Dad has wrapped Mum in a parcel. Time has healed Dad and the fairy-tale characters are dead. Dad, who wept and wailed and filled the stove with why why, sits there now and is all like, oh yes, because it fitted in with the story.

Dad has put an end to Mum. He hasn’t seen the ghost; he’s been working on a patio and has decided that a lump of ice was a fitting end to Mum. He doesn’t miss the bear bell because he’s got Krista now, tinkling with her glass beads. If only the ghost would come with its scissors and cut his toes off.

At that very moment, a bang rings out from the living room. The whole house trembles and a pinch of sawdust sprays on to the floor. Without thinking, I open the kitchen door and go in. Inside the wall, something’s rushing down.

Only then does my head fill with thoughts. Maybe a bird flew against the window. Maybe an elk bumped into the wall. Maybe the ghost toppled the bookcase over. Maybe something fell down from the sky again.

On the back wall of the living room, a half panel has blown open. There is a split in the wall; planks stick out in all directions and a big heap of sawdust has cascaded on to the floor. The trickling sawdust explains the rushing noise I heard in the hall. I stand there staring.

An apple tree is growing out of the split in the panel.

An apple tree.

Its slender stem pokes out of the panel. The trunk sup-ports three branches with a few pale leaves on them. The seedling must have been growing inside the panel for a long time and gradually pressed itself against the top batten until finally it sprang like a bow and made the wall explode. The tree sticks up, greedily stretching towards the window.

I hear Dad moving in the bedroom; he appears at the kitchen door.

‘Did you hear something, too?’ Dad asks, before he sees the living-room wall. He stops in the doorway and stares.

‘It’s an apple tree,’ I say.

Krista appears in the kitchen. Her belly is bare; she’s rolled her trousers down and her top up. She covers her yawn with her hand.

Dad’s still not saying a word. He scratches his head, taking deep breaths.

‘How do you know it’s an apple tree?’ Krista asks.

‘What does it matter whether it’s an apple tree or not?’ Dad shouts – more at himself than Krista.

‘I don’t know,’ Krista answers, ‘but…it’s growing out of the wall.’

‘From the leaves,’ I reply. ‘Apple trees have leaves like that.’

‘But how can it be growing out of the wall?’ Krista asks insistently.