In the library, Heinrich sits at his usual table, third from the back, left side. He has his usual book, //Founders of Norway//, spread out in front of him, and he is wearing his usual expression of awe, even on his 45th reading of the story.\n\nBut something is different. The librarians tell Heinrich to leave, because it's closing time, but he doesn't move. A black-haired boy walks by him, humming, in the library far after the front doors have been locked, but Heinrich doesn't notice. He has to focus all his energy to pull his jaw up, rub his eyes.\n\nThe story has changed.\n\n<html><b>∴</b></html>
There aren't too many familiar things in Europe. Fast food sandwiches go by different names. People have different words for coming and going, for cigarettes and alcohol, pants and socks. Knickers is by far Eamon's favorite new word. He's pretty sure that means pants.\n\n<<back>>
!!Changing the Story\n!!!by <<pop 'sean' 'Sean Woznicki'>>\nSome of the history in this story is researched and real. Some of it is undeniably not. You can decide [[which is which]].
It looks like a dog with spikes. Steam rises from its nostrils in two leaden swirls. Eamon took particular care on its eye, half open, lazily watching for intruders. It seems ideal to him, this watching and resting. He wishes he could be calm enough to do both at the same time.\n\n<<back>>
Norway is a long, narrow country on the northwestern edge of the European continent. The northern third of Norway lies above the Arctic Circle and is called the Land of the Midnight Sun. Because this region is so far north, it has long periods every summer when the sun shines 24 hours a day. Oslo, Norway's capital and largest city, is in the southern part of the country.\n\nNorway's Army, Navy, and Air Force have a total of about 34,000 troops. Norwegian men between the ages of 19 and 44 are required to serve from 12 to 15 months in the armed forces. About 85,000 men and women serve in the Home Guard.\n\nNorway's high standard of living and its social welfare system have kept the cities free of slums and substandard housing. Most Norwegians and immigrant workers live in modern apartment buildings in or near the principal urban areas. Wealthier Norwegians often own single-family homes built of wood. A number of Norwegians also own small cottages along the coast or in the mountains, which they visit on weekends or holidays. \n\nNorwegians usually eat four meals a day, but many farm families have five. Heinrich himself is a snacker.\n\n<<back>>
[[Eamon]] has always wanted a pet. Every day since he was 6 years old, his [[mother]] has taken him to a different pet store, animal shelter, farm or ASPCA, but Eamon has never been one to be satisfied with the everyday, the commonplace. Today, 13 days after his twelfth birthday, 3,205 miles away from his home, after his mother tells him that a chocolate lab is really nice, Eamon shoves his hands into his [[pockets]], smiles, and says, "I want a pet [[dragon]]."
It's hard for two outcasts to become friends. There's an unspoken, masochistic competition between them, each one trying to find how far they can go to alienate themselves, to confuse and disgust those in normal social standing. The only thing Thomas and Eamon ever agreed on was a line from a song, "Nobody likes what I like, that's how I like it."\n\nThomas was singing it to himself in the gym locker room. Eamon thought he had a good voice, but he sure wouldn't tell him that. He wanted to know the name of the band, but he couldn't ask him that either, as the bell rang and he wanted to leave gym as quickly as possible.\n\n<<back>>
Eamon doesn't know what happened yet. So neither will you.\n\n<<back>>
Jaime was cute. Probably still is, ten years later, for all Heinrich knows. She left years ago to go to Iceland, which didn't make too much sense to Heinrich; but Jamie didn't want Florida, or Ecuador, or Spain. She wanted the cold. The cold, with a little less snow. And with names like Reykjavik.\n\nSure, Heinrich had a crush on her. But you knew that already. Jamie was a girl, and she thought he was cute. A 12-year-old boy can't deny that sort of unconditional acceptance. Heinrich has recurring dreams about her, or at least the person he thinks she has grown up to be. She is blonde-haired and green eyed, married to a handsome Icelandic man with a chiseled face and deep-set eyes. Their babies will be understanding and contemplative. Both their jobs involve helping other people on a daily basis.\n\n<<back>>
Phrases like this bother Eamon. Too pessimistic. Her life isn't over yet.\n\nDoes it bother [[you]]?
