Chapter 4 - Karlsson Bets - Karlsson on the Roof Fairy tale by Astrid Lindgren

Eric came home from school one day looking angry and with a big lump on his forehead. Mommy was in the kitchen, and she was just as upset about the lump as Eric had hoped she would be.

“Oh, darling Eric, whatever’s happened?” she exclaimed, putting her arms around him.

“Christopher threw a stone at me,” replied Eric crossly. !

“My goodness!” said Mommy. “What a horrid boy! Why didn’t you come and tell me?”

Eric shrugged his shoulders. “What’s the good of that? You can’t throw stones, anyway. You couldn’t hit the side of a house if you tried.”

“Now you’re being silly,” said Mommy. “You don’t think I’d throw stones at Christopher, do you?”

“Then what else would you throw?” asked Eric. “There’s nothing else to throw—at least, nothing so good.”

Mommy sighed. Evidently Christopher was not the only one who could be horrid. Eric was no better than Christopher at times. But how was it possible that her little boy with those big blue eyes could be such a fighter?

“Why not try to get out of the habit of fighting?” said Mommy. “Surely you could discuss things instead? You know, Eric, there really isn’t any problem that can’t be solved by talking it over.”

“There is!” said Eric. “Like yesterday. Christopher and I fought then, too.”

“Quite unnecessary,” said Mommy. “You could just as well have decided who was right by a sensible discussion.”

Eric sat down at the kitchen table and cradled his injured head in his hands. “That’s what you think,” he said, glowering at his mother. “This is what Christopher said to me: ‘I can give you a beating,’ he said. And then I said: ‘Oh, you can, can you?’ How could we have decided that by a sensible discussion? You tell me.”

Mommy could not think what to say and broke off her peace talk abruptly. Her belligerent son looked rather gloomy and she hastened to put some hot chocolate and freshly baked buns in front of him, which Eric liked very much. He had noticed the delicious smell of baking when he came up the stairs, and his mother’s tasty cinnamon buns did at least make life more bearable.

Pensive, Eric took a bite, and while he was eating Mommy stuck a Band-Aid on the lump on his forehead. Then she kissed him lightly and asked, “And what did you two disagree about today?”

“Bridget and Christopher say that Karlsson-on-the-Roof is only make-believe. They say I’ve just invented him,” said Eric.

“And isn’t he?” asked Mommy cautiously.

Eric glared at her with an indignant eye over his cup of hot chocolate.

“Won’t you, at least, believe what I say? I asked Karlsson himself if he was real …” he said.

“And what did Karlsson say?” asked Mommy.

“He said that if he’s not real, then he’s the World’s Best Make-Believe. But it so happens that he is real,” said Eric, taking another bun.

“Karlsson thinks Bridget and Christopher are make-believes. ‘Specially silly make-believes,’ he says, and I think so, too.”

Mommy did not answer. She realized that it was quite useless to try to get these ideas out of Eric’s head; so all she said was, “I think you should play a little more with Bridget and Christopher and not think quite so much about Karlsson.”

“But Karlsson doesn’t throw great big stones at me,” said Eric, touching the lump on his forehead. Then he remembered, and he smiled sunnily at his mother. “Anyway, today I’m going to see where Karlsson lives,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten.”

He was sorry the moment he said it. How could he be so silly as to tell Mommy?

But to his mother it did not sound any more worrisome than other things he had told her about Karlsson, and she said without thinking, “Oh, that’ll be nice for you!”

She would not have felt so happy if she had taken in fully what Eric was saying and had thought of where Karlsson was supposed to live.

Eric rose from the table, and, after the good snack, suddenly felt very pleased with his world. The lump on his forehead did not hurt any longer, he still had the delicious taste of the cinnamon buns in his mouth, the sun was shining in through the kitchen window, and Mommy looked very cozy with her round arms and her checked apron. He gave her a quick squeeze and said, “I like you, Mommy!”

“That’s nice,” said Mommy.

“Yes … I like you ’cause you’re such a cozy Mommy.”

Then he went into his room and sat down to wait for Karlsson. He was going to be allowed up on the roof with him, so what did it matter if Christopher said Karlsson was nothing but make-believe?

