Peanut Butter and Magic

Why did I eat that doughnut? Why? What possessed me? I knew it looked sketchy, all sealed up in that plastic bag with a giant smiley face stamped on the front. My innards are so not smiling. Why couldn’t the flight attendants serve something real for breakfast? Like pancakes and peanut butter? Oh, man…I’m scared I’m going to have an airplane lavatory emergency…

I’m just going to write and ignore it. We’re going to land soon. Everything will be fine.

You’re probably wondering why I’m keeping a journal in the first place (whoever you are). Well, I’m leaving the country—leaving Urbana, Illinois, actually—for the first time in my life. I’m braving airplane rides and sketchy doughnuts to find adventure, at last. I’m off to Norway! The land of trolls, fjords, magic, new beginnings…

Oh, man. I don’t feel good. But we’re landing…

Not good.

Rushing to the lavatory while the plane is hitting the ground is much more exciting than I would’ve thought. I had to hang onto the rail and sink for dear life with my pants around my ankles as the plane bounced to a careening halt on the runway. I almost dropped my glasses down the toilet. Luckily, I feel much better now. I kicked open the lavatory door before the plane was completely stopped, made a flight attendant scream, and hurtled to my seat, where I buckled up and pretended like I’d been sitting the whole time.

It’s lucky I went when I did. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one affected by those doughnuts. When I got to baggage claim, crowds of people were shoving past each other to get to the bathrooms. I think there were laxatives in those things.

Anyway, if I’d been rushing to the bathroom then, I wouldn’t have seen the short, smiling lady, holding a sign that proclaimed, “Welcome Ellie Steelhart!”

I straightened my glasses and strode to meet her, trying not to gape. She looked like…like a creature from Norwegian lore. White hair puffed around her head like a mushroom cap. Her nose, pickled and ballooned, stretched out over a smile that reminded me of grandmothers and kindly old neighbors who bake cookies for the local kids. Only, since she looked she crawled out of a toadstool, I imagined she baked for the local gnomes.

“Ms. Steel-hart?” the lady asked. She said my name with a strange, lilted accent. When I nodded, she broke into a larger smile. “Velcome to Norvay! I am Gunda Jorgensen. How pleased I am to meet you!” She shook my hand until my joints creaked. “I am from the Vorld Expedition Corporation. I am to take you there. Come. Ve are already late! You do not want to miss the first tour.” She glanced at the bag by my feet. “Don’t forget your luggage, ya?”

Before I could speak, she whirled around and led me to the company car. “The first tour?” I gasped as I squished into the tiny smart car, holding my luggage on my lap. “I thought…I thought I’d have some sort of…orientation time before any tours. I mean,” I stammered as we sped down the highway, “I’ve traveled, of course.” In my mind, while watching the Travel Channel. “And I’ve led groups before.” Of preschoolers, while banging drums and singing about how to poop and wash your hands. “But…”

I couldn’t tell Gunda the truth. The truth is, I know nothing about Norway except for fairy tales…and, of course, the ad I saw in the paper that fateful day. I was sitting in my kitchen eating breakfast (pancakes and peanut butter). Rob, my boyfriend of eight years, shoved a handful of peanut butter in his mouth—and asked me to marry him. Any sane person would’ve said yes.

It’s not like I hadn’t been expecting it. We’d been dating for almost a decade, after all. But…that was just it. Robbie was the only guy I’d been with my whole life—ever since I was fourteen and he passed me that note in Driver’s Ed, asking me out. Somehow, while watching him suck peanut butter off his fingers, I couldn’t fathom spending the rest of my life with him. Maybe I had a quarter-life crisis. Whatever the reason, I cried, “I can’t marry you!”

He stared at me, floored. “Why?”

Glancing at the newspaper, open to the want ad section, I sputtered, “Because…because I’m moving. I got a new job. Really far away. I got tired of the preschool. You know…cleaning poopy diapers and all of that. You wouldn’t want to come. It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you.”

“What kind of job?”

I scanned the paper. “It’s…um…a position for friendly, outgoing people who love leadership and adventure. As a tour guide with the…uh…World Expedition Corporation. In…” I squinted at the tiny print. “Norway.”

