Chapter 3 - Karlsson Surprises Betty and Roger - Karlsson on the Roof Fairy tale by Astrid Lindgren

It was a difficult moment for Eric. Mommy did not like her meatballs to be used as ornaments, and she seemed to think that it was Eric who had decorated the tower.

“Karlsson-on-the-Roof …” began Eric, but Daddy cut him short with a stern, “That’s quite enough about Karlsson, Eric.”

Betty and Bobby only laughed.

“Some Karlsson!” said Bobby. “So he had to go and sneak off just when we wanted to see him!”

Sadly Eric ate up the meatball and put his building blocks away. It was no use talking about Karlsson any more now. But he did miss him—he missed him very much.

“Let’s have our coffee and not bother any more about Karlsson,” said Daddy, stroking Eric’s cheek gently.

They always drank their coffee in front of the fire in the sitting room. And so they did tonight, although it was a warm, light, spring evening and the lime trees along the street were already covered with small green leaves. Eric did not like coffee, but he liked to sit with Mommy, Daddy, Bobby, and Betty in front of the fire.

“Shut your eyes, Mommy,” said Eric when his mother had put the coffee tray down on the little table beside the fireplace.

“Why do you want me to shut my eyes?”

“Because you said you didn’t want to see me eating sugar, and I think I’ll have a lump now,” said Eric.

He needed something to comfort him, he felt that quite plainly. Why had Karlsson gone? It was not a proper thing to do, to disappear and leave nothing behind except a small meatball.

Eric was sitting in his favorite place by the grate, as close to the fire as he could get. This coffee time after dinner was nearly the nicest part of the whole day. You could talk to Mommy and Daddy, and they listened to what you had to say. Otherwise they did not always have time to listen. It was fun, too, hearing Betty and Bobby teasing each other and talking importantly about school. Their school was evidently different, and a more important kind than the grade school that Eric attended. He longed to tell them all about his school, but no one except Mommy and Daddy was interested in what happened there. Bobby and Betty only laughed, and Eric was careful to avoid saying anything that would make Bobby and Betty laugh in that annoying way. There was not much use in their trying to tease him; he was an expert at teasing back—you had to be with a brother like Bobby and a sister like Betty.

“Well, Eric, was your homework done properly for today?” asked Mommy.

This was not the kind of talk that Eric liked, but since Mommy had said nothing about that lump of sugar, he had better put up with her questioning, he supposed.

“Oh, yes, my homework was all correct,” he answered glumly.

All the time he was thinking of Karlsson. How could anybody expect him to remember about his homework when he was wondering what had happened to Karlsson?

“What did you have for homework?” asked Daddy.

Eric was annoyed. Why couldn’t they stop talking about school? You did not sit cozily in front of the fire so people could talk about homework.

“The nine times-table,” said Eric briefly. “The whole of it, and I know it—nine times one, and then come all the rest.”

He took another lump of sugar and thought about Karlsson again. No matter how their talk buzzed around him, Eric only thought about Karlsson and wondered if he would see him again.

It was Betty who roused him out of his daydreams.

“Eric, wake up! Would you like to earn a nickel?”

Slowly it dawned on Eric what she was saying. He had no objection to earning five cents, but it all depended on what Betty wanted him to do.

“A nickel’s not enough,” he said without hesitation. “The cost of living’s gone up. What do you think a ten-cent ice cream costs, for instance?”

“Well, I’ll guess,” said Betty with a twinkle in her eye. “Ten cents, perhaps?”

“That’s just it,” said Eric. “A nickel is too little, you see.

“But you don’t know what it’s for yet,” said Betty. “You haven’t got to do anything—it’s only a matter of not doing.”

“What is it I have got not to do?”

“You’ve got not to show yourself in the sitting room later tonight.”

“Roger is coming, you see,” said Bobby. “Betty’s new boy friend.”

Eric nodded his head. Aha! so that was what they had worked out. Mommy and Daddy were going to the movies, Bobby was going to a football game, and Betty was going to be a grand lady in the sitting room while Eric was banished to his room—for the measly sum of five cents. What a family!

“What are his ears like?” asked Eric. “Do they stick out as much as the last one’s did?”

This was the way to annoy Betty.

“You see, Mommy!” she said. “Now do you understand why I want Eric to be out of the way? He frightens away every single person who comes to see me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Mommy mildly. It distressed her to hear the children quarreling.

“He does,” insisted Betty. “Didn’t he frighten away Claude, for one? He stood and stared at him for a long time, and then he said, ‘I don’t think Betty likes ears like that.’ No wonder Claude didn’t come back.”

“Calm, be calm!” said Eric in exactly the same tone of voice as Karlsson’s. “Calm, be calm. I will sit in my room, and I’ll do it for nothing. I don’t take payment for keeping out of people’s way when they don’t want to see me.”

