Oskar and Jonny after Oskar resists and Jonny retreats

Oskar and Jonny’s relationship is defined by bullying and opposition, but these scenes show a shift in who appears to command the encounter. Jonny privately turns Oskar into a problem to be solved; later, after an incident that has left Jonny’s ear swollen, Oskar enters school without yielding to the crowd, while Jonny keeps his eyes away from him. Their conflict has not been settled, but its visible balance has changed.

Jonny’s private focus

Before the classroom encounter, Jonny is alone in his room with his attention divided between family estrangement and Oskar. His four-year-old half-brother Kalle brings him a present: a wooden block wrapped in the first page of the evening paper. Jonny is not in the mood to receive it. He sends Kalle out and locks the door, then returns to a photo album of his biological father, a man who is not Kalle’s father. The distinction matters in the scene: Jonny turns toward a record of his own family past while shutting out the younger child who has approached him in the present.

A little later, Jonny hears his stepfather yelling at Kalle for ruining the paper. Jonny then unwraps the gift he had rejected and studies the block, turning it in his fingers and examining its close-up picture of a sheep. He chuckles, with the skin pulled taut around his ear. He puts the photo album in his gym bag, deciding school will be the safest place for it, and his thoughts turn to what to do about Oskar. The narrative places the question of Oskar alongside these sharply specific domestic details, but does not state that the family quarrel causes Jonny’s hostility. What it does establish is that Oskar remains in Jonny’s mind even when Jonny is occupied with the album, the gift, and the tensions at home.

Oskar faces the crowd

On Monday, Oskar leaves for school feeling nothing. With five minutes before the lesson, he approaches the classroom while several classmates wait in the corridor. Their attention turns toward him, and he recognizes the possibility of a gang attack. Everyone knows what happened to Jonny on Thursday; by Friday, Micke’s version of it had circulated. The passage does not recount the Thursday incident here, but shows its aftermath entering school through rumor and collective expectation.

Oskar does not slow down or try to escape. He lengthens his stride and walks quickly toward the door, feeling empty and indifferent to what might happen. The waiting group breaks apart and makes room for him. The narration leaves the reason uncertain: perhaps some strength seems to emanate from Oskar, or perhaps the others treat him as a pariah to avoid. Either way, Oskar gets through. His passage is a reversal of the expected bullying scene: the crowd is present, but it does not close around him, and he does not have to fight his way to the door.

Oskar enters without looking to either side and sits at his desk. Johan gives him a thumbs-up as he passes; Oskar only shrugs. The small exchange registers recognition from a classmate, but Oskar does not turn the moment into a display of triumph. When the others stream back into the classroom, the immediate threat has given way to murmuring in the corridor and ordinary lesson-time movement.

Jonny’s retreat

Jonny arrives five minutes after the lesson starts. Oskar had expected a bandage over his ear, but there is none. Instead, the ear is dark red and swollen, visibly out of place against his body. Jonny takes his seat without looking at Oskar or at anyone else. The narration identifies shame as the likely explanation, and Oskar reaches the same conclusion as he watches him.

Jonny pulls a photo album from his backpack and slips it into his desk. Oskar notices that Jonny’s cheeks have turned bright red, matching his ear. The album thus reappears in the school scene: earlier Jonny had packed it in his gym bag because school seemed the safest place to keep it; now he brings it out and puts it away in his desk. The object links Jonny’s private attachment to his father’s photographs with his conspicuous discomfort in front of Oskar and the class, without explaining more about what the album means to him.

Oskar considers poking his tongue out at Jonny, then decides against it because it would be childish. The restraint is small but decisive. Jonny has not apologized, and Oskar does not offer forgiveness; instead, Oskar declines to turn Jonny’s visible embarrassment into another taunt. Their relationship remains antagonistic, yet the classroom no longer presents Oskar only as the target and Jonny only as the one who sets the terms.

A changed balance, not a reconciliation

Across these scenes, the relationship moves from Jonny’s private question of what to do about Oskar to Oskar’s public ability to pass through a hostile-looking corridor. The shift is conveyed through conduct and bodies rather than an explicit conversation: Oskar’s quick stride, the crowd’s opening, Jonny’s swollen ear and flushed cheeks, and his refusal to meet anyone’s eyes. The cause of Jonny’s injury is not restated in this classroom passage, and the classmates’ response is reported as uncertain rather than assigned a single explanation.

The ending therefore marks a retreat, not a resolution. Jonny withdraws into his seat and desk, while Oskar chooses not to exploit the moment with a childish gesture. The hostility remains part of their relationship, but its public arrangement has altered: Oskar crosses the threshold without being stopped, and Jonny, once privately occupied with deciding what to do about him, is the one whose embarrassment is visible.