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collects the rest of the food on the table to put it back into the fridge, still with that ridiculous smile on his lips. Linda gets the urge to say something spiteful, but contents herself with being grouchy.
    ‘Hmm, so you’re thinking I’ll win, eh?’ she says, heading for the bathroom to brush her teeth.
    ‘It’s bound to be your turn some day!’ says her mother, smiling. She hasn’t touched her egg or even her coffee.
    ‘That’s not how it works. To win, you have to be the best,’ says Linda.
    ‘Hey! Look! We’ve got a visitor on the bridge.’
    Dad takes Linda’s arm and pulls her gently over to the window that overlooks the backyard. It’s the cat from yesterday. Big and black, just sitting there and staring up at the window.
    ‘Perhaps it’s hoping to get a little titbit?’ says her mother, who has joined them at the window.
    ‘We’ll never get rid of it then,’ says Linda’s father.
    ‘I saw that cat yesterday too. It was in the outhouse when I went to get the logs.’
    ‘How did it get in there?’ her father says, surprised.
    ‘Oh, you know what cats are like,’ says her mother. ‘It can have the rest of my sandwich.’
    ‘Oh, Ellen, do you really want a cat hanging around just now?’
    ‘A little slice of bread is not going to do any harm. And it probably belongs to someone else anyway. It’s only visiting us.’
    Linda’s mother leans forward to open the window. The cat instantly gets up, and arches its back.
    ‘Nice pussycat. Do you want some bread?’
    The cat hisses back. Then just as it had the evening before, it walks down the steps into the backyard and stops to wee on the corner, before disappearing over the neighbour’s fence.
    ‘Seems like you’ll have to eat your breakfast yourself,’ says Linda’s father, laughing and closing the window. ‘Brrr, it’s cold. Isn’t spring ever going to come?’
    ‘February isn’t exactly spring,’ her mother replies.
    ‘Where I come from, spring begins in February,’ he says.
    ‘You’re over-romanticizing. And you should be used to Trondheim seasons by now. And we’re not going down to the south coast this Easter, Erik. We’re going up to the cabin in the mountains.’
    ‘When will you understand that Easter is the time for boat-mending and bonfires by the fjord?’
    ‘And when will you realize that all good Norwegians go skiing at Easter?’
    ‘Not us from the South.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Even you from the South. Think of all those people from the South who have won Olympic medals for skiing.’
    ‘But I want to go to the South too,’ says Linda.
    ‘We agreed to go every other year. Now, off you go and brush your teeth,’ says her mother.
    Linda goes obediently into the bathroom. She squeezes a generous dollop of toothpaste onto her brush. She looks over at the shower. A warm tummy, burning cheeks. She brings her hand up to her face and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Slowly and gently, just like Axel did in the summer. His breath felt so close. What an idiot he is. Linda ruffles her hair out again. It’s wet. She’ll have to blow-dry it before she goes.

Chapter 4
    The snow floats down silently outside the windows of the swimming hall, each snowflake becoming one with the sea. Not a single flake will be lost. From cloud to air to sea and back again to air and cloud. Nothing is ever lost. Inside the hall, on this side of the windows, there is water, steam, chlorine, crowds, warm breath, and Linda standing at the very top of the diving tower. Her moment has come. She looks out over the swimming hall, at all the people in the stands. At her mum and dad. They are smiling, but they don’t dare wave for fear of distracting her before her dive. The dive that’s going to be perfect; that has to be perfect if she’s ever going to have her turn at winning ‘the whole caboodle’, as Dad puts it. She can see Maria down there too. Maria with her bright-red towel draped over her shoulders like a victory cape. It seems in