Ingrid took Nelvy into the drawing room and asked to feel her head. Nelvy looked as though she had been expecting something like this and took off her hat without prompting. Ingrid felt the strange bumps beneath the new, thick hair, which made them less visible, and said that Nelvy had a fine head of hair and didn’t need to wear a hat, and certainly not indoors. Nelvy asked why her head wasn’t nice and round like the other children’s. Ingrid said she didn’t know, but a head can be as bumpy as it wants, as long as you let your hair grow and make sure it is clean so that it doesn’t rot and fall out beneath a dirty hat.

Nelvy gave this some thought.

Ingrid asked if her head hurt.

Nelvy said no.

Ingrid found a woollen thread, tied a bow around a lock of hair and told Nelvy to go and look in the large hallway mirror. Nelvy went and gazed at herself in the mirror and came back. Ingrid asked what she thought. Nelvy said it looked nice.

They went back to the kitchen and Ingrid asked Barbro to sing. Barbro was shy and said Ingrid had never asked her to do that before. Ingrid looked at her in surprise. No, Barbro wasn’t going to sing. But Sara said yes, yes, and the others nodded. Barbro turned her back on them and sang in such a way that nobody knew what to do when the song was over. Johanna Matea looked around, wide-eyed with disbelief, and said they should clap. Barbro grabbed a towel and said, no, they shouldn’t. They clapped all the same, Barbro blushed and Nelvy didn’t put her hat back on.

Ingrid and Barbro removed the bed linen from the study, scrubbed the two rooms where the men had slept too, and spent the night at the rectory.

Next morning Ingrid took the children to school, discovered that the teacher was indeed ill, returned in a cheery mood and told Johanna Matea she would come every week to see how they were doing, and immediately noticed that there was something wrong, something she couldn’t see, but feel, which was not dissimilar to what had happened on Barrøy that winter, and she asked Nelvy if she wanted to go to the island with her.

Anja and Johanna Matea thought this a strange question, had Ingrid been given permission by the Board?

Nelvy said yes.

There was a little argument regarding who got what from the sack she shared with Gunvor, but Ingrid said there were plenty of clothes on the island, nice ones too, as long as she had enough to keep her warm on the boat when they rowed over. Nelvy asked if Gunvor could come, too. Ingrid said yes. But Gunvor wanted to stay with Sara, and Nelvy didn’t seem to mind.