Inger felt as if something had hit her.

"That damned school drives anybody nuts!" cursed Riina, looking for her cigarettes.

"I'm afraid that this once it's me and not the school that's to blame," Inger said huskily. "I should haver foreseen it."

"Don't take it so much to heart! Aet's complexes and dust-raising should be overlooked and that's a fact. When a person has nothing better to do they begin making up all sorts of things. If she can't take it, she can go and get married. She's got a steady, hasn't she? Lugging together boxes of chocolates and presents, I've seen myself."

Riina fell silent, let smoke out of her lungs thoughtfully and said in a speculative sort of way,

"But on the other hand, what's the good of getting married? Take me ... Man and wife should live together, but he won't come here, he can't track down a job in his line here, but it's impossible to get a flat in Tallinn, lives behind a cupboard at a relation's. Some life! And already the fourth year running. There are those who say it isn't long, they've been waiting for ten years ... In such conditions I can't even begin to think of getting a child, a lovely girl like me! He hits out at me and says I hate him, but I'm only full of fright! Tell me, Inger, where could we put a little one? What talk can there be of getting everything going out of life when you lack the most elementary conditions? And when you meet your man after a long while, you must be cautious, watch the calendar and count days. Such half-life can give rise to nothing but squabbles ... Ah, don't mind me, Inger, all this talk will get us nowhere. But I really don't know what'll come of it. To instigate divorce proceedings again? It would be funny, especially to the clerks handling the papers, but what could we do? ... All right, why flog a dead horse!"

Riina gave a light laugh and went on jokingly,

"Good husband material is thin enough on the ground too. I haven't found his replacement yet to take over when this one walks out. Actually I should have put that Kiur in a whirl, his parents have got a house in Tallinn–they've an easy time of it! ... Why do you, Inger, a foot-loose and fancy-free girl, get in a blue funk about that Aet? You'd been smarter if you'd had a thing going with the trainee, you'd have gone from the backwoods before you could have said Jack Robinson."

"Now it's already too late," Inger laughed back. "Kiur went to Tallinn ages ago and now it's nice girls from his Institute who are giving him come-on smiles." But at once she was serious again and asked, "What exactly happened to Aet?"

"Had gone skiing in the afternoon, had fallen into a ditch and wetted her feet. Silly girl, knows well enough how it is with her, but wouldn't take care ... But everything's under control now. They'll give her a blood transfusion if need be."

Inger became a little calmer. Their conversation switched to school.

"Let's hope that at the end-of-the-term staff meeting you and I at least won't fall out," Mina's mouth flickered with a slight smile. "Toomas has taken himself in hand good and earnest."

In a jacket with braid bars and a seaman's cap Urmas was standing on the captain's bridge, giving his commands in a weighty, solemn voice,

"Cast off!"

"Ave, aye, cast off it is, sir!"

"Course North-East-South-West!"

"Ave, aye, course North-East-South-West, it is, sir!"

"I wish the sailors and officers, the crew and all the passengers a joyful, happy and eventful voyage into the New Year. Full speed ahead!"

The band struck up a waltz. The captain partnered his first officer, Meeli.

The carnival was under way.