“Norway?” he yelped.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. I’d never been out of Urbana before. This World Expedition Corporation was offering to pay for travel expenses, including room and board—not to mention my salary. Besides, how could I pass up Norway? The country’s legends were full of mystery and magic. Adventure beckoned! But, then, so had that doughnut on the airplane and look where that led me.

“O-ho, do not vorry, Ms. Steelhart,” Gunda said, pulling me back to the present. “You von’t have to lead the tour. I am leading this group. You vill come along and see how it is done! After a veek or so, you vill lead your own tour group.”

Now I’m sitting in this ridiculously tiny car, about thirty minutes away from my destiny as a tour guide in-training. I wonder what kind of people take these tours, anyway. Hunky Australians? Swarthy Greeks? Sweet, bumbling Englishmen like Hugh Grant?

Old people. Lots of old people.

“Hello! I’m Harvey and this is my beautiful bride! We got married sixty-five years ago today!” Harvey was the first tourist to introduce himself. He grinned, adjusted his dentures, and swung an arm around his laughing wife and her walker.

Not that I don’t like senior citizens. In fact, I think most of them are adorable—even the crotchety ones, who criticize your wardrobe and mistrust anyone who grew up after the Great Depression. The oldsters on this trip were especially adorable. As soon as I saw them, I loved everything about them—from their fanny packs and florescent windbreakers to their excitement at exploring a foreign land from the safety of a tour bus. It’s probably good there aren’t any cute, young guys on the trip. I need some time to be single. You know, find out who “Ellie” is without “Rob” attached.

That’s what I was telling myself as the tour group gathered in the hotel lobby and began introductions. Harvey’s the only name I remember, because he kept referring to his wife as “Harvey’s bride.” In an attempt to keep everyone straight in my mind, I made up names for the rest: Chews-on-her-scarf lady and daughter, the Hackers, Sir Scapegoat, Mr. and Mrs. Our-children-went-to-Princeton, and Ah-Real-Monster Guy. The Hackers are a couple with emphysema and Sir Scapegoat’s writing a novel on the scapegoats of the world. Chews-on-her-scarf lady…well, let’s just say you don’t want to borrow her neckerchief. Ah-Real-Monster Guy looks just like that cartoon character from the old Nickelodeon show—you know, the monster with the big lips and ears and who kind of looks like a rabbit…Anyway, I’ll learn what to call everyone soon.

I was about to ask Gunda for the list of names, in fact, when one last person was introduced: Sven Tour-guider, the bus driver. At least, I think his name was Tour-guider. It sounded like that to me.

The truth is, my brain sort of stopped working when he walked into the room. Like the rest of my tour group, he was adorable. He just happened to be sixty years younger than everyone else, with blonde hair, fjord-blue eyes, and the body of a Norse warrior. Well, let’s be honest. Not a Norse warrior. More like a Norse warrior’s younger cousin who goes to the gym once and a while, but you know he also likes his peanut butter pancakes. He was gorgeous.

“And this,” Gunda said, breaking my reverie, “is Ellie Steelhart. She vill be my assistant this veek.” I blinked and tore my gaze away from Sven. Everyone clapped and smiled at me. Harvey’s bride winked. “Tell us about yourself, Ellie,” Gunda went on.

“Um,” I stammered. Why was I so flustered? I could feel Sven staring at me, making my brain fizzle and slow to a halt. “Hi. I’m Ellie. I’m from Norway. I mean, Illinois. The States. And…er…this is my first time in Norway. I’m a tour-guide in training. I enjoy doughnuts and pancakes…well, except for the one I ate this morning. Doughnut, I mean. It was…not good.”

What the heck was I talking about? I’m not normally this lame at public speaking. Of course, most of the public speaking I do is about things like boo-boos and how you shouldn’t hit your neighbor in the head because you didn’t like how he ate your play-dough.

“And, um, I’m really glad to be here…” Cheeks flaming, I rubbed my eyes, trying to hide my face. My knuckles hit my glasses—and a lens popped out, skidding across the wooden floor. The next thing I know, everyone’s cracking their backs, trying to bend down and find the invisible glass piece. Sir Scapegoat’s arthritis started to flair. I got all the way to my hands and knees, but couldn’t find the lens anywhere. How could it just disappear? “It’s okay,” I said when Gunda looked at her watch and moaned that we would be late. “It’s just one lens. I’ve still got another.” I tapped the surviving part of my glasses.