Oma's mother came directly from Germany to the U.S. when she was eight years old. Oma is convinced that this country killed her parents, with its American Dream and its factories and its Great War and its Great Depression. She met a nice man at Chestahova, a Polish festival held every spring, and they married years before a German marrying a Pole would have been considered ironic. He was a miner, and he made her engagement ring out of the biggest diamond he had ever found. Oma used to joke she had to do finger exercises to keep her hand from aching under its weight.\n\nAt least, Eamon likes to think she made that joke - Oma spoke mostly German, and Polish. He would've made that joke, if he were Oma.\n\n<<back>>
Even though Eamon's mother is still laughing, two hours later, at a diner where gruffly bearded men drink coffee and pick jelly flavors for their toast, Eamon's sure he's finally come to what can satisfy him: a dragon. Transportation to school, since Mother doesn't have a car. A way to heat the house and cook the food, saving her money on electric bills. A cave, dug deep into their backyard, something for the kids in his school to explore.\n\nHe'll need to start assembling a treasure trove, if real-life dragons are anything like the dragons in books. He waits until Mother turns to signal the [[waiter]], then slips a polished fork into his sleeve. Its dull points jab at his wrist. He takes a few sugar packets too, just in case.\n\nMother says, That's it for today, hon. We'll eat dinner and find a hotel.\n\nAlright, Eamon says.\n\nMother says, What do you want to do tonight?\n\nEamon shrugs, looks out the window. He sees people walking down the streets, all of them wearing hats, their hair swallowed in colors bright and thick and warm. He sees a man bounding up the steps of the Trondheim Public Library across the street, two at a time. His hat is black, and his legs are bare below his knees to the tops of his snow boots\n\nMother says, I don't know about you, but I'm going to get some sleep.\n\nEamon looks away from the window; the waiter is finally coming down the aisle, pot of coffee in hand. They drink coffee here, instead of water.\n\nYou're always sleeping, he says, why do you sleep so much?\n\nI'm tired, Mother says.\n\n<<back>>
Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway, situated on the southern shore of Trondheims Fiord. It is an important export center for copper and iron ores, pyrites, wood pulp, timber, and fish. The city was founded in A.D. 998 by King [[Olav I Tryggvason]]. The Nidaros Cathedral, one of the finest Norman Gothic buildings in the world, dates back to the mid-1100's. The modern Technical University of Norway is also in Trondheim.
Yes, you. Think it over. You don't have to answer now.\n\n<<back>>
This part is alright with Heinrich: he hates pants. An incident when he was 12 still haunts him, the time when he went out to join a snowball fight, bundled in a scarf, mittens, a woolen hat, Gore Tex coat, snow boats, and cargo shorts. When asked why he was wearing shorts, Heinrich said that his knees needed to breathe.\n\nThis wasn't true. He just thought it sounded funny.\n\nMost of the people there took him at his word, though, and promptly dismissed him as a lunatic, which was fine with them; one less person they had to deal with. [[Jamie]] thought it was cute, though. And [[Thomas]] just smirked and continued kicking at the snow, trying his best to find the frozen ground. \n\n<<back>>
Heinrich's head steadily thrums with thoughts of Jamie. That's become the most reliable indicator that he's awake. Asleep, Heinrich has been dreaming about [[a boy]] and his mother, both of them with black hair, travelling to cities in Norway. This is odd to him, because he's never been outside of Steinkjer, not even to [[Trondheim]], but there these cities are, reconstructed in his head: Oslo, Bergen, Egersund, Voss. He loves the names, their sharpness, the way they dare your tongue to say them.
