‘Does Magnús know this?’ Gunnar asked him.
‘No one knows yet and I would appreciate it if you kept this information to yourself for now. I just thought it might help settle Magnús maybe?’
Gunnar nodded. ‘Thank you.’
Suddenly Magnús burst through the door, out of the puffin costume now, backpack hanging off one arm.
‘Hey,’ Gunnar greeted. ‘Slow down.’
‘I cannot slow down,’ Magnús answered. ‘I forgot some of the dance tonight and I need to get home to practice.’
‘OK,’ Gunnar said, waving a hand at Mr Almr. ‘Let’s get in the truck.’
Magnús ran for the door.
Inside the truck, with the heating turned up, Gunnar prepared to start the conversation he had been practicing in his head all day. He was nervous. He wanted to be doing the right thing. For everyone. But he also remembered what Hildur had inferred. That he needed to focus on himself for a while now.
‘So, how is the show practice going?’ he began tentatively.
‘I told you,’ Magnús stated, mouth around a chocolate bar he had plucked from his rucksack. ‘I forgot some of the dance tonight.’
‘I know you said that but you will be fine, you have some days and, Magnús, it doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect. It is a Christmas show, everyone will love it and applaud at the end.’
‘Just because everyone’s parents will clap at the end doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be as good as it can be,’ Magnús told him.
He made a good point. ‘OK, so, when we get back, do you want me to help you with… the dance?’
Magnús laughed hard then, chocolate almost spilling from his mouth. ‘You want to dance?’
‘I do not want to dance. You know how I am with dancing. But, I will dance to help you remember.’ He smiled as he drove. ‘Maybe if you see how bad I am you will think of that when you are dancing the routine and it will help you recall the movements.’
‘It will make me laugh too much. And at the beginning of the show I have to be a sad puffin.’
Gunnar frowned. ‘What kind of Christmas show has a sad puffin?’
‘I am not telling you anything more because you need to wait to see it.’
Gunnar cast an eye over to Magnús, eating, playing with the strap on his backpack, and a feeling of happiness washed over him. He was so lucky to have this boy in his life. The tragedy of the loss of Magnús’s parents would never be erased, but maybe Gunnar had been looking at the situation wrong. This wasn’t just doing the right thing and stepping up for an orphaned boy, this was about building an alternative, bright future for them both. It wasn’t about feeling obligated through circumstance, it was about choosing this path and this person because you cared. And he was beginning to care for Chloe too.
‘Magnús, I was thinking, about… asking Chloe to have dinner with us sometime.’ He swallowed, heart beating a little quicker.
‘O-K,’ Magnús said with a touch of what sounded like trepidation.
‘OK?’ Gunnar queried.
‘Well, I do not know,’ the boy said, fingers knotting with the backpack strap. ‘Because if Hildur is cooking I would say it is a good idea but if you are going to try and cook then I think it would be a very bad idea.’
He smiled then. ‘You think it would be safer if I took us all to a restaurant?’
‘No,’ Magnús said. ‘Because she should come to our home. If there is a chance that… one day, maybe… she might become part of our family.’
The boy’s words set off a whole cascade of emotions inside him, ones he didn’t even realise he possessed. It was happiness, a little cautious perhaps, but definitely only the deepest sensation of positivity.
‘You know that Chloe lives in England,’ Gunnar reminded him.
‘I know that she was sad,’ Magnús stated matter-of-factly. ‘On the tour, when we were at the waterfall.’
Gunnar nodded. ‘You know how life can give good people difficult things to deal with.’