“You vill find the lens tonight, ya?” Gunda said, looking anxious. “It vill still be here. Come, now! To the bus, everyone!”

That’s where we are now. The Hackers’ coughs sound even worse in the bus. I gasped and cringed the first time they heaved up a lung, which made Sven jump in his seat and glance at me. Then, with my one glasses lens, I noticed how stunning the scenery was outside—cobblestone roads, villages with thatched roofs, mountains that pierce the sky—and gasped even louder. Sven jumped again and stared at me. This happened several times (cough, gasp, river, gasp) until Sven just started to grin every time he looked at me. It’s difficult to write under these conditions (especially since I can only see out of one eye), but I’ve managed.

Meanwhile, Gunda’s been pointing out everything in sight, even if it doesn’t seem important. (“You see, there are cows with bells on them, ya? And there is a little family of ducks. Oh, Sven, vatch out for the ducks! The ducks!”) She’s standing at the front of the bus with a microphone, so I suppose she feels the need to talk a lot. We’ve left the rural village of our hotel and have entered a larger town on our way to some historic church.

“And you see,” Gunda is saying, “there is a park, ya? And a lake with more little ducks. Oh, everyone, look at Sven. Isn’t Sven a good driver? Vhat a good driver Sven is—”

AAAHH!!

Okay. False alarm. The rest of Gunda’s sentence ended in a shriek: “Vatch out for the water, Sven! Vatch out for the water!”

We were turning a corner next to the lake, but were nowhere near the water’s edge. Gunda started screaming, though, making all of the old folk cry out and clutch their chests. It’s lucky no one had a heart attack. For a minute, I was scared Chews-on-her-scarf lady wouldn’t make it. She munched on her neckerchief so hard, I thought she’d swallow it. Her daughter pulled it from her mouth, though, and all is well.

Oh, and here we are at the church! It’s beautiful, made out of stone and wooden pillars. There are even guys out there with swords, in uniform! And girls in pink dresses with flowers…Wait a minute. This looks like a wedding.

Hang on. Let me shrivel up and die for a second.

Okay. I’m better.

It was a wedding, as it turned out. Gunda made us all get out of the bus and file into the church, even though I told her over and over that there was obviously some kind of event going on. The guys with swords eyed us with alarm as we sidestepped the flower girls, gaping up at the stone arches and angel carvings. Mr. and Mrs. Our-children-went-to-Princeton got out cameras and started taking pictures. Inside, crowds of people swiveled in their pews to stare at us. All the while, Gunda pointed out the architectural style and discussed the historical importance of each part of the church in a booming voice. It took three guys with swords to usher us out of the church and back into the bus. Once the doors shut, I gasped in relief. Sven smiled at me.

“My, vasn’t that fun?” Gunda said as we took our seats. She patted her mushroom-cap hair into place. “Now, ve are off to the Royal Dairy Farm!”

The royal cows were out to pasture when we arrived, which was too far away for our group to walk. Instead, we got a tour of the empty barns. Everyone joyfully snapped pictures and breathed in royal aromas. There has got to be more to Norway than cow patties, even imperial ones.

There is more. Unfortunately, as we pulled out of the farms and trekked thirty minutes away to the nearest castle, jetlag caught up with me. I’d heard of jetlag, but never predicted how much it would affect me. One minute, I was observing Sven in the rearview mirror and contemplating how scapegoats played a role in the show Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. The next, it was late afternoon and Gunda was shaking me awake.

“Hello, Ellie! I am sorry I did not vake you earlier,” she said with a smile, “but you looked so peaceful. I forgot how tired you must be, your first day here. Do not vorry. You vill have plenty of time to learn the tour route later. Now, ve must hurry. Hurry! The boat is leaving!”

“Boat?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I glanced out the window, wondering why one half of the world was blurry. Oh, yeah. I lost a glasses lens.

