The Reindeer Girl (3 page)

“It still seems cruel…” Lotta murmured, nibbling her biscuit.

“Mmmm. It was a very long time ago, Lotta. Perhaps people feel differently today. But we did not waste anything that came from our reindeer – even the thread we used to sew our coats and boots was made from the reindeer sinews. I remember watching my mother tearing them with her teeth to make the thread.”

Lotta shuddered. “So you didn’t have a farm, like Great-uncle Aslak’s?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.

“No, no! We were herders. We lived in a village in the winter – little huts, built out of wood and turf. See, here.” She pointed to another photograph, of a group of round huts. “The reindeer lived in the mountains, until their food began to
run out. They had to dig for lichen under the snow – very difficult. Our fathers would go up the mountains through the winter to help them find the best places. Sometimes they would have to move the herd, when the food grew short in one place.

“Then, when the spring came, the mothers would need more food to give them the strength to feed their babies. The men would take them to the calving grounds, and we would follow with the other reindeer. We would take them down to the coast, to the summer pastures, to eat grass instead. We had to help them to get to the pastures on time, before the snows melted and the rivers flooded. So, in the spring, we would be moving and living in tents.
Lavvus
– made of reindeer skin
or canvas, on long poles.” She pointed to another photo, this time of a family standing outside a big tent that looked a bit like a Native American tipi. “Can you see inside, look? The fire in the middle. Birch branches spread on the floor – and more reindeer skins to sleep on.”

“You really
did
make everything out of reindeer skin,” Lotta said.

“Mmmm. Those were the old ways.” Oldeforeldre sighed. “Now they have snowmobiles. You know? Motor sledges. Not the same as skis and a reindeer sledge.”

“You actually had reindeer pulling sledges? Like Father Christmas?” Lotta stared up at her, not sure if she was joking. She hadn’t realized anyone really did that.

Oldeforeldre laughed warmly. “Yes. Like Father Christmas. But usually just
one reindeer – not lots tied together.” She leaned over towards Lotta and whispered, “And not flying, either.”

Lotta giggled. “I suppose not. And you and your cousin Lotta went, too?”

“Yes, all the children did. Me, Lotta, my brothers, we all helped. We worked as a family. When the reindeer went to the summer pastures, our fathers and the older cousins took the mother reindeer and the calves, and my mamma and my aunt Inge and us younger ones would take the male reindeer. They could go faster, you see. It wasn’t such hard work to look after them.”

Lotta nodded, trying to imagine it. Following the herd through the forest, carrying everything they needed on a few reindeer sledges. Camping in a big tent,
and curling up round the fire at night. It sounded magical.

Oldeforeldre added more wood to the stove, and the flames crackled and danced. Watching them made Lotta feel sleepy. “Did you have adventures?” she asked, with a little yawn, leaning her head against the arm of Oldeforeldre’s chair. “Was it dangerous?”

Oldeforeldre reached down and stroked her hair. “Sometimes. There were eagles, who would try to snatch the little reindeer calves. And wolves in the forests…”

Lotta nodded and yawned again. Real wolves! It sounded like a fairy tale. Two little girls walking through the forest, and a wolf sneaking along behind…

Chapter Three

Lotta woke up, yawning and blinking. She rubbed her cheek against the furry rug she’d been sleeping on, and wriggled away from the shaft of sunlight. She didn’t want to get up yet. The party had gone on late, so late that she didn’t remember going to bed last night at all.

Actually, she didn’t even remember the end of the party. Maybe someone had carried her upstairs? Curious now, Lotta sat up and stretched, looking around to see where she was.

Then she clutched at the furry rug in a panic. This wasn’t her grandparents’ house in Tromsø. She didn’t think it was a house at all. She was sitting on a pile of soft brown furs, by the side of a fire. A real fire, not a stove. It was right in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a
few big stones. Cautiously, Lotta reached out to touch one – it was still warm, even though the fire was mostly ashes now.

It was a tent, she decided. A big, cone-shaped tent, with wooden poles. The last smoke from the fire was drifting wispily up and out of a hole at the top, and there was a door folded back. She could see out of the opening – tall, dark trees were rising out of the snow, their branches waving.

The wind was howling, shaking the sides of the tent. She could hear bells ringing, too – not church bells, but smaller ones, clonging and jingling close by, mixed with a heavy, thudding noise, like horses trotting.

“Lotta, are you going to sleep all day? Get up!” A girl a little older than Lotta
slipped in through the open door and stood in front of her, hands on her hips. “You’re so lazy!” she giggled. “You’re worse than Nils and Matti. Come on. My pappa says they’re about to leave. And your pappa asked me to find you. You need to come and say goodbye.”