Eric had a long wait.

“I’m coming about three o’clock, or four or five, but not a minute before six,” Karlsson had said.

Eric still was not sure when Karlsson meant to come, and he had asked him again.

“Not later than seven, anyway,” said Karlsson. “But not before eight, I think. And listen! Mind you watch out about nine o’clock, and then you’ll see!”

Eric had to wait for what seemed an eternity, and in the end he almost thought himself that Karlsson was a make-believe and nothing else. Then he suddenly heard the familiar buzz, and in came Karlsson, jolly and bright.

“I thought you were never coming,” said Eric. “When did you say you were going to come?”

“About,” said Karlsson. “I said I was going to come about, and I did.”

He went up to Eric’s aquarium, plunged his whole face into the water, and drank deeply.

“Watch out for my fishes!” said Eric anxiously. He was afraid that Karlsson would drink up some of the little fishes that were swimming in the aquarium.

“When you’ve got a temperature, you’ve got to keep drinking,” said Karlsson. “And if a fish or two slips down your throat, it’s a small matter.”

“Have you got a temperature?” asked Eric.

“I should say I have! You just feel,” said Karlsson, putting Eric’s hand to his forehead.

But Eric did not think that Karlsson felt particularly hot. “What’s your temperature?” he asked.

“Somewhere around ninety or a hundred at least,” said Karlsson.

Eric had recently had the measles and knew what it meant to have a temperature. He shook his head. “I don’t think you’re ill,” he said.

“You’re perfectly horrid,” said Karlsson, stamping his foot. “Am I never allowed to be ill like other people?”

“Do you want to be ill?” asked Eric, astonished.

“Everyone wants to be ill, don’t they?” said Karlsson. “I want to lie in bed and have lots and lots of temperature, and you must ask how I feel, and I will say that I’m the World’s Illest, and you must ask if there’s anything I want, and I will say that I’m so very ill I don’t want anything at all … except a lot of cakes, and heaps of chocolates, and a pile of sweets.”

Karlsson looked expectantly at Eric, who stood there helpless, not knowing where he could immediately get hold of all the things that Karlsson had mentioned.

“I want you to be like a mother to me,” continued Karlsson, “and you must tell me that I have to take some horrid medicine … but I must have a penny for taking it. And then you’ll wrap a warm, woolly scarf around my neck, and I’ll say that it tickles … if you don’t give me another penny.”

Eric wanted to be like a mother to Karlsson. And this meant that he must empty the money box which held his savings. It stood on the bookshelf, heavy with coins. Eric fetched a knife from the kitchen and began to prod them out. Karlsson helped eagerly and shouted with joy every time a coin came tumbling out. There were some nickels and dimes, but Karlsson liked the pennies best.

When the box was empty, Eric ran down to the sweet shop and spent nearly all his savings on gumdrops and chocolate. When he handed it over, he thought for a moment of how he had saved up all this money to buy a dog. He sighed a little at the thought. But he realized that when you have to be like a mother to Karlsson you can’t afford to keep a dog.

Eric went into the sitting room for a few minutes on his way back, with the sweets well hidden in his trousers pockets. His family were all sitting there: Mommy and Daddy and Bobby and Betty, having coffee after dinner. But today Eric had no time to linger. The idea had crossed his mind to ask them to come and meet Karlsson, but on second thought he decided not to. They would only stop him from going up on the roof with Karlsson. They had better see him another day.

Eric picked up two macaroons from the coffee tray (hadn’t Karlsson said that he wanted cakes, too?) and scuttled off to his room.

“How long am I to sit and wait, ill and miserable like this?” asked Karlsson reproachfully. “My temperature’s going up several degrees every minute, and soon you’ll be able to fry an egg on me.”

“I hurried as much as I could,” said Eric. “And I bought masses …”

“But you’ve got some money left, haven’t you, so that I can have a penny when the scarf tickles?” asked Karlsson anxiously.

Eric reassured him. He had saved two pennies.

Karlsson’s eyes shone, and he jumped around the room in delight.

