The Reindeer Girl (4 page)

Chapter Four

Lotta’s pappa stared down at Lotta and Erika seriously. “I’m leaving you two to look after the mother reindeer and her calf, you understand? It’s your special job.”

“Yes, Uncle Peter.” Erika elbowed Lotta gently, and Lotta gave a little gasp. “We understand, don’t we, Lotta? We’ll make sure she’s all right. And her new calf.”

Lotta nodded, gathering her wits. It was as though she had to pull in a fishing net, full of all the things she needed to know. She tried to think of everything Oldeforeldre had told her about her life as a reindeer girl, but there were so many gaps. She’d just have to do her best.

She didn’t understand what had happened, but there was no time to think about it. It must be a very strange and
real dream, that was all. And now her pappa was asking them to do something important.

“He’s still not feeding well from his mother,” Pappa said, frowning. “In a week or so you can try and give him a handful of grain every so often. And some for her, too. You have to keep her strength up so she has enough milk for him. He’s very small, and he’s her first calf. She needs you to help her.”

“We will,” Lotta whispered, and her pappa leaned down to hug her again, his bristly chin scratching her face and making her laugh.

“I’ll miss you. Look after your mamma while I’m away, too, yes?”

Lotta’s mamma tugged the flaps on her tall red hat closer around her ears.
“The wind is bitter,” she said. “Make sure you build your fire well tonight, Peter. There’s some dried fish on one of the sledges, you must eat properly.”

“Of course, I will.” He wrapped one arm round each of them. “I promise. And I’ll see you soon, when we all meet up at the calving grounds.”

One of the other men was calling, and he looked round. “Time to go.” He walked back over to the big wooden sledge at the front of the line and checked the harness.

“I hope Growler pulls the sledge well, don’t you?” Erika said, coming up beside her, and nodding at the reindeer that was going to pull the sledge. “I loved helping your pappa to train him this winter. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

Lotta nodded, trying to look as though she knew what Erika meant.

“He doesn’t seem worried by the harness, does he? But then we spent ages getting him used to it. Oh, my pappa’s calling.” She dashed off towards one of the other men, huge and tall in his fur coat, and Lotta was left alone again.

Growler grunted loudly, staring at Lotta, as though he wanted something. She walked over slowly, and hesitantly began to stroke him and rub his soft nose, the way she had with the reindeer at the farm.

They must have named him Growler because of the noises he made, she thought. He was doing it now, making deep, throaty growls as he nuzzled at the pockets of Lotta’s heavy fur coat.
He seemed to think there was food in there.

“I don’t have any,” Lotta told him apologetically. “I’m not quite who you think I am. But I’ll try and give you some food next time I see you. You do look so silly with half your antlers gone like that,” she added, with a little laugh. Growler had only lost the antlers on one side, which made him look all lopsided and a bit dopey.

She stayed there, patting Growler and stroking his ears, while everyone bustled around. She could feel the little notches cut in the edges of his ears. Mum had told her about those in one of her stories – the marks that showed he belonged to her family.

Her pappa was putting on his wooden skis, tucking the ties carefully under the curly toes of his reindeer-skin boots.
So that’s why they have such funny-shaped boots
, Lotta thought.
It helps to hold the skis on
…

She shook her head in confusion. She felt like she was two people at once. The Lotta who should really be here, who knew all these people rushing around her and obviously loved Growler. And the other Lotta, who had no idea what was going on and was just fumbling her
way through the story, trying not to let everyone see that she shouldn’t really be there.

Growler nudged her lovingly, and she leaned against his warm side for a moment with a soft sigh.
He
didn’t seem to think that she was the wrong Lotta.

What was she doing here? Lotta wondered. She had never had a dream like this before. One that was so real, and full of things she was sure she didn’t know enough about to dream. The amazing clothes that everyone was wearing. The thick blue cloth tunics – Oldeforeldre had said they were called
gákti
, and that the heavy fur jacket was a
beaska
.

