What the hell? It seemed like her brakes weren’t working properly. Oh well, no harm done—she was already going slow enough that nobody would be in danger. She had her right foot on the brake pedal, which meant that her speed wasn’t increasing at any rate. The two vehicles passed each other without difficulty and the lorry vanished in her rearview mirror. Erik finished Little Ida’s Summer Song and moved on to Pippi Longstocking. Both were fixtures in the rather unoriginal singing repertoire of the beautifully voiced children at the final assembly before the kindergarten’s summer holidays a couple of weeks ago.

When Sandra exited the second bend, there was a short straight lying ahead of her before a long downhill section. She tried again—several times—but the brakes really were not working. And now she had reached the crest of the hill, and her speed was guaranteed to pick up on the run downhill—she had no idea how much, but it was clear to her that she would be going faster than she felt comfortable with.

And that was exactly how it was: the speedometer crept up from 30 to 40 to 50 mph. “And all the sweet mosquitoes, I want them too,” Erik sang while panic took hold of Sandra. Over and over, she pushed the pedal to the floor without the brakes responding. What the hell was she meant to do?

When she reached the bottom of the hill she was doing well over fifty, and that was much too fast because she was about to reach the crossroads where there was a stop sign, and where she could already see that there were cars approaching from left and right. She needed to bring the car to a halt—how was she going to do that?

She vainly pumped on the brake pedal, but the brake system did nothing—it was definitely not working. Erik’s song drowned out her own thoughts and panic took hold. There was one thing she could do to avoid a crash up at the crossroads. Granted, it meant putting her and Erik in danger, but it wasn’t as serious as the alternative. She had to leave the road. It was lined by ditches that weren’t all that deep. It would be okay. It had to be.

But doing over fifty—would it definitely be okay? She imagined wrecking the car and having to call for roadside assistance and take an ambulance and arrive late for work. Erik continued to screech away unconcernedly about tanned legs and freckles, while unintelligible thoughts rushed through Sandra’s head. She swore silently and struck the palms of her hands against the wheel.