“Oh, I’m the World’s Illest,” he said. “We’ve got to hurry to get me into bed.”

It was not until now that Eric began to wonder how he was going to get up on the roof, not being able to fly.

“Calm, be calm!” said Karlsson. “You ride on my back and hi-ho, off we fly up to my house! But, mind you, don’t get your fingers caught in the propeller!”

“But are you strong enough?” asked Eric.

“That’s just what we shall have to find out,” said Karlsson. “It’ll be quite interesting to see if I manage more than half the distance, ill and miserable as I am. But I can always drop you if I find I can’t go on any farther.”

Eric did not think it was a good solution to be dropped halfway up to the roof, and he looked a little doubtful.

“But I’m sure it’ll be all right,” said Karlsson. “So long as the engine doesn’t break down.”

“Supposing it does; then we’ll fall,” said Eric.

“Crash! we’ll go then,” said Karlsson gaily. “But it’s a small matter,” he said and spread his fingers.

Eric decided to regard it as a small matter. He wrote a little note to Mommy and Daddy and left it on the table.

It would be best if he could get back before they spotted the note. But if by any chance they missed him, they would have to know where he was, otherwise there might be the same fuss again that there was when they were staying with Grannie and Eric had decided to take a trip by train on his own. Mommy wept afterward and said, “But, Eric, when you wanted to go on the train, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wanted to go on the train,” said Eric.

That was the sort of thing that happened. He wanted to go with Karlsson up on the roof, and that was why it was best not to tell anybody. If they did discover he was gone, he could always say that, after all, he had written them that note.

Karlsson was ready to start. He turned the button in his middle and the engine began to hum.

“Jump up!” he shouted. “We’re off!”

They certainly were—out through the window and up in the air. Karlsson took a little extra flight over the nearest rooftops to make sure that the engine was working properly. It chuffed very evenly and well, and Eric was not in the least frightened. On the contrary, he thought it was fun.

At last Karlsson landed on their own roof.

“Now we’ll see if you can find my house,” said Karlsson. “I won’t tell you that it’s behind the chimney; you’ll have to find it for yourself.”

Eric had never been on a roof before. But sometimes he had seen men up there, repairing tiles, and walking about with ropes around their waists to keep them from falling off. Eric had always thought how lucky they were to be doing that. But this time he himself was just as lucky, although he did not have a rope around his waist, of course, and he had a fluttery feeling as he carefully made his way toward the chimney. Behind the chimney stood Karlsson’s little house, just as he had said. How pretty it looked with its green shutters and little steps that you could sit down on if you wanted to. But at the moment Eric was chiefly intent on getting inside the house to see all the steam engines and pictures and everything else that Karlsson had there.

There was a brass plate on the door to show who lived there. It read:

Karlsson threw the door wide open and shouted, “Welcome, my dear Karlsson … and you, too, Eric!” Then he rushed in ahead of Eric.

“I’ve got to get to bed! I’m the World’s Illest,” he shouted, taking a headlong leap onto a red couch which stood along one wall. Eric followed him in. He was dying with curiosity. It was nice at Karlsson’s—Eric could see that at once. Apart from the couch, there was a workbench which evidently doubled as a table, and there were two chairs and a cupboard and a fireplace with an iron grid above it. That was probably where Karlsson did his cooking.

But he could not discover any steam engines. Eric took a thorough look around, but he could not see a single one, and finally he asked, “Where do you keep your steam engines?”

“Hmm!” said Karlsson. “My steam engines … they’ve all exploded. Something wrong with the safety valves, that’s all. But it’s a small matter and not worth grieving over.”

Eric looked around again.

“But your rooster pictures? … Have they exploded, too?” he asked with some sarcasm.

“You can see they haven’t,” said Karlsson. “What do you suppose this is?” he said, pointing to a piece of cardboard which was nailed to the wall beside the cupboard. Quite right! In a corner at the bottom of the cardboard there was a rooster—a tiny little red rooster. Otherwise the cardboard was empty.

“The title of this picture is ‘A Very Lonely Little Red Rooster,’ ” said Karlsson.

