The Misadventures of Annika Brisby Read Online Free Page A

niece and gave her an exaggerated pout.
    “I don’t think I can let you leave. I will starve.” Annika took the dirty pan from him and began scraping the ashy crust into the trash.
    “Oh Vince, you have got to learn to make something besides eggs.” She laughed at his pathetic state of bachelorhood and rummaged through the refrigerator, looking for something more creative for dinner. She pulled out a few thick slices of beef and a handful of vegetables.
    “You came home much later than I expected,” Vince remarked. “Where have you been?”
    “I sort of met some weird people today,” she began, chopping up the onions and potatoes.
    “They must have been weird if you are calling them weird,” Vince said, lighting a fresh cigarette. She described to him and Tosho how the people were dressed like they’d come off a movie set and were terrible with money. She told him about the boy with the hypnotic eyes that seemed capable of reading her mind when it came to books and guitars.
    “But you liked this boy, didn’t you?” he taunted playfully. “I can tell by the look in your eyes.”
    “He was actually a bit of a cad,” she said, turning away so that neither Vince nor Tosho could see her blush. “And then he had the nerve to call me saucy!”
    “Then he sounds clever to me,” Vince hooted, but Tosho didn’t laugh. He seemed to be stuck on a detail from earlier in her tale.
    “Did you say that the women wore green sashes?” he asked.
    “Yep. And long white tunics.”
    “That is so bizarre. They sound like samodivi.”
    “Does a samodivi walk up to strangers and try to take off their clothes?”
    “I’ve seen stranger things in Montmartre. They must be eccentric artists or musicians, just like you,” Vince mumbled as he flopped into the chair beside Tosho. The cigarette bobbing in his mouth ashed all over his bare chest, but he merely brushed it away. Vince had a lot of good qualities, but cleanliness certainly wasn’t one of them.
    “I don’t walk up to strangers and try to take off their clothes.”
    “Maybe you’d sell more albums if you did?” Vince and Tosho shared a little laugh. Unamused, Annika ignored her uncle and threw the chopped vegetables into a pan along with a pot roast. She covered it with tinfoil and set it in the oven, turning to Tosho.
    “So what’s a samodivi, and what’s up with the green sashes?”
    “Samodivi is the plural form of a samodiva. They are wood nymphs,” he explained. “There is a Bulgarian legend that they take off their clothes every night before they bathe in the river. If a man is lucky enough to steal her sash, she is obligated to become his wife. I wish the legend were true.”
    “You aren’t the only one,” Vince said with a grin. “If it were true, I would have brought a samodiva home for myself a long time ago.”
    “Well, these girls totally looked like what you just described,” Annika confirmed. “But even if samodivi did exist, I can’t imagine why a wood nymph would come to a big city like Sofia. Wood nymphs belong in the forest.”
    “Maybe they ran out of men in the woods?” suggested Vince. “If you visit with them again, you can invite them over any time.”
    “Yeah, okay,” she joked. “If I bump into them again I’ll be sure to invite them all to dinner. The guy said he was from Derbedrossivic, if you know where that is.”
    Tosho gave her an odd look.
    “Derbedrossivic? There is no such place that I know of. The name sounds Armenian.”
    “But Armenia’s on the other side of the Black Sea,” Annika pointed out. “And he said it wasn’t that far away.”
    Tosho just looked at her skeptically.
    “Maybe it is in Romania. It is not that far by train.” Both he and Annika were content enough to drop the issue, since everyone has a different idea of just how far away is ‘not that far’.
    “You know,” Vince said, “your grandmother used to tell your mother and I all sorts of tales about the wood nymphs when we