"Have a go at it if you're a ski-jumper."

Aet was not a ski-jumper, she could ski all right, but it was of little help when it came to positioning, her body so that jumping out she'd land in the lilac bush without getting injured.

Moreover, they remembered in time that a teacher jumping, out of the window would have gossip flying as surely as a locked-in teacher, yelling for help, would.

"We'll hail Riina when she's passing by," Inger decided. "She's got the second period ... "

"Just my luck."

Again Aet was nearly tripping over herself with apologies, but Inger cut her short.

It wasn't till half an hour had ticked away that Riina came. Inger beckoned to her from the window to come up.

Riina hadn't reached the stairwell yet when Aet whispered, flustered, "Don't tell her anything about me!" And quickly slipped into the living-cum-bedroom.

"Who's been playing pranks now?" was Riina baffled, unlocking the door.

"In the evening," Inger began, going down the stairs, "yes, in the gathering dusk somebody seemed to be sitting in the bird-cherry tree and looking into my window. I put the light out at once–there was nobody there. And then somebody seemed to walk round the house and a small pebble suddenly seemed to rattle against my window. But it could easily have been a delusion. And afterwards I seemed to catch footfalls outside my door ... "

"Clear as daylight. Some schoolboy or other tried to give you the willies," was Riina's opinion. "The issue should be raised."

In the corridor of the schoolhouse Inger ran into Soova. The teacher felt as though she had jumped out of the first floor window, was hovering in the air and was about to crash down.

"I've got something horrible to confess," she blurted out, her cheeks burning.

"You have? What's wrong? What is it?"

"Something really horrible ... "

"Don't tell me you were late for the first period," the Headmaster smiled. He seemed to be in a jolly good mood today. "Worse! I missed the first period completely."

"Well, well! But how come the boys kept so silent in the classroom that I didn't hear anything? ... Did you oversleep?"

"No, I set my clock by radio Finland yesterday. Only this minute did it come home to me that I was late."

Soova guffawed, his paunch shaking. "Tomorrow you'll set your clock by Western Europe time!"

American time, Inger would have liked to keep up the repartee, but caught herself in time and went to take her next class.

Inger pushed her hair out of her eyes and humming a song lifted her washing into the rinse.

A knock came at the door.

"Come in!"

It was Kiur.

"Let's set off to sea, Inger! Be ready in a quarter of an hour, I'll pick you up. Riina's coming too."

Inger was lost in thought, hands in the tub. To sea, she repeated, puckering up her mouth. To sea! Quite a while now she had lived in the midst of the sea, cursed the fog and ice when the mail couldn't be brought in, but what did she actually know about the sea? She had seen the sea only from the shore, surrounded by caraways, through daydreams.

Sea meant acquaintances, a party with a boat.

All of a sudden Inger was in a tailspin, she didn't know what to put on, take along, how to be. Washing had to keep for a while. Let the laundry soak and have its colours nice and bright while Inger's on the sea–to become nice and bright, too! Right-oh! Cold water on and the tub into the corner.

She changed into white sailcloth slacks and her usual sweater and began waiting.

Down in the street a car stopped, the front door creaked open and Kiur tore up the stairs two at a time.

"What's there to take along? We aren't going for a week, you know." He gave Inger a once-over. "Only a thicker pullover or cardigan. Everything else has been seen to."

Inger locked her door. Riina was already in the jeep, keyed up, too, overcome with the foretaste of an adventure. They both wormed their way deep into the back onto the bench seat among boxes and bundles. Kiur was an experienced driver, hands firm on the wheel. Inger didn't know anything and didn't take the trouble to inquire either, she found the ride itself enjoyable enough.

The road went through a wood, sparse yellowed birches and red-berried rowan trees among the pines, then, for a change, some stony patches of arable land, fields of juniper bushes crossed by paths, clumps of alders. This was a commonplace island landscape lit by a mellow September sunshine filtering through the clouds.

The student swung the jeep off the road and suddenly they might have been driving through another century, an older cultural layer where moss-covered thatched houses and mossy stone fences were flashing past as in a film. It was this part of the island the teachers had no knowledge of at all.

The village was left behind, again there was heathland seamed by paths and gay yellow birches, milk-churns on trestles at the roadside, dusty burdocks on the roadbank. They traversed a couple of fenced-in pastures where half-wild heifers with matted coats, some with tinkling bells round their neck, were ambling between junipers and alders. At each gate Kiur stopped the jeep, left the driver's seat, opened the gate, drove through, again left the driver's seat and closed the gate.

"By rights it should be performed by the passengers," he said over his shoulder. "But the time it will take you to crawl out ... "

He eased the jeep up the shoreridge, a gently sloping pebbly mound. Without any warning an uninterrupted view opened before their eyes as if, all of a sudden, a gigantic panoramic photo had been propped up in front of them to be driven into. The afternoon sun backlighting the scene seemed to give the panorama even more depth. Over the shoulder of the mound they could see the sea stretching away to fade into a dull-grey sky on the horizon. Only the line separating sea from land was clear-cut. In the left-hand corner of the etching there stood a twisted pine, its growth bowed and shaped by the winds, in the right-hand corner there was a grey net-hut. Here and there gulls were swooping.

"Stop the jeep, Kiur," Inger said and jumped out.

