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Then she spread butter on a freshly cooked, delicately soft waffle and sprinkled loads of sugar on top. I almost started crying.
    “We surrender,” Lena said determinedly.
    “Suffering sticklebacks, no, we don’t!” exclaimed Grandpa, even though Auntie Granny has told him that he’s not allowed to say “suffering sticklebacks” when we’re listening. “Go to the cellar and fetch your fishing rod, Trille.”
    Then Grandpa called Lena’s house. Auntie Granny heard the phone ringing and peered up at us.
    “Should I get it?” she asked Lena, who nodded vigorously.
    Auntie Granny lifted out the next waffle and disappeared inside.
    “Ah, hello. I am calling from the National Federation of Hip Patients,” Grandpa said in a frightfully high-pitched voice. “We were wondering if you would be generous enough to consider purchasing some fund-raising scratch cards.”
    While he was speaking, he pointed desperately at the window. Auntie Granny clearly didn’t want any scratch cards, so we didn’t have much time.
    “Psst! Krølla!” I whispered, letting out the fishing line.
    Krølla didn’t understand right away that she had to attach waffles to the hook. She is so little, after all. It took us quite a while to explain, but we managed to hoist up two waffles before Grandpa had to hang up and Auntie Granny came back outside. Lena wolfed one of them down as soon as we got it over the windowsill.
    “We’ve got to share!” I said, almost shouting.
    “It’s impossible to share two waffles between three people, Trille!” Lena explained with her mouth full.
    Grandpa and I had to make do with one. In the yard, Krølla was on her fifth.
    After ten minutes, Grandpa fixed a pillowcase to the end of a broom and raised the white flag out the bedroom window. We surrendered.
    It’s fun to play war. But peace is best. That’s what I thought when I was finally sitting in the yard, eating waffles with the world’s nicest granny-aunt.
    “Why is he so thin and you’re so fat, if you’re brother and sister?” Lena asked midbite, looking at Auntie Granny and Grandpa.
    “She ate all my food when we were little,” said Grandpa, who had to duck as Auntie Granny tried to smack him with her tea towel.
    “I wasn’t this fat in the old days, little Lena.”
    “Exactly how fat were you, then?” Lena wanted to know.
    And so the storytelling began. She had been beautiful, Auntie Granny, like an actress. There were so many young men who wanted to marry her that Grandpa was allowed to lie on the roof and shoot them with his slingshot when they came to see her. Nobody was fat back then, actually, as far as Grandpa could remember, because they ate only potatoes and fish. But at Christmas they were given an orange. Except during the war. They weren’t given any then. . . .
    Just as we were going to bed, Mom called to see how things were going. Grandpa told her that both young and old were on their best behavior.
    “We’ve been telling stories about the old days and eating waffles,” he said.
    Lena and I smiled.
    “Can I have a word with Krølla?” Mom asked next.
    Grandpa gave a little cough and reluctantly handed over the receiver.
    “Don’t tell her we’ve been on the moped,” I whispered to Krølla.
    She nodded and took the phone with an air of importance.
    “What have you been doing today, Little Miss Krølla?” we heard Mom ask.
    Grandpa fell to his knees in front of his youngest grandchild and clasped his hands. Krølla looked at him in astonishment.
    “I haven’t ridden on the moped,” she said loudly and clearly.
    Grandpa dropped his hands, breathing a sigh of relief. Up there at the choral festival, Mom probably did the same thing.
    “That’s good,” she said softly. “What
did
you do, then, my sweet?”
    “I rode in the box,” said Krølla.

L ena has her birthday once a year, just like everyone else, but you would think it was more often. She talks about her birthday constantly. Now it was finally