Eric looked at the little rooster. Karlsson’s thousand rooster pictures—did they, after all, only consist of this miserable little specimen of a rooster?

“ ‘Very Lonely Rooster,’ painted by the World’s Best Rooster Painter,” said Karlsson, in a voice trembling with emotion. “Oh, what a beautiful and sad picture! But I mustn’t start to cry, because then my temperature will go up.”

He threw himself back against the cushions and held his forehead. “You’re to be like a mother to me. Go ahead!” he said.

Eric did not quite know how to begin. “Have you got any medicine?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, but not any that I’d like to take,” replied Karlsson. “Have you got a penny?”

Eric took a penny out of his pants pocket.

“Give it to me first,” said Karlsson. Eric gave him the penny. Karlsson held it tightly in his hand and looked very cunning and pleased.

“I know what medicine I can take,” he said.

“Which?” asked Eric.

“Karlsson-on-the-Roof’s Cure-All Medicine. It’s half gumdrops and half chocolates, and you stir it all up together thoroughly with some cake crumbs. Do that, and I’ll have a dose right now,” said Karlsson. “It’s good for a temperature.”

“I don’t think so,” said Eric.

“What do you bet?” said Karlsson. “I bet you a bar of chocolate that I’m right.”

Eric thought that perhaps this was what Mommy had meant when she said that you could decide who was right by a sensible discussion.

“Shall we bet?” repeated Karlsson.

“All right,” said Eric.

He took out one of the two bars of chocolate that he had bought and put it down on the workbench, so that they could see what the betting was about. Then he mixed the medicine according to Karlsson’s recipe. He took sour balls and gumdrops and toffee and stirred them together in a cup with an equal number of pieces of chocolate, and then he broke the macaroons into little pieces and sprinkled them on top. Eric had never seen a medicine like that in all his life, but it looked good, and he almost wished that he had a little temperature himself so that he could try it out.

Karlsson sat in bed, with his mouth wide open like a baby bird, and Eric hurried to find a spoon.

“Pour a large dose into me,” said Karlsson.

Eric did so. Then they both sat still and waited for Karlsson’s temperature to go down.

After half a minute Karlsson said, “You were right. It isn’t any good for a temperature. Give me the bar of chocolate!”

“Are you going to have the bar of chocolate?” said Eric in surprise. “It was I who won the bet.”

“If you won, then it’s only right that I should have the bar,” said Karlsson. “There must be some justice in the world. Besides, you’re a cheeky little boy to sit there and want chocolate simply because I have a temperature.”

Reluctantly Eric handed the bar of chocolate to Karlsson. Karlsson promptly got his teeth into it and said while chewing, “No sour looks, if you please. Next time it’ll be my turn to win and yours to have the bar of chocolate.”

He chewed eagerly, and when he had eaten every bit of the bar he lay back against the pillows and sighed heavily. “I pity all sick people,” he said. “I pity me! Of course, I could try taking a double dose of Cure-All Medicine, but I don’t suppose for a moment that it would help.”

“Oh, yes, I think a double would help,” said Eric quickly. “Shall we bet?”

Eric could be cunning, too. He did not at all think that Karlsson’s temperature would be cured even by a triple dose of Cure-All Medicine, but he wanted to lose a bet so that he might have the last bar of chocolate if Karlsson won.

“I don’t mind betting,” said Karlsson. “You mix a double dose! When it’s a matter of temperature you shouldn’t leave a stone unturned. We can try!”

Eric mixed a double dose of the medicine and ladled it into Karlsson, who willingly gaped and swallowed all of it.

Then they sat still and waited. After half a minute Karlsson leaped out of bed, beaming with joy. “A miracle has happened!” he shouted. “My temperature’s gone! You’ve won again. Hand me the bar of chocolate!”

Eric sighed and handed over the last bar. Karlsson looked at him disapprovingly.

“Sourpusses like you should never bet,” he said, “but only people like me who walk around like little rays of sunshine whether we win or lose.”

There was silence for a time, except for the noise of Karlsson munching chocolate. Then he said, “But since you’re such a greedy little boy, I suppose we’d better share the rest like brothers. Have you got any candies left?”