For an instant she halted on the border line between sea and land and then walked down the hillside, from the domain of land to the domain of sea, into the panorama, and became a part of the scene. The harbour watchman's house began peeping out from behind the net-hut. Everything was in readiness, any minute now and the performance will begin–and there should be sitting an old man, pipe in mouth. And, lo and behold, there, on the bench in front of the door the coast dweller was sitting, a faded cloth cap on, smoke swirling from his pipe. A couple of tarred fixed-net boats and one or two smaller, more gay-coloured motor-boats were moored at the jetty. A black cat was dawdling along the jetty, mind full of thoughts; some fish-boxes were stacked on the shore, there was a smell of late summer and iodine in the air.

"Take her down directly on to the jetty!" a broad-shouldered, swarthy man was motioning to Kiur from a cinnamon boat.

Kiur nosed the jeep down. Riina climbed out and stretched herself, her joints creaking.

The student started unloading their equipment from the back. There was a small cauldron with a camp-fire fork, a bundled tent, blankets, tarpaulin. The black cat weaved through Kiur's feet, its tail in the air. The stranger stood upright in the swaying boat, receiving the things and thumping them to their place.

Kiur finished unloading, backed the jeep from the jetty, turned it round and drove it into the harbour watchman's yard. As before, the watchman was sitting by his door, motionless as a wooden idol, and only by the smoke rings could one presume that he was among the living.

"Girls, into the boat!"

"My name is Arne," said the stranger, extending them his helping hands.

"I'll take care of the engine." Kiur jerked the engine into roaring life so that the blue petrol fumes made Riina cough. Arne settled aft, at Inger's side, and took the tiller.

The shore fell behind, the black cat was standing on the jetty like some top-notcher, following their progress with its yellow stare until it faded into the scene as a tiny dot.

It was a lovely Saturday evening, there were other boats out on the sound as well. Occasional snatches of conversation, strange names, splashes, squeaks were drifting to them over the water. Somewhere close at hand, as if on the very spot, a cow was lowing in a harsh voice, a well-chain was clattering and a dog was baying.

Inger dipped her hand in water and let it trail, the water was warm and silky. The sea was tranquil, the evening full of gentle peace. Yonder the poles of a fyke net showed black, resembling a stockade.

"Hell's bells," said Arne suddenly, pulling the tiller sharply to the right so that Inger had to lean over the water. "We came within a whisker of riding into a line of hooks."

The teachers looked at him enquiringly.

"Those markers there."

"Like these on the bottom of our boat?" asked Riina.

Arne gave a slight smile. "Yeah, only ours are of a different colour."

"So we are going to put out some markers, too," said Inger. "Prohibitory signs!"

"Prohibited signs," specified Arne. "If the game warden catches us, our hooks and nets will be taken away and we'll be fined."

"Ha! Poaching! Forbidden pleasure!" was Riina exhilarated. "Adventure, here I come!"

Kiur cut the engine and the men began to cast their fishing lines. The girls peeled off their clothes and dived in one by one.

"Kiur, look out, don't hook us," giggled Riina.

"To try and hook is my pigeon, yours is to see whether you take the bait or not," Kiur came back. "Just don't you swim too far out."

In the warm early evening sea the swimsuits seemed shadowy, the girls' heads moved farther and farther away from the boat.

When the girls returned, Kiur had caught a small pike and was puffing up with pride. Arne hadn't had even that much luck. The girls reseated themselves on their places, Kiur yanked the cord and the engine fired. Arne set their course for an islet showing blue in the distance.

Some twenty metres from the shore he told to kill the engine, picked up an oar and sounded the depth of the sea.

"The water's up to thighs," he said softly, addressing no one in particular, went forward and dropped the anchor-chain, rattling, overboard. "Off with your clothes and to the shore! We shan't be going nearer in just now."

The whole party wriggled out of their jeans and slacks, shoes and clothes tied into a bundle were carried in hand. Kiur shouldered the tent, the cauldron and blankets were Arne's share, Inger got the axe and Riina a box with odds and ends. Wading through the water, shingly bottom beneath their feet, they all moved towards the shore. The girls cursed to themselves the wretched, poorly-chosen landing-spot, or so they thought, but they considered it a better policy to keep their own counsel. Riina stepped on a sharp-edged pebble and gave a scream. But sharp stones or blooded feet were of no account, for now they were on an uninhabited islet, in nature's lap circled by the sea, on the island of their own which they had rowed toward and sung of from a child.

The cauldron banged against the hard compact earth.

"We'll go and put the nets and hooks in," said Kiur, "but in the meanwhile you start the camp fire so that we'd be able to find our way back."

The men went splashing back toward the boat, showing black on the sea, as if they had come ashore only to give the women men's age-old orders: build a fire and put the cauldron on.

Higher up on the ridge, in a sheltered hollow the girls discovered a place with the dead remnants of a fire, surrounded by junipers and a towering birch. Obviously the place had served as a camp site before; from here they had a fantastic view of the sea and another, higher islet now beginning to fade into dusk.

They were very pleased with the place.

But the tent-pegs refused to go into the ground, the earth was hard and rang with the blows of the axe. The axe-eye hammered the head of the peg ragged, but the ground seemed simply to make it bounce.

Continued in Part VI...

Christopher Marquet

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