Anna’s favourite uncle worked in the World Trade Center. After 9/11 he has vanished without a trace. Has he fooled everybody in order to realize his secret plan of hiding away on a pacific island? A substitute teacher is haunted in his dreams by a pupil who was stabbed to death by his stepfather. How could it happen without anybody trying to interfere? In a fir grove early one morning she meets the boy with the sideburns. Isn’t it strange that he was also woken by a peculiar dream, a dream similar to the one she had? What’s it like being 17 and losing one’s father?

The eleven stories in this collection portray how it feels not fitting in, but they are also about being in love, friendship and belonging. With empathy and sensitivity Haavardsholm depicts young people in different situations.

Stories from this collection have appeared in anthologies in Germany, Russia and Hungary.