“Good!” said Betty. “Promise? Promise you won’t show up the whole evening?”

“O.K.,” said Eric. “I’m not so interested in your boy friends as all that. I’d pay a nickel not to see them!”

Later that evening Eric sat, as promised, in his room—without payment. Mommy and Daddy had gone to the movies, Bobby had vanished, and if Eric opened his door he could hear a faint murmur from the sitting room. In there Betty sat, talking softly with her Roger. Eric opened the door twice, trying to catch what they were saying, but he could not hear. Then he went to the window and peered out into the gathering darkness. He looked up and down the street to see if Bridget and Christopher were there. But he only saw two big boys fighting. The scrap was interesting while it lasted, but unfortunately the boys soon stopped and everything was quiet and boring again.

Then he heard a heavenly sound. He heard the humming of an engine, and a second later Karlsson came sailing in through the window.

“Hi-ho, Eric!” he said airily.

“Hi-ho, Karlsson,” said Eric. “Where did you get to?”

“Why? What do you mean?” asked Karlsson.

“You disappeared,” said Eric, “just when you were going to meet Mommy and Daddy. Why didn’t you wait?”

Karlsson put his hands on his hips and looked really annoyed. “I never heard such a thing,” he said. “Shouldn’t I be allowed to attend to my house? A house-owner has to look after his property, doesn’t he? What would happen if he didn’t? I can’t help it if your mommy and daddy come to pay their respects just when I’ve gone to attend to my house, can I?”

He looked round the room.

“Talking of houses,” he said, “where is my tower? Who has spoiled my tower, and where is my meatball?”

Eric was taken back.

“I didn’t think you’d return,” he replied anxiously.

“No, that’s obvious,” said Karlsson. “The World’s Best Building-Erector builds a tower and what happens? Does anyone put up a little fence around it and make sure that the tower is preserved for posterity? Oh, no, far from it! Pull it down and destroy it, that’s what they do, and eat up other people’s meatballs!”

Karlsson went over and sat down on a stool and sulked.

“Oh, it’s a small matter, isn’t it?” said Eric, and he spread his fingers as Karlsson was in the habit of doing. “It’s not worth bothering about.”

“That’s what you think,” said Karlsson indignantly. “It’s easy enough to pull everything down and then to say it’s a small matter, and that’s all there is to it. But think of poor little me, building that tower with my own hands!”

He pushed his chubby hands right under Eric’s nose. Then he sat down again on the stool and looked more surly than ever. “If this is how it’s going to be, I’m going home,” he said.

Eric was in despair. He stood there, not knowing what to do. There was silence for a long time. In the end Karlsson said, “If someone gave me a little present, maybe I’d be happy again. It’s not certain, but perhaps I’d be happy if someone gave me a little present.”

Eric ran over to the table and began quickly to rummage in the drawer, because in it he had a lot of nice things. There he kept his stamps and his marbles and his crayons and his tin soldiers. It was there that he kept a small flashlight which he was very fond of.

“Would you like this?” he said, holding out the flashlight for Karlsson to see.

Karlsson snatched it from him.

“This is just the sort of thing I need to make me happy again,” he said. “It isn’t so nice as my tower, but if you give it to me I’ll try to be a little happy, anyway.”

“I’m giving it to you,” said Eric.

“It does switch on, I suppose?” said Karlsson suspiciously, pressing the knob. Yes, the flashlight lit up, and Karlsson’s eyes began to shine, too.

“Think of it! When I walk along the roof in the evenings and it’s very dark, I can switch this on and find the way to my little house and not get lost among the chimney tops,” he said, giving the light a pat.

Eric felt very content when he heard Karlsson say this. He only wished that he might be allowed to accompany Karlsson some time on one of his roof walks and watch him shine the light in the darkness.

“Hi-ho, Eric! Now I’m happy again,” said Karlsson. “Bring your mommy and daddy to see me.”

“They’ve gone to the movies,” said Eric.

“Gone to the movies! When they could have seen me?” said Karlsson in astonishment.

“Yes, there’s only Betty at home … and her new boy friend. They’re in the sitting room, and I’m not allowed in there.”

“What’s this I hear?” shouted Karlsson. “Aren’t you allowed to go where you like? I don’t intend us to put up with this for one single instant. You come along …”

“But I’ve promised,” said Eric.

“And I promise that where there’s an injustice, Karlsson is down on it like a ton of bricks,” said Karlsson.

He went over and patted Eric on the shoulder.

“What exactly did you promise?”

“I promised not to show myself in the sitting room all evening.”

“Well, then, you’re not going to show yourself either,” said Karlsson. “But you would like to see Betty’s new boy friend, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh! I would,” said Eric eagerly. “She had one before with terribly sticking-out ears. I’d like to see what sort of ears this new one’s got.”

