Annika Thor - The Lily Pond

ALSO BY ANNIKA THOR

Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder Award
for an outstanding childrens book originally
published in a foreign language

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Translation copyright 2011 by Linda Schenck
Jacket art copyright 2011 by Juliana Kolesova

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press,
an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York. Originally published in Sweden as
Nckrosdammen by Annika Thor, copyright 1997 by Annika Thor, by Bonnier Carlsen, Stockholm, in 1997. This English translation published in arrangement with Bonnier Group Agency, Stockholm, Sweden.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the
colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thor, Annika.
[Nckrosdammen. English]
The lily pond / Annika Thor ; translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck. 1st
American ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: A faraway island.
Summary: Having left Nazi-occupied Vienna a year ago, thirteen-year-old Jewish refugee Stephie Steiner adapts to life in the cultured Swedish city of Gothenburg, where she attends school, falls in love, and worries about her parents who were not allowed to emigrate.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89914-0
1. World War, 19391945RefugeesJuvenile fiction. [1. World War, 19391945RefugeesFiction. 2. RefugeesFiction. 3. SchoolsFiction. 4. FriendshipFiction. 5. JewsSwedenFiction. 6. Gteborg (Sweden)History20th centuryFiction. 7. SwedenHistoryGustav V, 19071950Fiction.] I. Schenck, Linda. II. Title.
PZ7.T3817Li 2011

[Fic]dc22
2010053548

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v3.1

funnel of the steamboat opens wide, releasing a mournful howl and a cloud of black smoke. The moorings have been dropped, and the gangway has been drawn up. In a wide arc the boat pulls away from the pier and steers out to sea.

Stephie stands in the stern, waving. All the people on the pier wave back: Nellie, Auntie Alma, the little ones, and Vera. Stephie said goodbye to Uncle Evert last night, before he headed off with the fishing boat he works on, the Diana. When he and the rest of the crew return with their catch in a few days, Stephie wont be there.

The people on the pier are shrinking; soon Stephie cant see them. The last thing she loses sight of is Veras copper-red hair, glistening in the sun.

Lets go inside and sit down, Aunt Mrta says. Our clothes are getting dirty from the coal smoke.

Brushing a few particles of dirt only she can see off the sleeve of her light summer coat, Aunt Mrta precedes Stephie to the passenger area, her little straw hat pressed firmly down over the gray bun at her neck.

Aunt Mrtas wearing her very best clothes to take Stephie to Gteborg, where Stephie is going to board with Dr. Sderberg and his wife, so she can continue her schooling. The school on the island is only for the first six years. One weekend a month, and on vacations, shell stay with Aunt Mrta and Uncle Evert. Its all planned.

The air in the passenger area is muggy; Stephie fans herself with a newspaper someone left on the bench where theyre sitting. Aunt Mrta, though, sits straight as a ramrod, with her buttons done up to the neck and the corners of her head scarf crossed neatly over her chest. She doesnt seem to notice the heat.

The suitcase at Stephies side contains nearly all her earthly possessions: her clothes, her books, her diary, and her photographs of Mamma and Papa. The only thing she left in the room under the eaves at Aunt Mrta and Uncle Everts is her old teddy bear. Shes a big girl now, thirteen.

She intends to go by the name of Stephanie at her new school. It sounds romantic and grown up, not childish like her nickname. Sven, the Sderbergs son, calls her Stephanie. Shes looking forward to seeing him again soon.

My name is Stephanie, she mutters softly to herself.

What was that? asks Aunt Mrta.

Nothing.

Theres no need to be nervous, Aunt Mrta tells her. Youre just as good as everyone else, remember that. Better, even.

Aunt Mrta doesnt easily dish out praise, or flattery, as she calls it. Coming from her, this is an enormous compliment.

Aunt Mrta, Stephie begins.

Yes?

Have you ever regretted taking me in?

Aunt Mrta looks bewildered. Regretted? Of course not, she says. We did the right thing. Theres no regretting that.

But I mean have you never wished they had sent you a different child? A nicer one?

At that, something even more unusual happens. Aunt Mrta laughs.

Oh, my dear girl, you have the strangest ideas! The thought has never so much as entered my mind. I admit that you do foolish things at times, but youve never done anything so bad that both God and I were not prepared to forgive you.

Stephie cant help wondering who is stricter, Aunt Mrta or her God. Or do God and Aunt Mrta always agree about everything?

The steamboat barrels along between the little islands and skerries. Off in the distance behind them is the horizon.

A year ago Stephie and her younger sister, Nellie, made this trip in the opposite direction, from Gteborg out to the faraway island; it was the last leg of their long journey from home. Their parents are still in Vienna. The Swedish government agreed to take in Jewish refugee children, but no adults.

When Stephie was sent to the island, she had to leave everything familiar behind and make her way to a foreign country to live with strangers who spoke a language of which she knew not a word. In a letter to her parents, she wrote, This place is nothing but sea and stones. I cant live here. She never sent that letter.

This time shes not leaving because anyone is making her; shes leaving of her own free will. She wants to go on with her education, study hard, and go to the university, where shell become a doctor, like Papa. Shes wanted to follow in his footsteps for as long as she can remember. But from the beginning, of course, she expected to do it all at home, in Vienna.

So here she is, breaking away again, this time from Aunt Mrta and Uncle Evert; from Vera, the one friend she finally made; and from Nellie, whos going to stay with Auntie Alma and her family on the island. Will Stephie never again feel completely at home anywhere? Will she always be on her way to the next destination?

The boat will soon be in Gteborg. Theyve left the sea and are making their way through the mouth of the Gta River to the harbor.