Chapter 2 Part 4

Part 4

A

1. "The fourth was a boy called Harald, " my grandmother said.

2. "One morning his skin went all greyish-yellow.

3. Then it became hard and crackly, like the shell of a nut.

4. By evening, the boy had turned to stone."

5. "Stone?" I said. "You mean real stone?"

B

1. "Granite," she said.

2. "I'll take you to see him if you like.

3. They still keep him in the house.

4. He stands in the hall, a little stone statue.

5. Visitors lean their umbrellas up against him."

C

1. Although I was very young, I was not prepared to believe everything my grandmother told me.

2. And yet she spoke with such conviction, with such utter seriousness,

3. And with never a smile on her face or a twinkle in her eye, that I found myself beginning to wonder.

4. "Go on, Grandmamma," I said.

5. "You told me there were five altogether. What happened to the last one?"

D

1. "Would you like a puff of my cigar?" she said.

2. "I'm only seven, Grandmamma."

3. "I don't care what age you are," she said.

4. "You'll never catch a cold if you smoke cigars."

5. "What about number five, Grandmamma?"

E

1. "Number five", she said, chewing the end of her cigar as though it were a delicious asparagus, "was rather an interesting case.

2. A nine-year-old boy called Leif was summer-holidaying with his family on the fjord,

3. And the whole family was picnicking and swimming off some rocks on one of those little islands.

4. Young Leif dived into the water and his father, who was watching him, noticed that he stayed under for an unusually long time.

5. When he came to the surface at last, he wasn't Leif any more."

F

1. "What was he, Grandmamma?"

2. "He was a porpoise."

3. "He wasn't! He couldn't have been!"

4. "He was a lovely young porpoise," she said.

5. "And as friendly as could be." "Grandmamma," I said.

G

1."Yes, my darling?"

2. "Did he really and truly turn into a porpoise?"

3. "Absolutely," she said.

4. "I knew his mother well.

5. She told me all about it.

H

1. She told me how Leif the Porpoise stayed with them all that afternoon giving his brothers and sisters rides on his back.

2. They had a wonderful time.

3. Then he waved a flipper at them and swam away, never to be seen again."

4. "But Grandmamma," I said, "how did they know that the porpoise was actually Leif?"

5. "He talked to them," my grandmother said.

I

1. "He laughed and joked with them all the time he was giving them rides."

2. "But wasn't there a most tremendous fuss when this happened?" I asked.

3. "Not much," my grandmother said.

4. "You must remember that here in Norway we are used to that sort of thing.

5. There are witches everywhere.

J

1. There's probably one living in our street this very moment.It's time you went to bed."

3. "A witch wouldn't come in through my window in the night, would she?" I asked, quaking a little.

4. "No," my grandmother said.

1. "A witch will never do silly things like climbing up drainpipes or breaking into people's houses.

2. You'll be quite safe in your bed.Come along.I'll tuck you in."