Three Swedish Mountain Men

by Lily Gold

“I can walk myself,” I mutter. “Did you learn recently? You’re not good at it.”

Eli leans forward, meeting my eyes. “How do you feel about Uno?” He asks very seriously.

wall. Even though I keep buying more bookshelves, I can never keep up with my book-buying habit. It’s probably a diagnosable addiction at this point.

“How do you know how to get blood out of clothes?” “I do this really odd thing, where I bleed out of my vagina for a week every month? I don’t know why, it’s weird. Now sit.”

“You look like a birdhouse.” He nudges my mouth closed with his knuckle. “You’re cute.”

Cole stops pacing abruptly by the window, staring out at the snow, and growls something. “Use human words, Nalle,” Eli mumbles. “We’ve been over this. We don’t speak bear.”

In Brighton, a high school art teacher is currently under fire after adult videos of her were leaked to the faculty and the parents of several students. One mother, who received the inappropriate content in an email, expressed that she was ‘horrified’ that ‘someone so depraved would be allowed to educate teenagers,’ while another worried that the ‘screening processes for teachers aren’t severe enough.’ After a thorough investigation, Alton Secondary School quickly dismissed Miss Adams, leaving a class of A-level students in the lurch, just months before their exams.

I wouldn’t be scared of Cole if he came into my bedroom with a chainsaw. He’d probably just be building me a bedside cabinet, or something.

“Why are you so small?” “I shrank in the wash.”

“You always do the thing that keeps you safe,” he says gruffly. “Always. No exceptions. We will deal with the consequences after. You never jeopardise your safety just to make someone else happy.”

know you’re a bit of a caveman, Nalle,” Eli says, “but that has to be the weirdest one-word sentence you’ve ever come out with.”