Inger gave a blithe and relieved sigh. A whole week had passed wrapped up in the preparations for the carnival, even the end of the term with its fuss and flurry, checking on assigned reading and the work of those who had been trailing behind, marking and second tests, the staff meeting and talk on per cents–all these things had been eclipsed by it. Even Aet with her sickness and sickly friendship, even Inger's pangs of conscience. Day in day out there had been a repeated dialogue between Urmas and herself: Urmas, could you come up with anything?–No, not yet nothing. Or the other way round: Teacher, have you had any interesting ideas?–I've been too busy with other things ... Two years running Inger had been given the task to lay on the end-of-the-term carnival. This time Urmas and Meeli were the master and mistress of ceremonies. When at last one evening, sitting in Inger's room drinking coffee–the percolator, to top it off, had stalled, too–they had stumbled on the idea of the fortune, the three of them had capered round the table with joy. What was essential was the idea and this they had got now, so they went on to set the ball rolling. Toomas was appointed to build the fortune and decorate the hall. "Your Toomas is throwing his weight around," Soova had chuckled in the staff-room. "I asked what's going on here–he is building a ship for 'leacher Uunvald!" But Soova, too was enjoying the breath of the approaching carnival: the hustle and bustle, the smell of glue, paints, fir trees fresh from the woods, paper and cardboard. The end of the year, the advent of the New Year! In the breaks, after the school hours, scurrying about in the hall or on the stage, rehearsing with her own pupils and those of other forms, Inger thought she could smell the very same scent of deep frying doughnuts and oven-hot ginger snaps she had smelled in her childhood when mothers would come to the schoolhouse to fry and bake for schoolchildren's New Year presents and the classrooms and corridors were full of the fragrance. Now, too, the classrooms and corridors were full of scent, but this was the scent of sweets and biscuits brought from the shop to be doled out in bags mothers were filling in the school office.

And now, at long last, the balloon had gone up. Hidden behind the curtain, Inger eyed dancing couples and masks milling about around the New Year tree, checked if the tenth-formers were ready for the next turn, heartening them with a joking word or two, and entered the corridor just then Urmas and Meeli, too, appeared in the doorway to the hall and wanted to know,

"How did we do, Teacher?"

"Okay! Super!"

All three went down the stairs to the chemistry lab where all the rest were already waiting for them. The Rig Carnival Ship had been piloted out of the port, now Kotermann, the boat goblin–that was the name Urmas had given Inger–had better think of her turn.

Once, in the evening, the eleventh "B" had clattered up the stairs in full strength and sat themselves down on the floor, the room not boasting enough chairs. There they had made up their turns and cast the roles. A circus "Everybody Joins In"–and now it was time to cross the hall in a procession.

"Here you are, Teacher, your costume," Urve handed Inger a blue-red clown's costume she had just machined. In between more pressing tasks Inger had had time only to tack it together.

"I'll take the fool's role, you won't be bold enough to offer it to me," Inger had flashed them a quick smile and everybody had laughed. Yes, why couldn't she play the fool–this evening and some other time as well?

Urmas and Meeli had already slipped back into the hall to welcome the circus pageant with due festivity.

And then they went.

A port loafer with a red neckerchief and a black eye playing the accordion.

The ringmaster in a tailcoat, walking-stick in hand, gait markedly heavy, a monocle in one eve,

Four athletes of Rotterdam, striped sports-shirts covered with medals and orders, sashes over the shoulder, carrying a circus wagon on their shoulders.

And monkeys, bears, tamers and fakirs. Following in their wake, waddled a clown.

"Circus! Circus is coming!" shouted Urmas from the captain's bridge and people cheered. The rumba was cut short and the band struck up a march.

Today and only today, every day.

Everybody's joining in on the level of the world's best.

An enormous Atlantic sea serpent, the monster of Loch Ness.

The athletes were especially popular. They paraded their cotton-wool-and-rag muscles, busied themselves with the construction of a steampowered plane and a rocket and held a tug-of-war match with the eleventh "A". And then Tomas, titled Mr. Universe, challenged the audience to send forth somebody willing to measure his strength against his. Nobody ventured to step forth–small wonder after the recent show as the ringmaster put it. But then the clown jumped forward–and Mr. Universe took a high flight over her head. Several times they had tried out this handspring, but Inger always inclined to get in his way and get bumped. "No, Teacher, I'll bump you off, the trick isn't worth it!" Toomas had been worried: purposeful training, however, had licked it into shape and today he went over Inger's head so neatly that he didn't so much as brush her chequered cloth cap.