“So would I,” said Karlsson. “You wait, and I’m sure I shall think up something. The World’s Best Thinker-upper—that’s Karlsson-on-the-Roof.”

He looked around the room.

“I’ve got it!” he said, nodding his head. “A blanket— the very thing! I knew I’d think up something.”

“What have you thought up?” asked Eric.

“You promised you wouldn’t show yourself in the sitting room all evening, is that right? Well, if you go in there underneath a blanket you’re not showing yourself.”

“No … but …” began Eric.

“If you go underneath a blanket you’re not showing yourself and no ‘buts,’ ” said Karlsson firmly. “If I go under a blanket I don’t show myself either, and that’s Betty’s bad luck. As she is so silly, she won’t see me—poor, poor little Betty!”

He jerked the blanket off Eric’s bed and threw it over his head.

“Enter, enter!” he shouted. “Come into my tent!”

Eric crawled under the blanket with Karlsson, who stood giggling happily.

“Betty said nothing about not wanting to see a tent in the sitting room, did she? Everybody’s pleased to see a tent, aren’t they? Especially a tent that’s lit up inside,” said Karlsson, switching on the flashlight.

Eric was not very sure that Betty would be pleased with the tent, but he himself thought it was exciting and a little creepy to be underneath the blanket with Karlsson and to shine the light. Eric thought they might as well stay where they were, playing tents, and not bother about Betty but Karlsson wouldn’t have it.

“I can’t stand injustice,” he said. “I’m going into the sitting room, no matter what.”

And the tent began to walk toward the door. Eric was forced to go, too. A chubby little hand reached out and grasped the doorknob, opening the door very quietly and cautiously. The tent walked out into the hall, which was separated from the sitting room only by a heavy curtain.

“Calm, be calm!” whispered Karlsson. And without a single sound, the tent glided across the hall floor and stopped at the curtain. The talking could now be heard more clearly, but not so clearly that you could distinguish any words. They had not turned on the sitting-room lamp. Betty and her Roger were evidently content with the faint twilight from outside.

“Good,” whispered Karlsson. “Then our light will show up all the better.” But for the present he had the light switched off, “Because we’re going to arrive as a delightful surprise,” whispered Karlsson, smiling contentedly under the blanket.

Slowly, slowly the tent glided forward from behind the curtain. Betty and Roger were sitting on the small couch by the opposite wall. Slowly, slowly the tent moved in their direction.

“I like you, Betty,” Eric heard a boy’s husky voice saying. What a fool he must be, that Roger!

“Do you?” said Betty, and there was silence again.

Like a dark hillock the tent glided across the floor. Slowly and surely it went toward the couch—nearer and nearer it moved; now it was only a few feet away, but the two sitting there neither heard nor saw it.

“Do you like me?” asked Betty’s Roger, shyly.

He never had an answer, for at this very moment the sharp beam from the pocket light cut across the gray shadows of the room and shone right in his face. He sprang up, and Betty gave a cry; there was a burst of giggling and the sound of hasty shuffling feet, retreating in the direction of the hall.

You cannot see anything when you have just been blinded by a light. But you can hear. And Betty and Roger heard the laughter—mischievous, delighted laughter that seemed to bubble from the direction of the curtain.

“It’s my horrid little brother,” said Betty. “I’ll teach him a lesson …”

Eric could not stop laughing.

“Of course she likes you,” he shouted. “And why shouldn’t she? Betty likes all boys, and that’s a fact.”

Then, in the silence that followed, there was a thud and still more laughter.

“Calm, be calm!” whispered Karlsson when the tent collapsed in their wild flight for the door.

Eric was as calm as he could be in the circumstances, although he was still bubbling with laughter, and Karlsson had fallen right across him so that he did not quite know which legs were his own and which were Karlsson’s, and he knew that Betty would catch up with them at any moment.

They scrambled to their feet as fast as they could and rushed toward Eric’s room in wild panic, because Betty was close behind.

“Calm, be calm!” whispered Karlsson, and his fat little legs beat like drumsticks under the blanket as he ran. “The World’s Best Speed Runner, that’s Karlsson-on-the Roof!” he whispered, but he sounded breathless.

Eric was not bad at running either. And they certainly were in a hurry. Only in the nick of time did they reach the safety of Eric’s room. Karlsson hastily turned the key in the lock and stood there, laughing quietly, pleased and satisfied, while Betty hammered at the door.

“You wait, Eric, till I get hold of you!” shouted Betty angrily.

“But I didn’t show myself,” Eric shouted back, and there were giggles behind the door again.

There were two of them giggling, and Betty would probably have noticed it if she had not been so angry.