Something changed about Jorgan Bradt. He lost that fun loving attitude of his. Those little practical jokes became sinister ones. They were no longer meant to be a little scare then a laugh at one's own foolishness afterwards. They became things that would cause night terrors and a crazy laugh out of Jorgan's bedroom window in the cottage next door when I awoke screaming in the night.

"Did you find the little gift I left in your bed last night?" Jorgan would ask as he met me on the path to school the following morning.

"Oh yes, I found it, Jorgan," I'd respond as I marched past him, determined not to walk to school with him. Yes, I found it—a whiskered bat: dead; it's neck broken. "Not funny," I stated, turning to walk backward to face him then turning on my heels to run away. His horrible, horrible laugh following me.

His practical jokes became worse, more horrid, as time marched on. The fact that he found humor in scaring me nearly to death disturbed my mind. We were still friends, Jorgan and I; sometimes we were in love, sometimes we weren't. When he was kind and thoughtful, I enjoyed his company. He could show up at my door with a large bunch of Reinroses, the pretty white flowers opened to show their bright yellow faces. I could love him in that moment and fling my arms about his neck. He would give me his smuggest grin knowing he had won my affection. Other times he would wreak terror in my life—a joke gone too far to bring me to the very edges of insanity.

I well remember the day little Magnus disappeared. He must have been about thirteen at the time but small, very small, for his age. My youngest brother had been a breech baby. The midwife had been delayed with another birth in a village miles away from us. Mama had delivered him without assistance long before she could arrive. My poor little brother barely survived and seemed to have difficulty growing and paying attention as he grew up. The umbilical cord had wrapped around his wee little throat causing him to lose oxygen for several moments. Papa had freed him after the birth. Magnus survived but was not the same as other children.

Magnus was thirteen the day he disappeared. It was Jorgan who sighted the body floating in the river beneath the bridge. Mama was in a fury of tears as she watched our neighbor drag the small form from the raging waters. Fredrik and I comforted her as best we could but we each had a lump in our throats the size of an apple as we feared the loss of our youngest brother. When it turned out to be a straw stuffed figure dressed in Magnus's overalls and plaid shirt, I turned my fury on Jorgan.

"How dare you do this to Mama!" I screamed, forcing myself into Jorgan Bradt's face. "You might have scared her right to death." When my companion fell to the ground in an unearthly, hideous laugh straight from hell, I swore I would never speak to him again; never be his friend; never love him...ever! I was finished with Jorgan Bradt and his horrible, cruel jokes. Then I compelled him to release my poor little brother from his hiding place which turned out to be the neighbor's cellar.

I allowed my anger to brew for three years. Oh, Jorgan tried to win me back with Reinroses and pleas for a renewal of our long standing relationship but I wouldn't budge. It was his unfunny practical jokes that annoyed me. I couldn't stand the cruelty of them or the fact that he found them to be so hideously amusing.

It was his constant promises to stop that eventually broke me down. And he did change. He seemed to grow up overnight both mentally and physically. Jorgan became a handsome Norwegian lad: tall, blond, with a wide grin full of sunshine and potential. He stopped making jokes and wooed me as a man in love woos his beloved. On sunny days, we would wander across the bridge and sit in the shadow of the crag making future plans for ourselves.

But those sunny days were not to last long. Jorgan was soon back to his old tricks.