Lotta blinked, realizing that she must be speaking the same language as everyone
else, as well. It was as if she had just slipped back in time to the world her great-grandmother had described. Oldeforeldre had shown her photographs and told her stories, but Lotta hadn’t really been able to imagine what her great-grandmother’s Sami life was like.

And yet here, in this dream, somehow she could see it all so clearly.

So perhaps it wasn’t a dream after all? Perhaps it was something more…

Lotta stood watching as the reindeer herd set off. Her father’s dog, a beautiful creature with a golden-orange coat, leaped down off the sledge where he’d been sitting and began to howl. Pappa was telling him to, Lotta could see now. He must have
been trained to howl on command, to keep the reindeer bunched together. It made sense. If they straggled out in a long line, it would be harder to make sure they were all keeping up. There were other dogs hurrying round the herd, too – each of her uncles and cousins seemed to have their own herding dog.

She could hardly see the herd now. The final few reindeer were vanishing over the rise in the snowy ground, and one of her uncles was turning back to wave one last time, before following on his skis. All that was left was the churned-up snow, marked by hundreds of hoofprints and the sledge runners.

“Come on, Lotta. Let’s go and check on that little calf.” Erika grabbed her hand and pulled her away. “Aunt Inge, we’re going to see the new baby reindeer!” she called to Lotta’s mamma.

Lotta followed Erika past the
lavvus
to a quiet space among the scrubby trees where a reindeer was grazing, digging through the snow with her front hoof and looking for lichen. She kept glancing around restlessly, but when the two girls
came close, she backed away, towards a small brown bundle curled up in the snow.

“Isn’t he tiny?” Lotta whispered. The calf was so small and soft-looking, its fur a golden brown, darker round his nose and his eyes, almost as though he was wearing sunglasses. She longed to stroke him, or pick him up, but she didn’t think his mother would like it.

“Well, he is only a couple of days old,” Erika pointed out. “I wonder why he came so early. It’s nice to see one so young – because we stay here and the mothers go off to the calving grounds, we hardly ever see such a baby.”

“I don’t think she wants us to go near him,” Lotta said anxiously. The mother reindeer was eyeing them, as though she wasn’t sure who to trust. “It must be strange for her, being left behind when all the others have gone to the calving grounds. She probably doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

“I’ve got some grain for her. If we give her some food, she might let us get closer to the calf.” Erika dug into her coat pocket and the reindeer snuffled eagerly, stepping towards the girls.

“She’s really hungry.” Lotta peered round the reindeer to look at the calf, and he looked back at her shyly, his eyes huge and dark.

Erika laughed as the mother reindeer gobbled eagerly at the grain, and then snuffled against her affectionately. “Do you like us now, hmmm?”

The reindeer calf struggled up on to his long, fragile-looking legs and stumbled over to his mother. He tried to suckle, nuzzling at the fur underneath her, and she peered down at him worriedly.

“Pappa said he wasn’t suckling very well,” Lotta remembered. “Maybe she isn’t making enough milk for him.”

Erika nodded. “Well, she should be in the calving grounds, shouldn’t she, where the food’s better.”

The part of the forest they were in now was quite open, without too many trees, and that meant the snow was thick and heavily frozen. Lotta frowned, trying to remember what Oldeforeldre had told her about the reindeer migration. In a week or so, the rest of the herd would follow the mother reindeer to the calving grounds, where the snow would be melting and the grasses showing through. Then, a little later, when all the calves were big enough to make the journey, the two herds would go on together to the summer pastures.

“There isn’t a lot of grain to spare for feeding her,” Erika murmured. “We have to trade for it, with reindeer hides and dried meat. Grain’s expensive.” She chewed her lip and dug at the snow with her boot. “She really ought to be
feeding herself, but the ice crust over the snow’s so hard here. It’s taking her ages to dig through it to find the lichen to eat.”

Lotta picked up a piece of branch and dug under the snow. It was frozen solid, and she had to work at it. But the reindeer sniffed interestedly as Lotta scraped back the snow, revealing the lichen on the ground. She took a couple of steps forward and began to nibble at it gratefully. Her calf stumbled after her and went on trying to suckle.