Eric felt in his pocket. “Three,” he said and took out two toffees and a gumdrop.

“Three?” said Karlsson. “You can’t halve three, even a two-year-old knows that.”

He took the gumdrop from Eric’s outstretched hand and quickly devoured it.

“But now we can,” he said.

Then he looked at the two toffees with hungry eyes. One of them was a fraction bigger than the other.

“Kind and considerate as I am, I will give you first choice,” said Karlsson. “But you do know, don’t you, that when you’re allowed to choose first, you must take the smaller,” he continued, looking sternly at Eric.

Eric thought for a moment.

“I want you to choose first,” he said cleverly.

“Well, since you insist,” said Karlsson, grabbing the bigger toffee, which he quickly put into his mouth.

Eric looked at the small toffee which was left in his hand.

“Look here, I thought you said that the first to choose should take the smaller …”

“Listen to me, you little pig,” said Karlsson. “If you had been the first to choose, which would you have taken?”

“I would have taken the smaller, I really would,” said Eric seriously.

“What’s all the fuss about, then?” said Karlsson. “That’s the one you’ve got, isn’t it?”

Eric wondered once more if this was what Mommy meant by a “sensible discussion.”

But Eric never stayed in a huff for long. Anyway, it was a good thing that Karlsson no longer had a temperature. Karlsson thought so, too.

“I shall write and tell all the doctors what’s good for a temperature. ‘Try Karlsson-on-the-Roof’s Cure-All Medicine,’ I’ll write. ‘The World’s Best Medicine for a temperature.’ ”

Eric had not eaten his toffee yet. It looked so tasty and chewy that he wanted to take a good look at it first. Once you started to eat it, it was soon gone.

Karlsson looked at Eric’s toffee, too. He looked at it for a long time; then he put his head to one side and said, “I bet you I can make your toffee vanish without your seeing how I do it.”

“ ’Course you can’t,” said Eric. “Not if I stand here with it in my hand, looking at it all the time.”

“Shall we bet?” said Karlsson.

“No,” said Eric. “I know I shall win, and then you’ll want the toffee….” Eric felt in his bones that this was the wrong way to do it. This was not how he and Betty and Bobby betted.

“But we can bet the ordinary, proper way, so that the one who wins gets the toffee,” said Eric.

“Just as you like, you greedy little boy,” said Karlsson. “I bet that I can make your toffee disappear without your noticing it.”

“All right,” said Eric.

“Hokus pokus filiokus,” said Karlsson, seizing the toffee. “Hokus pokus filiokus,” he said, putting it into his mouth.

“Stop!” cried Eric. “I did see you making it disappear….”

“Did you?” said Karlsson, swallowing quickly. “Then you’ve won again. I never saw such a boy for winning all the bets.”

“Yes … but … the toffee,” said Eric, quite confused. “The winner was to get the toffee.”

“Yes, true enough,” said Karlsson. “But I’ve made the toffee disappear, and I bet I can’t make it appear again.”

Eric said nothing. But he thought that as soon as he saw Mommy he would tell her that sensible discussions were not a bit of good when you wanted to decide who was right.

He put his hands into his empty pockets. Oh, good! He felt there another toffee which he had overlooked before. A large chewy, scrumptious toffee. Eric laughed.

“I bet you I’ve got another toffee,” he said. “And I bet I shall eat it up in no time,” he said, quickly popping the toffee into his mouth.

Karlsson sat down on the bed, looking offended.

“You were to be like a mother to me,” he said. “And all you do is push all the things you can into yourself. I never saw such a greedy little boy.”

He sat silent for a time, looking more annoyed than ever. “Besides, you haven’t given me the penny because my scarf tickles,” he said.

“But you’re not wearing a scarf,” said Eric.

“There isn’t a scarf in the whole house,” said Karlsson, grumpily. “But if there had been one, I’d have been wearing it, and it would have tickled, and then I would have had a penny.”

He looked pleadingly at Eric, and his eyes filled with tears. “Should I have to suffer only because there’s no scarf in the house?”

Eric did not think that he should. So he gave Karlsson-on-the-Roof his very last penny.