"Sixteen-year-old Sissel and her young brother Olaf have been left minding their parents' farm for the night. But when a strange family descends on them, lost, in a broken-down car, the children have to cope alone." "Grete, who is in labour, is accompanied by her distraught husband, childish father-in-law, a mother who has pretended to be paralysed and deaf for two years and a mysterious girl, Gudrun, who seems to have stepped directly out of one of Olaf's dreams."--BOOK JACKET.