Note for Swedish readers: This is the English translation. You can also find the original Swedish version called Fia med knuff on this site.
This piece of fan fiction is based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Låt den rätte komma in. Features that have been fetched from the novel are his work, however, he is in no way responsible for the work below.
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“Shall we play Ludo?”
“Sure, it's fun.”
Lisa got out a Ludo game and put it on the floor between them. Eli sought Oskar’s gaze, he looked uncertain. Oskar saw it, he realised that Eli never had played Ludo before. What should he do now? Did Eli think this was embarrassing?
Eli solved the problem. “How do you play it?”
Lisa looked surprised. “Don’t you know?”
“No, I’ve never played this game.”
“Really?”
“Yes, please tell me what to do.”
Lisa told him, Oskar added comments every now and then. After a while Eli seemed happy.
“Okay, I get it, now we can play.”
They played with knock off, and Oscar showed Eli no mercy.
“Ha, ha, I got a five, one-two-three-four-five. You’re out!”
Eli learnt quickly.
“One-two-three-four-five-six. Out with that one! One-two-three-four. Out with that one, too! Ha ha! Now you’ll stand there and be ashamed because you knocked me off!”
Lisa was not as aggressive, and because both Oskar and Eli showed her mercy, she soon won.
“Another game?”
Both Oskar and Eli wanted to play again. They played several times, Lisa gradually became more gutsy and began to knock off the others, but then she became knocked off by them, too.
Then they heard the apartment door opening, a woman shouting: “Now I'm home, Lisa!”
“It's Mum.” Lisa turned to the door of the hall. “Hi, Mum!”
A woman appeared in the door to Lisa's room. “You’ve got visitors, how nice.” She introduced herself. “Hi, my name is Margaret, call me Maggie, everybody does.”
Oskar introduced himself and Eli.
“Oskar and Eli.” Lisa's mum looked a little puzzled. “Eli, I have never heard that name before. But never mind, it fits you well, I think. “
Then she wanted to know more about them, Lisa could tell that they lived a few blocks away with an aunt, and that they would only stay there for a while.
“It is only while our mum is gone. She must be with Grandma.”
“Is she ill, your grandmother?”
“Yes, so Mum had to go there.”
“That was sad for your mum. But it was good for Lisa! “
Lisa agreed. “Absolutely, it was good that you had to come here!”
Lisa's mother would cook dinner, she wondered if Oskar and Eli wanted to have some.
“No thanks, we have to eat special foods. We are allergic. “
“What a pity, I would have liked to serve you dinner.”
But it was late, Lisa's mother thought, didn’t their aunt expect them home soon?
Oskar got the hint and stood up.
“Well, we're going home now.”
“It was nice to meet you. You're welcome back another day.”
Oskar and Eli were well-fed, they did not need to eat for at least a week, so they were free to be children. They went out from Lisa’s entrance and strolled through Town, hand in hand, like they used to. Eli had a lot to talk about with Oskar, he had never been at home with any child except Oscar, and he had not met someone's mother in that way before.
“It was good that we went home to Lisa.”
“Yes, we needn’t stay outdoors all the time.”
“No, it was fun to go home to her. And to play Ludo.”
“With knocking off.”
“That's right, with knocking off. Like ordinary children. “
“We are, aren’t we? Ordinary children? “
“Do you think so?”
“Sometimes. When we were playing Ludo, for example. “
“Yes, then we were, quite ordinary.”
“I want to play more Ludo.”
“Me too.”