LITMIR.BIZ

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      “It’s too dark! Too dark and cramped. I can’t breathe,” panted Peer, his heart still pounding.

      His uncles stared. Baldur began to grin. “Too dark?” His grin developed into a chuckle. “D’you hear that, Grim? He’s afraid of the dark. The boy’s afraid of the dark!”

      For the second time that night, the brothers roared with laughter. They pounded each other on the back and choked and staggered about. At last Uncle Baldur recovered. The old bad-tempered scowl settled back on his face.

      “So go sleep in the barn, Faintheart!” he snarled, throwing himself into his bunk.

      With flaming cheeks, Peer tiptoed to the door. He had to step over Grendel, who opened a glinting red eye and wrinkled his lip to show a tooth. He shut the door as quickly and quietly as he could, and crossed the yard. The sky had cleared and the moon had risen.

      The barn felt high and sweet and airy. Peer pulled crackling straw over his knees and woke Loki, who gobbled the crust Peer had saved. A few bright strips of moonlight lay across the floor. Cold and exhausted Peer lay back, his arm around Loki, and fell into uneasy dreams.

      He dreamed of a little voice, panting and muttering to itself. “Up we go! Up we go! Here we are!” There was scrabbling, like rats in the rafters, and a smell of porridge. Peer rolled over.

      “Up we go,” muttered the hoarse little voice again, and then more loudly, “Move over, you great fat hen. Budge, I say!” A roosting hen fell off the rafter with a squawk and minced indignantly away. Peer sat up. He could see only black shapes and shadows.

      “Aaah!” A long sigh from overhead set his hair on end. There came a sound of lapping or slurping. Peer listened, fascinated.

      “No butter!” the little voice complained. “No butter in me groute!” It mumbled to itself in disappointment. “The cheapskates, the skinflints, the hard-hearted misers. But wait! Maybe the butter’s at the bottom. Let’s find out.” The slurping began again. Then a sucking sound, as if the person – whoever it was – had scraped the bowl with its fingers and was licking them off. There was a pause.

      “No butter,” sulked the voice in deep displeasure. A wooden bowl dropped out of the rafters on to Peer’s head.

      “Ow!” said Peer.

      There was a gasp and a scuffle. Next time the voice spoke it was from a far corner.

      “Who’s there?” it quavered.

      “I’m Peer Ulfsson,” said Peer. “Who are you?”

      “Nobody,” said the voice quickly. “Nobody at all.”

      “I think you’re a Nis,” said Peer. A Nis was a sort of house spirit. Peer had heard of them, but never expected to meet one. “Are you a Nis?” he persisted.

      There was a bit of a silence. “What if I am?” the voice asked huffily.

      “Didn’t they give you any butter?” Peer asked, hoping to make friends.

      This set the creature off. “Plain groute!” it exclaimed. “Nary a bit of butter for poor Nithing, but plain barley porridge. Me that does half the work around here, me that sweeps and dusts, me that polishes away cobwebs!” Recalling the dirt he had seen earlier, Peer doubted that it did any of these things well, but he did not say so.

      “And they has mountains of butter,” went on the Nis, working itself up, “in the dairy. In a wooden barrel,” it added darkly, “to keep off cats and mice and the likes of me. Plain groute they puts in my bowl by the fire, and I sees it, and I fetches it away, and I tastes it – and no butter!”

      “I know how you feel,” said Peer, “they didn’t leave me any stew, either.”

      “No butter.” It was still brooding over its wrongs. “Could you get me butter?”

      “I shouldn’t think so,” said Peer gloomily, “if they caught me stealing butter I should think they’d half kill me. I don’t suppose I’m going to get much to eat here. I’m sorry,” he added.

      “Have an egg!” said the Nis with a squeak of laughter. And it spoke no more that night.

      In the morning when Peer woke up, he wondered if it had been a dream. Then he felt something in the straw just under his hand. It was a smooth brown hen’s egg. Loki looked eagerly at it, ears pricked. He knew what an egg was.

      “Thanks!” said Peer to the rafters. He broke the egg for Loki, who lapped it up as noisily as the Nis, while Peer stretched and brushed straw from his clothes.

      “Come on, Loki,” he said, pushing the barn door open. “Let’s go and explore!”

      Chapter 4

       Meeting Hilde

      THE SKY WAS fresh and clear. It was still very early. Peer splashed through the puddles, keeping a wary eye on the silent mill with its blind shutters and tattered thatch. A dismal thread of smoke wavered from the roof and trickled into the yard. There was no sign of anyone about.

      Peer walked around the end of the building to the bridge. He leaned on the rail, looking upstream at the big wooden waterwheel. It towered higher than his head, its dark teeth dripping. A cold breath came off the water, which flowed listlessly under the bridge in inky creases.

      He crossed over and turned up the bank to visit the millpond. It was a gloomy place, even on this bright morning. Patches of green slime rotated on the dark water, which seemed hardly to move except at the very edge of the weir. Peer sniffed. There was a damp reek in the air.

      He walked further, till his way was blocked by a narrow, deep-cut channel, fed by an open sluice in the side of the millpond. The water sprayed in a glittering arc over a sill slotted between wooden posts, and dashed noisily away to join the tailrace below the bridge.

      Loki had run off, nosing into the reeds with his tail high. He dashed back and jumped at Peer with muddy paws.

      “Down!” Peer pushed him off. “Phew. That stinks!” It was thick, black mud, the sort that dries to a hard grey shell. He tried to wipe Loki’s paws with a handful of grass, and Loki tried to help by lavishly licking his own paws and Peer’s fingers. In the middle of this mess Peer heard a pony coming down the lane towards the mill.

      A girl of about his own age was riding it, brightly dressed in a blue woollen dress with red stitching. On her head she wore a jaunty red and yellow cap, and her hair was done in two long plaits tied with pieces of red and blue ribbon. She sat sideways on the shaggy little pony, with a basket on her knee. Her eyes widened when she saw Peer, and she pulled the pony to a stop. “Hello! Who are you?”

      Peer tried to wipe his muddy hands on his clothes. “My name’s Peer. Peer Ulfsson.”

      “Ulf’s son?” said the girl. “Now wait, I know everyone, don’t tell me. I’ll get it. Yes! There was an Ulf who was old Grim’s stepson. Is that him?”

      Peer nodded. “But he died last week,” he told her. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Peer. Is that why you’re here? Have you —”

      “I’ve come to live with my uncles. Yes.”

      “That’s terrible for you!” the girl cried. “Whoops!” She clapped a hand over her mouth, but her eyes gleamed. “Perhaps you like them?”

      “Not much,” said Peer cautiously. “Who are you?”

      “Hilde, Ralf ’s daughter,” said Hilde with a flourish. “Ours is the highest farm in the dale; we own most of the north side of Troll Fell. Come and visit! You won’t meet my father, Ralf, though, because he went away this morning. He’s gone off to Hammerhaven to join some wretched new dragonship they’ve built, and my mother’s really upset. What’s wrong? What have I said?”

      “Nothing,” Peer growled. “My father helped to build that ship. That’s all!”

      Hilde

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