Changing the Story
Eamon [[remembers]] bottles, not breast-feeding. There could have been a nanny too, but if there was, she looked an awful lot like Mother. There were just days where Mother didn't quite act the same, or maybe a few freckles were out of place. Her voice seemed deeper, her eyes more tired. \n\n<<back>>
Thomas liked spring. For this reason, it was a little sad that he lived in northern Norway, with its understated spring and bullying winter. The only good thing about winter was that it froze the grass. As soon as it snowed, Thomas would always shovel out a section of the yard to expose it, grass green and hard sideways like a bad hairdo. It crunched underneath his feet like crackers. He grinned with every step.\n\nThomas was a weirdo, too. [[Too bad]] he and Heinrich never connected.\n\n<<back>>
The only thing Eamon really likes about himself is his name. And maybe his black hair, because that's the only part of him his mother ever seems to touch. She ruffles it sometimes, coos. She's done this since he was six years old, too. Eamon figures most mothers don't ruffle and coo their children at that age, that they do it only to younger children, sons and daughters too small to remember. But he's pretty sure [[something happened]] that made his mother's mothering instincts kick in a few [[years]] too late.
It's odd, but even after an entire afternoon in the city, Eamon has yet to see a single female. All the employees at the Dog Kennels were men, all the gas station attendants were men. All the clothing stores had only men's clothing, which frustrated Mother when she was looking for a scarf.\n\nThere aren't any women in this city, Eamon had said, as they walked down the street through a river of fedoras and bowler hats.\n\nMother said, That's not true. I'm here.\n\n<<back>>
This is Heinrich's favorite story. "The King of Legend" is what the boys in Olav's school called him, and they whispered his story during lunch periods and at recess, wrote notes to each other during math class. Sometimes Heinrich thinks the boys labeled Olav the King of Legend just because that gave them the license to expand on his story - he was now, after all, a legend. His strength in battle became that of an army, his warhorse became a dragon. His robe became encrusted with precious jewels - he wore it as constant exercise, they said, not to brag. The weight of the jewels made walking into weight lifting.\n\nEvery once in a while, Heinrich needs to clear his head of these tales and refresh himself on Olav's true history. After spending the day in a t-shirt with the windows open, Heinrich bundles himself up to run to the [[library]] before it closes for the weekend.\n\nHe puts on thick socks and boots. He does not put on pants.
One piece is an Andes mint, the kind of mint that's green on top of brown, the kind that melts on your tongue, even if you just let it sit there, while you breathe.\n\nThe other is an after-dinner mint from a diner, maybe Denny's, maybe not. When you're this far away from home, you tend to seek out [[familiar things]].\n\n<<back>>
It's December, but Heinrich still sleeps in his 3rd floor apartment without sheets, shirt or [[pants]]. He contemplates lugging his fan out of the closet and turning it on, but then he is struck immobile by the ridiculousness of the thought. He blinks, convinced the heat is just [[in his head]], and lumbers down the stairs, rubbing his eyes as if sleep will catch in his eyelashes and drift invisibly to the ground.\n\nDownstairs, he notices the linoleum in the kitchen is curling again. He is clear across to the refrigerator before, in the soles of his feet, he feels it: the floor feels like hot coals, like a suburban rite of passage. He jumps onto the table, lies flat, feels the heat drift out of his toes.\n\nFor the first time, Heinrich is glad he lives in [[Norway]]. Imagine the air conditioning bill.
In Eamon's pockets:\n\nTwo pieces of [[candy]], close to his leg, melting\nA [[drawing]] on a torn piece of scrap paper\nHis [[grandmother]]'s wedding ring, which he is keeping for his Mother, because she doesn't have any pockets of her own.\n\n<<back>>
When she was 25, Mother met a another woman. This Other Woman was taller than any man she had ever dated, and blonder, and her smile was twice as wide and inviting. Mother kissed this woman, once, by a pool, during a party. It was the most bittersweet thing she's done in her [[entire life]].
Yes, he remembers things that early in life. He even remembers the way he was born, but he doesn't like to talk about it. A very messy business, being born. If we all remembered just how it went, none of us would be afraid of anything.\n\n<<back>>