The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2004, Page 36

34
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 59 #1
forgive each other, forget about the pranks,
and stop trying to get revenge on one
another. I think the main reason that she
succeeded in getting us to agree to this was
that by that point everyone was tired of
arguing.
Late that night, after my father had dri-
ven me around the neighbourhood to
deliver my papers, I lay awake in the room
1 shared with Tammi. My sister was a
sound sleeper, and unfortunately in her
case it meant that when she slept she
sounded like a chainsaw. I sat up in my
bed, looking out the window as the stars
twinkled in the deep, dark sky. I was star-
tled out of my reverie when something flew
up against the glass. I jumped back against
my pillow, then hid under my quilt and
tried to disguise myself as an empty bed.
When I at last dared to peep out from
underneath the covers, I saw that it was
only a raven, which flew away as soon as I
poked my head out. I went to the window
to see whether it had built a nest under our
eavestrough, but once at the sill, my atten-
tion was diverted by a black shape
approaching our house over the snow.
Someone was coming to pay us a visit.
I knew that we were not expecting
anyone; we had only ever had one visitor in
the middle of the night (and anyway, that is
another story). Whoever it was walked
over to the the telephone pole which our
icicle-covered phone line was connected to.
I immediately went to wake my parents up.
They were somewhat less than overjoyed
to be disturbed after such a stressful
evening, but when I told them that we were
possibly in danger of being burgled (a verb
I had never had the opportunity to use
before), they quickly woke up. My father
had barely slipped into his housecoat when
we heard the back door quietly unlock and
then creak open. My mother quickly
grabbed the phone to call the police, grip-
ping my arm so that I would be unable to
follow my father, who was already creep-
ing downstairs with a baseball bat. The
phone was dead.
A few tense moments later, we heard
the sounds of a scuffle, a yell, and an odd
clang as if something had been dropped on
our kitchen floor. This woke the rest of the
family up (even Tammi) and we rushed
downstairs to help my father, Brian rush-
ing past us, eager to prove something to
someone.
What we found shocked us all. It was
Mr. Larson. My father had put his years on
the wrestling team in university to good
use and had our neighbour pinned on our
kitchen floor. There was an odd smell in
the room, and we saw an open gasoline can
lying prone in the corner. Next to it was a
lighter. Brian helped my father keep Mr.
Larson where he was as my father ques-
tioned him as to what exactly he had been
intending to do, and our neighbour-cum-
arsonist began a particularly eloquent story
which he assured us would explain every-
thing. He was cut short however, by the
sound of hoofbeats on our driveway. I
noticed that Mr. Larson's face turned pale
at that.
There was a polite knock at the door
and Lisa ushered in a Mounted Police offi-
cer, who explained as he doffed his wide-
brimmed hat that he had been out for a late
night ride from the ranch when he noticed
someone tampering with our phone line, so
he had ridden cross-country to see if we
needed any assistance. I was bit disappoint-
ed that the officer was wearing a dull-
coloured uniform rather than the bright red
ones I had seen in pictures, but nevertheless
there he was a real Mountie in our kitchen.
(My mother told me later that they only
wear red for special occasions.) He hand-
cuffed Mr. Larson, asked us a few ques-
tions, and thanked us for helping him do
his job. He said that he had actually been
looking for this man for some time, who, it
turned out, had been living in our neigh-
bourhood under a false name. I supposed
that there were a number of warrants out
for his arrest. The officer apologized for
having disturbed us and escorted Mr.
Larson, who now looked very unhappy
indeed, out the door. When we heard the
hoofbeats again as the officer left, I went to
the door to wave goodbye; however, he
was already gone. I noticed then that the
officer couldn't have been alone, as there
seemed to be two sets of hoofprints on our
driveway in single file.
That had certainly been enough excite-