My Happy Life Read online

  They found a lot.

  They took them to the recycling center and bought chewing gum with the money.

  Dani and Jonathan started a competition to see who had the most stickers, the ones you find on apples and bananas.

  They put them under the red mat in the cozy room.

  Chapter 16

  At school, Dani started every day by writing in her storybook.

  Her book was called:

  MY HAPPY LIFE

  This is what was in it:

  My name is Daniela but I am called Dani.

  I have blonde hair, yellowy-gold. Light yellowy-gold.

  My eyes are blue. My favorite dinner is macaroni and tomato sauce, and I have been happy many times in my life.

  That’s as far as she got.

  But everything in the story was true.

  When she was little, she was happy about almost everything.

  Happy because she had fingers and toes.

  She thought her feet were adorable.

  She liked her tummy as well.

  It was so lovely and soft.

  And she had her mother.

  Then her mother got sick and had to go to hospital.

  Sometimes she came home. She spent her time on the veranda, resting.

  Dani stayed with Grandma and Grandpa a lot.

  One day her father called from the hospital and said that her mother had passed away.

  Dani was so little, she didn’t understand what that meant.

  Then her grandma explained that it was just something people say.

  Her mother hadn’t passed away. She’d gotten wings and flown.

  Chapter 17

  Her father flew, too, but he flew in a plane. To Italy.

  And Dani always went with him because that was where her other grandma lived.

  They flew there every summer.

  What she remembered best from all her journeys was the time she sat on the baggage cart…

  She sat right on top of a pile of suitcases.

  Of course, the pile toppled over, but her father rushed up and caught her.

  He rescued her all the time.

  She wouldn’t manage without him.

  She was so lucky to have her father.

  Another time in Italy, she fell and scraped her hands, her knees, and her nose.

  They were at a restaurant.

  Everyone at the restaurant was so sorry for her that they gave her a whole chocolate cake.

  Dani shared it with her family.

  After that, she and her cousin Alessandro played together until they were tired, and then they sat down and talked.

  Dani usually spoke English and Alessandro spoke Italian.

  “Fiore,” said Alessandro. That meant flower.

  Then he said, “Amore.” That meant love.

  It was a word Dani knew well because her father said it all the time.

  Chapter 18

  “Amore,” said her father when he popped in to see her one night. “Aren’t you asleep yet?”

  “No,” said Dani. “I can’t.”

  She usually went to sleep as soon as she put her head on the pillow, but that night she couldn’t sleep a wink.

  “What shall we do?” Her father was worried. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” said Dani. “I think I am.”

  She had heard that there were children who needed food at night. She might be one of those.

  She drank some warm milk with honey.

  Snow and Flake were also awake, looking at her.

  They were probably wondering what was going to happen.

  “Amore,” she whispered to Snow.

  Then she whispered it to Flake. “Amore to you, too!”

  But she was supposed to be counting her happy times. Where was she?

  That’s right. She had managed to do five hundred jumps during jump rope.

  That was a record for her.

  The whole class had stood and watched.

  Then she was happy.

  But she didn’t have a best friend any more. Just other sorts of friends.

  Like Jonathan and Vicky and Mickey. And Meatball. She liked him too.

  She was in an unusually well behaved class, the teacher told Dani’s father.

  They didn’t bounce off chairs or anything like that.

  But the teacher must have forgotten about Benny—the boy who didn’t want to start school until his mother bribed him with money.

  One time he crept out of the classroom and ran to the candy store.

  Then he crept back in again.

  The teacher saw him though, and at playtime she gave him a serious talk.

  No one knew what she said, but it didn’t help. Benny kept on eating candy in school, even though it wasn’t allowed.

  And sometimes he lay on the floor and crawled around like a crocodile.

  It usually ended with him having to sit next to the teacher at her desk.

  But the best happy thing was…

  The letter!

  One day Dani got a letter. When she read it, she was the happiest she’d been in her whole life.

  Hello Dani! it said.

  I can’t live without you.

  Love from Ella

  And in the envelope was Ella’s most special bookmark, the angel.

  Chapter 19

  Dani answered right away.

  Hi Ella!

  You must try, until we grow up.

  Then we can move to the same town and live in the same house and have the same job.

  We could work in the same shop.

  Or we could cure sick animals in Australia or Africa.

  Love from Dani

  PS Your town would also be okay.

  Soon she got an answer:

  Hi Dani!

  I can’t wait that long.

  Can you visit me at Easter?

  Love from Ella

  And then a few days later Ella’s mother called Dani’s father to ask if Dani could visit them.

  Dani was going there in the morning.

  Oh, she couldn’t wait for the morning!

  But that didn’t mean time went any faster...

  Snow and Flake were going, too.

  At last they would meet Partyboy!

  Chapter 20

  Her father opened the door again.

  “Dani, what are you doing?” he sighed. “Go to bed!”

  He wanted to go to bed, too.

  He was going to drive Dani the whole way.

  “I’m so happy I can’t sleep,” she complained.

  “I know a trick,” said her father. “If you count sheep…”

  “No, not sheep,” said Dani. “That’s boring.”

  “Count backwards then,” her father suggested. “Count backwards from twenty!”

  “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…” Dani counted, but that didn’t help either.

  When she got to seventeen, she remembered a trick she had learned from her cousin Roseanna.

  The trick was to close your eyes and pretend you were asleep.

  Sometimes you fall asleep properly.

  It worked!

  Quick as a wink, Dani fell asleep.

  And when she woke up it was morning and she was going to visit Ella.

  That meant a new chapter would begin in Dani’s happy life.

  First American edition published in 2013 by Gecko Press USA, an imprint of Gecko Press Ltd.

  A catalog record for this book is available from the US Library of Congress.

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA www.lernerbooks.com
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br />   This edition first published in 2012 by Gecko Press PO Box 9335, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand [email protected]

  First published in Sweden by Bonnier Carlsen Bokförlaget, Stockholm, Sweden Published in the English language by arrangement with Bonnier Carlsen Bokförlaget Original title: Mitt Lyckliga Liv

  Text © Rose Lagercrantz 2010 Illustrations © Eva Eriksson 2010 English language edition © Gecko Press Ltd 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or utilized in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Translated by Julia Marshall Edited by Penelope Todd Typesetting by Luke Kelly, New Zealand

  Gecko Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Svenska Institutet (SI).

  ISBN hardback 978-1-877579-35-6 ISBN epub 978-1-877579-65-3 ISBN mobi 978-1-877579-64-6

  For more curiously good books, visit www.geckopress.com