Friday, April 16, 2010

Page 99 Test: Let the Right One In

A little over a year ago, I fell in love with Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. IN LOVE. I let my roommate borrow it earlier this week, and she devoured this almost five hundred page book in four evenings. When she handed it back to me yesterday, I made the mistake of reading the first few pages... and went to bed on page 132. So I guess I'm stuck rereading, and a review will be posted! But for now, a page 99 test...

There was a single wooden chair in the kitchen, nothing more. Oskar pulled it up to the sink, stood on it, and peeed into the drain while he had water running out of the tap. When he was done he put the chair back. It looked strange in the otherwise empty kitchen. Like something in a museum.
What does she keep it for?
He looked around. Above the fridge there was a row of cabinets you could only reach by standing on the chair. He pulled it over and steadied himself by putting a hand on the refrigerator door handle. His stomach rumbled. He was hungry.
Without thinking more about it, he opened the fridge in order to see what there was. Not much. An open carton of milk, half a packet of bread. Butter and cheese. Oskar put his hand out for the milk.
But...Eli...
He stood there with the carton of milk in his hand, blinked. This didn't add up. Did she eat real food as well? Yes. She must. He took the milk carton out of the fridge and put it on the counter. In the kitchen cabinet about the counter there was almost nothing. Two plates, two glasses. He took a glass and poured milk into it.
And then it hit him. With the cold milk glass in his hand it finally hit him, with full force.
She drinks blood.
Yesterday evening, in his tangle of sleepiness and sense of detachment from the world, in the dark, everything had somehow felt possible. But now in the kitchen, where no blankets hung in the window and the blinds let in a weak morning light, with a glass of milk in his hand it seemed so... beyond anything he could comprehend.
Like: If you have milk and bread in your fridge you must be a human being.
He took a mouthful of milk and immediately spit it out. It was sour. He smelled the rest that was in the glass. Yes, definitely bad. He poured it out into the sink, rinsed the glass out, and then drank some water in order to get the taste out of his mouth. Looked at the date on the carton.
USE BY 28 OCTOBER.
The milk was ten days too old. Oskar had a realization.

The old guy's milk.
The refrigerator door was still open. The old guy's food.

So, what do you think? Go ahead, judge by it's page 99!

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