Emelie walked around smiling to herself all afternoon. They had actually found the book. She had scrubbed the kitchen, making it sparkle, and made sure that there was plenty of flour, eggs and sugar so that Linn could start baking the moment she came home. Emelie didn’t want to call her and tell her the news, because she knew that Linn wouldn’t be able to focus on work if she did. As soon as Linn stepped inside the door, Emelie was standing in the hallway prepared with the baking book behind her back.
“Hello mum. Christ, I’m so tired, we got new dairy products today – it’s really heavy,” Linn said while untying her Converse trainers.
“I can imagine,” Emelie said, unable to stand still.
“But will you let me in, or are you just going to stand there?” Linn said, in an irritated voice.
“I’ve got something for you, guess what?”
“But mum, I don’t have the energy for guessing games,” Linn said, looking tiredly at her.
“Come on, just guess!”
Linn sighed.
“Er, well, perhaps you have found another box of Christmas things. Maybe in the attic this time?”
“Close, but not quite right,” Emily answered mischievously.
Linn squeezed by her mother and Emelie turned around in order to hide what she was holding behind her back.
“I don’t have the energy, okay? If it’s more Christmas things it really isn’t funny, mum,” she said harshly on her way up the stairs to her tower.
Emelie pulled out the book.
“Tata! Do you see what it is?”
Her daughter gave her a tired look, but then her eyes grew wider.
“Is it the baking book? Is it really?!”
She snatched the book from Emelie and opened it.
“It’s the one! Where did you find it? Oh, my goodness, this is so much fun!”
Emelie felt like the best mum in the world. She quickly explained that her and Andreas had found the book because of Jenny’s story about Astrid and Karl-Axel.
“Okay mum, it’s really exciting and all, but now I have to get to reading and then bake! Listen to this, sugar kelp crispbread. That’s so cool, we must go and pick seaweed and then I have to call Oskar and see where you can get a hold of all these ingredients. And listen here: potatoes in a cream cake, how strange is that?”
Linn mumbled to herself all the way up to her room, making little cheerful grunts.
The following day, Linn was singing from another song book. She was stomping around in the kitchen, trying to make the oven work as she wanted to, while reading Astrid’s intricate, cursive writing in the baking book. Sometimes she was completely quiet, sometimes she cursed like a sailor and when Emelie peeked into the kitchen to offer to help her, she got a hand in her face and understood that she wasn’t welcome.
“I don’t understand these measurements!” Linn yelled from the kitchen.
“Perhaps you can ask Jenny,” Emelie carefully suggested. “She has grown up with those strange measurements.”
“Nice idea, mum, do you have her number?”
Emelie shook her head. But perhaps Andreas did? She offered to call him, and Linn was happy to accept at least that help.
“Nursery ‘The Perennial’, Andreas speaking”, he answered.
“Yes, hello, it’s Emelie,” she said.
“Hello there, fun to hear from you! What can I do for you?”
A warm sensation filled her chest when she heard his voice. Wasn’t it a bit tender and warm? But then she remembered why she had called and pulled herself together.