Lotta nodded. She didn’t understand what was happening, but if she needed to say goodbye to her dad, then of course she would go. Perhaps he could explain what was happening – and where he was going.

She pushed back the furry covers, and ran her hands down the blue cloth of her dress. Then she followed the other girl to the door of the tent, blinking as she came closer to the bright light. Even though the tent was surrounded by snow, the day was glittering and brilliant. Icicles hung from the tree branches, sparkling in the sun.

The snow must be thawing
, Lotta thought, frowning to herself. You only got icicles when there were drips that froze again, she was sure. Wasn’t it strange for the snow to be melting away at Christmas time? She was sure that Mum had said
there would be snow until April, at least.

“Lotta, put your boots on!” the other girl said, popping her head back through the door. “Are you still half asleep?”

Lotta gave a nervous sort of laugh. “I think I must be,” she muttered, looking down at the boots, which were waiting by the door. They were full of soft, dried green grass, like sweet hay, and she wondered if the other girl was playing a trick on her. She crouched down to pull the grass out, and then saw that the other girl’s boots had grass in, too. She could see it sticking out just a little between the boots and the pretty red
embroidered bands that tied around the boots and the furry leggings the girl was wearing. Perhaps the grass was instead of socks? Lotta thought, dazedly. But
why
?

She wriggled her bare feet into the boots, wincing a little as she stuffed her toes in. She’d expected the grass to be itchy and horrible, but it didn’t feel too bad, and the boots fitted perfectly.

“Erika! Lotta! Come on!” Someone was calling from outside, and the other girl – was she called Erika then? – grabbed the long bands of woven red ribbon that were piled next to the boots. Lotta blinked as she watched her. Oldeforeldre’s name was Erika…

“Oh, hurry up!” Erika started to wind the bands round the tops of Lotta’s boots. “I don’t want to miss saying goodbye.
We won’t see them for weeks once they go off to the calving grounds with the mother reindeer.” Erika finished tying the bands, and then grabbed a thick fur jacket and a hat, and slung them at Lotta. “Let’s go!” She grabbed Lotta’s hand and dragged her out of the tent, running through the snow towards the growing noise outside.

It was reindeer hooves, Lotta now realized. Thudding and thumping on the snow, as the reindeer milled around. The pregnant mothers and last year’s young calves had been separated out from the males, who were shut up inside a strange sort of enclosure made out of fabric wrapped round tall poles, like a fence. They were grunting and stamping, and the mothers and young reindeer were skittish and jumpy, as if they knew they
were about to set off.

“Lotta! There you are!” A big man was stomping towards them, wrapped in a thick, heavy fur coat that made him almost as wide as he was tall. He wrapped Lotta in a huge hug and lifted her off her feet, swinging her round and making her laugh in delight. It was something her dad did sometimes.

But this wasn’t her dad. Lotta stared at the smiling man, as he set her down in the snow. He was taller and bigger, and smelled different. Yet she felt safe with him, somehow. It was as though she’d stepped into his daughter’s place – Lotta, the cousin her great-grandmother had told her about. As well as her clothes, and her boots with the grass in…

Lotta stepped back a little, watching this man who felt strangely like her father, and the other men who were bustling around, packing bundles on to sledges and harnessing themselves up to the reindeer. It looked as though the reindeer were actually going to pull some of them along on skis. It was another world…

“Are you all right, Lotta? Have you said goodbye to Pappa?”

“Mamma!” Lotta looked up at her, blinking tearfully – everything felt so strange, and she was frightened. The woman smiling at her had a very faint look of her mother – the way her eyes went when she smiled, perhaps. She wrapped her arms round Lotta and hugged her tightly.

“Oh, Lotta, don’t be sad! We’ll see Pappa again in a week or two! We’ll meet them all at the calving grounds, won’t we? Pappa and your uncles.”

“It won’t be long at all,” Pappa said.

Lotta nodded. It must be just before the spring migration, she thought. Oldeforeldre had told her about it. When her father and her uncles took the mother reindeer off to the calving grounds. Then her mother and her aunts and some of
the cousins came on afterwards with the males, once the mothers had had their babies in peace. Then they would all travel on to the summer pastures together.

But what was Lotta doing in the middle of all this? Eighty years in the past? Was it a dream? It didn’t feel dream-like at all. She could smell the reindeer. A strong, horsey smell, like in the stable at Great-uncle Aslak’s farm. She didn’t ever remember smells in dreams before.

She had gone to sleep at a party, leaning against her great-grandmother Erika’s chair, and listening to the story of her time as a reindeer girl. Lotta had fallen asleep, thinking of snow, and reindeer, and wolves. And she’d woken up
here
.

Inside the story.