The tour group was clamoring from a dock onto a speed boat, where Sven was helping them aboard. I glanced past them—and jerked upright. Green, cascading cliffs towered over us, peaked with snow and curling, white clouds. Below, water reflected the sky and glinted with afternoon rays, pooling between the cliffs like melted sunlight. “It’s…” I stammered. “It’s…”

“A fjord,” Gunda finished, nodding her head. “Now come! Ve must hurry!”

I stumbled after her, almost falling into the water as I tumbled from the dock to the boat. I’d never seen anything like this before. I mean, Illinois cornfields can be pretty. But this…this was magic. The sky was so open, the mountains so huge, I felt the opposite of claustrophobic. I felt…I felt I would fly apart in a million directions. In the cliff face, I could almost see a troll, grinning at me with rocky teeth.

Sven chuckled and put a finger under my jaw, closing it. Before I could say anything, he took his place behind the steering wheel—and we were off. I’m not really sure where we’re going, actually. It’s hard to write with this all around me. I’ve got to go watch the world. I’ve got to watch the sunset…

… While Harvey is peeing off the back of the boat.

Okay, I discovered where we’re going. Apparently, there’s an island in the middle of the fjord with a restaurant on it, reached only by boat. Our tour group has got the whole place booked for dinner. How exciting! I didn’t realize how hungry I was until somebody mentioned food. Gunda let me sleep through lunch. I wonder what they’re serving.

Boar. That is, they had salmon, but they ran out after serving everybody but me, Sven, and Gunda. So we got boar.

Let me start over. The restaurant was small and cozy—a wooden cottage with a red tiled roof and two employees: the chef and his wife, the waitress. Scents of wood smoke, crisp air, and cooking salmon wafted through the doors as the chef’s wife seated us at benches and tables. Gunda chose to sit at the top of a dais to observe the proceedings. All in all, it reminded me of an ancient Norse Hall, like in Beowulf. The Viking warrior clan consisted of the male tourists (a little past their prime) and their female counterparts were foreign princesses, captured in battle. Gunda was their troll queen. Sven and I had taken a wrong turn in search of pancakes and ended up here by accident.

“It is boar,” Sven said in an accent like Gunda’s, sliding onto the bench next to me. I didn’t realize I’d been staring at my hunk of meat with a perplexed expression on my face. Startled, I glanced up at him. Despite all his smiles, this was the first time he’d spoken to me.

“Oh,” I replied, swallowing. I stared at the meat again. Boar? How could I eat boar? Visions of Pumbaa from The Lion King, scrambling through the forest and pleading not to be eaten, flashed through my mind. Sven was still watching me. Wanting to be polite, I shrugged off the image of the cartoon warthog, squeezed my eye shut, and licked a piece of meat. Not bad.

When the bench started convulsing, I opened my eyes. Sven was trying not to laugh. His shoulders shook and he quickly glanced away when I met his gaze. “So, Mr. Tour-guider,” I snapped, changing the subject. “What’s your story?”

As I said his name, he burst into chuckles and glanced at me again. Wow. He really was adorable, even if he did keep laughing at me. “I am sorry,” he said, beaming. “What do you mean, what is my story?”

“I mean,” I said, poking my boar, “how’d you become a bus driver? Have you been doing this long?”

“No.” Getting his amusement under control, he turned to his meat and began to cut it. “In fact,” he said between bites, “today is my first day. Like you. Gunda has been…a little nervous about it. She does not think I am a good driver.” I giggled, remembering the watch-out-for-the-water incident. “And what about you? What is your tale?” He twisted to look at me. “I know you ate a bad doughnut this morning, but I don’t know much else about you. You traveled far to take this job.” I glared at him, but he watched me with an innocent expression.

I sighed. “Well…there was this…boy I didn’t want to marry.” Did Sven have to sit so close to me? My brain started to fizzle out again, but for some reason I kept talking. “I mean, he wanted to marry me. But there was peanut butter on his fingers. And he asked me out in Driver’s Ed. Originally, I mean, like, ten years ago. And I didn’t want peanut butter, I wanted magic. I mean, I saw the ad about Norway and there are trolls here.” When my words finally caught up with my brain, I clamped my mouth shut and gave Sven a frantic look. He was grinning again. “But enough about me!” I wailed. “What did you do before today? Before you were a bus driver, I mean?”

