IT WAS FAIRLY obvious who the artist was as he stepped off the tiny plane into a howling snowstorm. He was wearing pink-and-purple trousers, for starters, and very in-your-face glasses. He scowled, even as they led him to a cozy corner of the lounge and plied him with coffee and croissants, which he declined.

“I need to see,” he said, just as they were hoping the warm setting and lovely food would be enough to convince him. “Show me! Let me walk.”

Konstantin put the croissants back in the kitchen with stern instructions to people not to eat them, whereupon Gaspard picked up one in each hand and defiantly took a bite out of both. Konstantin rolled his eyes and walked out with the artist, who spoke little English.

They stomped off down the road together. Gunnar didn’t ask Konstantin anything about himself, which was something of a relief, but instead pointed out various things Konstantin hadn’t noticed at all before: the contrasting colors of the little buildings along the harbor, the way the sun moved across the water, the speed of the shadows. He obviously saw the world in a different way from most; he took his time, ambled, glanced around at everything. Finally they made it to the little hill outside the school and he stood and hummed.

“No,” he said finally. “My work has drama. Scope. This is too limited. People will not like it. This place, you know. It is cozy .”

He said this as if it were the biggest insult he could think of.

“Well, it’s nice,” said Konstantin, feeling suddenly defensive about the island.

“Exactly. Nice, ” Gunnar growled, pushing up his trendy spectacles.

Konstantin’s heart sank. He’d been sure if he could get him here the deal would be done. And he’d promised Joel, who rather impressed him—he thought Joel was quite a grown-up person. And the kitchen. And now he’d just look like a stupid idiot who couldn’t handle anything. He sighed. “Well, you could make it amazing.”

The artist shrugged. “Why?”

“Excuse me,” came a small voice on its way to school. Agot came deliberately early to find the best iced puddle, and these two were right in the way.

“This is my puddle.”

Konstantin eyed the child, who eyed him straight back. He had the uncomfortable feeling she had the measure of him.

“I think it’s everyone’s puddle,” he said.

“No,” said Agot. She took off her little fur-lined boots and proceeded to scoot across the thin ice in her socks.

“You can’t skate in your socks.”

“You can’t.”

She proceeded to hum Boléro very loudly to drown them out, doing her best to pirouette around the ice, with varied results.

“You have wet socks,” said the artist in thickly accented English.

“Your glasses are stupid,” said Agot without pausing.

“Sorry, she’s a very rude island girl,” said Konstantin in Norwe gian. Agot fixed him with such a look then that he was almost sure she’d understood him.

Gunnar ignored him. “What would you build,” he asked Agot, “if you were making something for Christmas?”