Mum is still unable to say the words without changing the tone of her voice. Down’s syndrome. And the school for children with special needs, for Mongols, even if they are said to be children with great disability, physical as well as mental. I never really understood it. It seemed as if the parents were unaware of the scope of such disabilities.

Mum and dad always called him Fred, but to almost everyone else – and especially me – he was never anything other than Fredling. And I loved him – and hated him. It was almost like a seesaw, that is equally heavy on both sides – and things remained that way until that spring. It was my second year of high school and one side of the seesaw got so much heavier – the side of the hatred. And the love shot up into the air. There, it sat with its feet dangling. It must have been my fault, this unbalance, because Fredling was the same as ever. He was always the same.