He contemplated me for a moment. “I was a national polka-dancing champion.”

“What?”

As if on cue, the chef burst out from the kitchen, playing a polka on the accordion. “Look, everyone!” Gunda proclaimed. “The polka! We must dance!” Harvey and his bride got up and bopped around, but it was hard to maneuver with her walker. Chews-on-her-scarf lady watched on with a delighted expression, ignoring her salmon for a better treat: scarf. Everyone clapped and cheered. The Hackers coughed. “Ellie!” someone exclaimed. “Ellie must dance!”

I began to protest, but Sven pulled me to my feet—and whirled me around the room like the North Wind. He wasn’t kidding when he said he could polka. I’m not even good at the hokey-pokey, but he spun me in a pattern of moves so fast, I felt like the Polka Queen. My shoes never touched the ground. As I was beginning to relax and enjoy myself, my remaining glasses lens decided polka dancing wasn’t for it. With a ping, it flew out of my wire frames and disappeared with a crunch under Harvey’s bride’s walker.

“Oops,” she said, lifting her walker. Sven put me down and glanced at the floor.

“Is it bad?” I asked. I blinked, straining to see through the blur of shapes to the floor. “What happened?”

Sven swallowed. “It is…not good.” He shook his head. “Can you see at all?” I squinted and examined the room, struggling to identify the hazy colors as people. In the corner, I could make out a short figure that might be Gunda…or a hat rack, I wasn’t really certain. Sven chuckled before I could answer. “Do not worry. I will lead you.”

“Yes,” Gunda said in a bright voice from the opposite side of the room. Okay, so it was a hat rack. “And there is still one glasses lens at the hotel, ya? You vill find it. Also…I hope you packed contacts. Come, now!” she called to the room. “It is time ve leave, ya? Hurry! To the boat!”

I smiled at Sven, whose features were close enough for me to see. The grin vanished from his face, but his eyes laughed. Red stubble shaded his chin. Taking my elbow, he steered me out of the restaurant. “Thanks, Mr. Tour-guider,” I said. Chuckling, he picked me up and lifted me onto the boat.

Back at the hotel, the first glasses lens was nowhere to be found. The hotel manager acted very apologetic, even though (as Sir Scapegoat pointed out) the missing lens wasn’t his fault. He recommended a glasses store in the next town over that could replace my lenses and offered to have a car ready for me in the morning. Protesting, Sven said he would drive me during tomorrow’s tour. We could stop on the way to Vikingland. Harvey’s bride, Mrs. Hacker, and Mrs. Our-children-went-to-Princeton decided in a burst of excitement that they would pick me out new frames. With this determined, everyone bade each other good night. I smiled as Sven and Gunda each took one of my arms and helped me to my room.

“Now, Ellie,” Gunda said as we reached my floor. “I know today vas…not perfect. But it vill get better. If you’d rather take another post, I understand, but—”

I glanced at her (in the direction of what I thought were her eyes) and smiled. “Gunda! Of course I’ll stay! Today was great.”

She beamed at me. “Truly? Oh,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I am so pleased. I vas afraid that…vith the vedding and the cow patties…never mind. Here is your room! Hurry, now. You must sleep. Tomorrow vill be grand! First, ve vill stop at the glasses store. Then to Vikingland. Ve vill see the ships, of course.” Murmuring tomorrow’s itinerary to herself, Gunda patted my arm and bustled down the hall, disappearing into a haze of color.

“Well,” I said, smiling and turning to Sven. “Thanks, Mr. Tour-guider. For getting me to my room and all.”

He grinned at me. “You’re welcome, Ms. Steal-my-heart.”

I blinked. “What? But that’s not my…” I trailed off as he chuckled and strode away, blurring into indistinct shades of Norse beauty. Maybe his name isn’t Tour-guider, after all.

Now, I’m sitting on my bed, daydreaming about polka dancers and struggling against the pull of sleep. I think I’m going to like Norway. Except, they better start serving something other than boar. I’m really hungry. I wonder what they’ll have for breakfast. Wasn’t there a café in the hotel lobby? Maybe I can grab a doughnut before the tour starts tomorrow. Mmm, doughnut. That seems like a good idea.