Out of the corner of her eye Inger peeped at Soova who was standing on the stage holding his stomach with both hands. "No. I quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed it enormously," he guffawed. "You're top-drawer professionals, that's what you are,"

And then Father Old-Year gave out prizes and parcels. They were given a big layered cake and gave three cheers.

In the joyful and mischievous mood fight walked Inger home after the carnival, having a snowball fight on their way. Inger threw as good as she could and suddenly noticed that Toomas, throwing snow at her, didn't squeeze it in his hand into a ball, but threw the snow with an open hand as though at a small child.

On the following morning Inger slept late. When she woke up at last and sitting on the couch took in her room, she found the sight downright dispiriting. The floor was strewn with scraps of coloured material next to scissors, needles, reels of thread and a pot of glue. Coloured debris of shattered glass was scintillating in the corner where she had smashed tree ornaments and glued the fragments on cardboard, fashioning diadems for the trick-riders. It was as messy as she had left it in yesterday's rush. The room, too, hadn't been heated for days.

The room was like Paddy's Market and sadness came over her like a pall. She should have gone to see the New Year in in the company of her mother, father, sister and brother. But now she is all alone on this God and people forsaken island where nobody comes to see her and where she, too, has no place to go to. Aet is in hospital, Riina has gone to Tallinn and she had rejected Kiur's invitation. Why? On many a dark evening had she longed to get away from here, to a brightly-lit hall where there was music and bright lights. Now she is sitting alone in a cold, untidy room and can't blame anyone but herself for it.

Inger got up and began to tidy and clean the flat. She brought logs in from the shed to build a fire. On the landing her eyes fell on a right-sized trim fir tree, provided with a log to stand it in and decided it must have been meant for her–why else bring it upstairs.

Inger did all the chores and discovered that evening was still far away. That is why she made up her mind to bake ginger snaps and fruit bread. One mustn't let things go hang on such an important day as New Year's Eve. For sure, she isn't expecting anyone to come round for the first time in her life she has to see the New Year in all alone.

Using a glass. Inger cut half and full-moons out of the gingerbread dough. She had no ready-made cutter to cut the dough into fancy shapes and the ginger snaps looked dull. She started cutting them out with a knife. With the sharpened tip of a match she drew a house, a tree, a man, a duck, a heart and. cut them out. Finally they did bake crooked in the oven, and so what?

Inger looked at her watch. New Year's Eve at home always rolled on too quickly some things always tending to be left on the late side. Today there was time enough and to spare. She deliberately slowed down–it had turned eleven when she settled for setting the table and dressing the tree. When still at school and thinking about her first salary packet she had had two wishes: to buy tree ornaments to her heart's content–all kinds of glass balls, bells and icicles–and a kilogram of chocs. Having started working, she had fulfilled both her wishes. Thus, she was a lucky girl what if she was sitting alone just now. Inger poured out a glass of wine and stood up to touch her glass with a bell in the tree.

Ancient stories tell us still

New Year's Eve will give your wish

If you use your heart and will

Doing all you can for this ...

Way back she had sung the lyrics at a school New Year's party. What did she wish then? Was she waiting for love even then? Perhaps. And is still waiting. Today, likewise she's wishing only for love.

The year had turned out quite all right. But the most important thing was still missing. There was only longing. What if somebody came from that maple avenue ... ?

Inger drained her goblet. You mustn't turn melancholy, never that. She had chosen the role herself.

Someone tapped on the door.

Inger gave a start and went to answer the door.

It was Toomas.

"Teacher, would you come out for a minute if it isn't too much trouble–we're all on the square at the big New Year tree ... "

Inger didn't get the message at once, but when realization dawned on her, she went scarlet with joy. In a hurry she slipped on her coat and went out.

It was a minute to twelve.

They crossed their arms before them and took hold of each other's hands, singing,

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot ... " they squeezed the hands they held simultaneously and shouted joyously: Happy New Year!

And then they started dancing, making the snow round the tree fly.

Continued in Part XIX...