“Can I come back again tomorrow and do some more?” the four-and-a-half-year-old asks.

Sune promises that she can. Zackell’s face is expressionless. Sune had to tell her not to smoke her cigar in front of the child. Zackell seemed to have difficulty understanding if that was because it was a bad thing in and of itself or if the child was trying to give up smoking and didn’t want to be tempted.

Once Alicia runs into her house, Sune turns to Zackell with a frown. “Are you serious about bringing Vidar onto the team?”

“He’s a good goalie, isn’t he? I saw the numbers from his last season. Were they wrong?”

“Vidar may be the best goalie this town has ever had. But he’s also had . . . problems.”

“Is he available to play or not?”

“Availability isn’t the same thing as suitability,” Sune notes.

Zackell’s lack of understanding is almost touching. “Hockey’s hockey. If he’s any good, then he’s suitable. Why is Peter so angry with him?”

Sune does his best not to laugh. “Peter isn’t . . . angry.”

“He seems angry.”

“Vidar has problems with his . . . impulse control. He has difficulty restraining himself. And Peter doesn’t like . . . mess.”

“Mess?”

“Vidar . . . well, where do I start? His brother is . . .”

“A hooligan. The leader of ‘the Pack.’ I’ve heard about that,” Zackell interrupts.

Sune clears his throat. “Yes . . . well . . . there isn’t necessarily any ‘Pack’ here . . . it all got a bit exaggerated by the media. But . . . yes, well, once a fight did break out outside the rink between the fans after an A-team game. Teemu was involved. The juniors were going to play a game straight afterward, but when it was supposed to start Beartown didn’t have a goalie, because Vidar was sitting in a police car. He’d run outside and thrown himself into the fight, still wearing his skates. On another occasion he broke into the rink and drove his moped around the stands. He was . . . well, a bit drunk. Another time he heard that Peter Andersson had spoken out against ‘hooligans’ during a board meeting, so he spent all night going around collecting all the pucks. And I mean all the pucks. From the rink, from the pro shop, from people’s garages . . . we had to ask the spectators at a boys’ cup game the next day to go home to see if they had any pucks hidden away somewhere so we could play the game. And another time Vidar hit a referee in . . . a sensitive part of his body. In the middle of a game. Peter banned him from the club, so Vidar broke into the rink and took a shit on Peter’s desk.”

Zackell nods, unconcerned. “And Peter doesn’t like mess?”

Sune chuckles. “Peter has a breakdown if anyone spills coffee on his desk. He’s just having trouble forgiving the business with the shit. He won’t let you put Vidar on the team.”

Zackell gives the distinct impression that she doesn’t understand how any of this hangs together. “Have you got a better goalie in Beartown than Vidar?”

“No.”

“I coach hockey teams. The only thing I know how to do is to treat everyone fairly, not treat them all the same. A good player is a good player.”

Sune nods. “Bloody hell. Peter’s going to kick up one hell of a fuss.”

“Is that bad?”

Sune smiles. “No. A vibrant club needs to be full of people burning with passion, and you only get fire from friction.”

“And forest fires,” Zackell points out.

Sune sighs. “You’re spoiling my metaphor.”

“Was that a metaphor? Sorry. I’m not good at—”

“People? Feelings?” Sune guesses.

“Pussyfooting around. I need players who . . . go for it.”

“That’s why you need Peter. He motivates them, you coach them.”

“Yes.”

“He won’t even talk to Vidar. But I can talk to Vidar’s brother.”

“His brother?”

“Yes.”

“And the other three? Benji, Bobo, and Amat? Will Peter talk to them?”

“No.”

“No?”

“If you want him to motivate Benji, Bobo, and Amat, you don’t need him to talk to the boys. He needs to talk to their mothers and sisters.”

“This is a very odd town,” Zackell declares.

“So we’ve been told,” Sune says.

16

Beartown Against the Rest

The news on the local paper’s website spreads quickly. Possibly because there isn’t much other news to talk about. Possibly because hockey is more important here than in a lot of other places. Or perhaps because the wind happened to change at that moment, without most people even realizing.

* * *

“Beartown Ice Hockey Saved by New Sponsor: General Manager Peter Andersson Engaged in Secret Talks,” the paper trumpets. A couple of lines farther down comes the next revelation: “Sources indicate that national women’s team player Elisabeth Zackell will be the new A-team coach, the first female coach in the history of Beartown Hockey.”

* * *

The newspaper doesn’t say where it got the information from, just that it was “a reliable source close to the club.”

* * *

Politicians need conflict to win elections, but they also need allies. Richard Theo knows only two ways of getting someone who doesn’t like you to fight on your side regardless: a shared enemy or a shared friend.

* * *

The same day Peter Andersson meets Elisabeth Zackell, a reporter from the local paper calls another politician in the council building. But Richard Theo answers the phone. “I’m afraid the person you’re trying to reach is on holiday, I was just passing in the corridor and heard the phone ringing,” he says amiably.

“Oh . . . I got an email from his assistant asking me to call . . . something about a ‘tipoff about Beartown Ice Hockey’?”

Theo has an exceptional ability to play stupid. The fact that the other politician’s assistant has a password consisting of a swear word followed by “12345” as his email password is happy coincidence.

“A tipoff about Beartown Ice Hockey? It could be about the new sponsor or the new coach, maybe?” Theo suggests helpfully.

“What?” the reporter exclaims.

Theo fakes hesitancy. “Sorry . . . I thought it was already common knowledge . . . silly of me . . . I’ve probably said more than I should have done. I’m really not the right person to be talking about this . . .”

The reporter clears her throat. “Could you . . . say a little more?”

“Can I trust you not to give my name in whatever you write?” Theo asks.

The reporter promises, and Theo says magnanimously that he “just doesn’t want to steal Peter Andersson’s thunder, because he’s the one doing all the work!”

When the news appears on the website, Theo sets off to the supermarket, asks for the owner, and is directed to the storeroom.

* * *

Tails is shifting stock, an old hockey giant driving a forklift, but dressed in a suit the same as usual. When he was younger, he had trouble attracting girls’ attention, so he started to dress up more than the other guys. When they wore T-shirts, he wore a smart jacket, and when they went to funerals in suits, he would show up wearing tails. Which is how he got his nickname.

“My name is Richard Theo,” the politician says, unnecessarily.

“I know who the hell you are, we were at school together,” Tails grunts and jumps down from the forklift.

The politician holds out a large box. The supermarket owner takes it warily.

“I want to help Beartown Ice Hockey,” Theo says.

“People around here don’t want to give a politician any control of the club,” Tails replies.

“A politician . . . or this politician?” Theo wonders ironically.

Tails’s voice is wary but not unfriendly. “I daresay you know your own reputation. What do you want with me?”

“I want us to help each other. Because you and I have a friend in common, Tails, and I think that’s more important than having enemies in common.”

Tails opens the box, looks down into it, tries not to look shocked, but fails. “What . . . what am I supposed to do with these?”

“Everyone says you’re the best salesman in Beartown. So sell them,” Theo says.

He puts his hands into the pockets of his expensive trousers. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt beneath a gray waistcoat, a red silk tie, shiny, polished shoes. No one dresses like that in Beartown, apart from him and Tails. The supermarket owner looks down into the box again. He loves just two things apart from his family: his town and his hockey club. So as Richard Theo turns to walk away, he sees Tails smile.

* * *

The box is full of T-shirts. On them are the words BEARTOWN AGAINST THE REST. Tails sells all of them in less than an hour.

* * *