in her hand and the laptop in front of her. She could get used to this kind of life. She quickly checked the event again and noticed that she had received even more applications for the Christmas market. She clicked on the Excel file that her and Christer had gone over and added the salespeople that were interested in renting a table. Sven and Eva carved and painted figurines and trays and she put them in the ‘maybe’ column. She had also got a message from Stig regarding his niece, who was a silversmith - it had to be Elias’ mum. Attached to the message was a link to her website and Emelie clicked on it. She browsed through pictures of rings with inscriptions, necklaces and earrings with dangling stars and triangles. She instantly added Stig’s niece to the ‘okay’ pile. While reading an application from Lena in Havsglänta who made crochet elves, she realised that she had to ask Andreas about his aunt and her knitted sweaters. She might as well do it immediately, so she didn’t forget, and to be completely honest, she was happy to have an excuse to contact Andreas. She texted him.
“Hello, do you know anything about an aunt knitting the famous Sardinö-sweater?”
She only had time to get up and fill up her coffee cup before her phone beeped.
“Yes, I’ll look into it, can I drop by in an hour or so – I have something to ask you?”
She felt butterflies starting to flutter in her stomach. But she answered that it was fine and that she would be home. She didn’t have any more time to worry about it since Liv and Linnea came rushing through the door.
“Mum, we are going to spend the night in the stables; it’s Kajsa and Tindra and Vilda and Kajsa’s big sister and her friends – please say that I can go, please, mum?”
“But I was planning for a cosy girls’ night in,” Emilie said timidly.
“But I want to have a sleepover at Tore’s, we are going to have a pyjama party. Malin was going to ask you if it was okay.”
Just as she had finished saying so, Emelie’s phone beeped again, and it was a message from Malin. Emelie shook her head.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to have a girls’ night by myself then, if Linn doesn’t want to join me, that is.”
“No, she was going out with Oskar and some other people,” Linnea said, halfway up the stairs.
Linnea sat down in Emelie’s lap, holding her face between her hands.
“Don’t be sad, mummy, maybe you can drink wine from a box with Sussi and Stina or with Andreas?”
