Mamma, Pappa and I had recently moved from Örebro to Västerås. Pappa said it was because he had a better job working with Uncle Rolf at ASEA, but I knew it was because of the upsetting things that people were saying to Mamma. We moved to an apartment near to where my cousin Björn lived.

Jan, Gustav, Dmitri, Sven, Sören and Björn were all friends, all their fathers worked at ASEA and they were in the same class at school. I joined them in Fröken Lindström’s Class, and discovered the boys all had a crush on her. They were all crazy, but Björn pulled the craziest stunts of them all. I hung out with the boys because they lived near by and there were no girls of my age where we lived, and my sister Freja was just a baby.

They weren’t bad boys really, just crazy, and Dmitri was nice. His parents came from Moscow, but he was born and grew up in Malmö, County Skåne and he spoke kind of funny. I got teased for liking him by the other girls at school. I over heard Mamma say once that the mothers of all six knew that they had sons not daughters, though my Auntie Elise, her sister, wasn’t sure Björn was actually human, and said Mamma was lucky for having two girls.

In the new year of 1956 we were 7 going on 8. The temperature was -40ºC, below -42ºC your spit cracked like a rifle shot when it hit the air and we weren’t allowed out and didn’t have to go to school. If it were a bit warmer than that it only cracked when it hit the ground and we were free agents.

Björn afterwards admitted to his father it was his idea and they only did it for a laugh. It wasn’t the most intelligent thing he could have said. Just down the road from the flats where most of us lived on Skjutbanegatan, which translates approximately as Rifle Range Road, they parked the eighteen wheelers because it was near the vehicle testing centre.

Björn suggested to the others, that it would be really funny if they weed on the lorry tyres. He said it would freeze the tyres to the road, but I don’t think even Björn thought it would really work or that anything would come of it.

Just after dark I watched from the other side of the road as they lined up round one of the tractor units and weed on the tyres. Björn told me afterwards it was really cold. I told him he was stupid, of course it was cold we hadn’t been to school that day. It was only the warmer wind that arrived in the afternoon that had allowed us out.

He laught and said it was a challenge to wee in the open at -40ºC, and even in the near dark he could see his wee had been virtually colourless. I told him that if he’d listened in class he’d know that every one’s wee is colourless in winter because you don’t loose water by sweating in winter, so you have to lose it in your wee which is then more diluted.

Björn told me he’d been surprised it worked because spit froze so fast. I asked him if he’d expected to wee icicles and said of course it worked. I told him Fröken Lindstöm had said, “Spit cracks in the air because that tiny amount of water cools so fast,” and that probably the much bigger amount of wee would take longer to freeze, so it wouldn’t make any noise.

Björn said his wee had splashed on the road and tyres before freezing, and I was lucky to be a girl because he was really glad when he’d finished to be back in the warmth of his lined trousers.

I told him,“Whether you’re a girl or a boy you have to be crazy to wee outside in the cold. You must have all been dropped on the head when you were babies.”

Then he asked, “How do you remember all that stuff from school, Ingrid? Is it because you’re a girl?”

“Don’t be stupid, Björn, remembering things has nothing to do with being a girl. You have to hear something first before you can remember it, and you never listen. Is that because you’re a boy?”

He grinned and said, “According to you, everything I do is stupid.”

“It’s not my fault is it? If I didn’t look after you you’d never be out of trouble. I don’t know how you managed before I moved here.”

The following day we all watched from a distance as the eighteen wheeler started and then stopped. It wouldn’t move at all. The driver tried it several times before giving up and getting out. As he looked at the tyres he said a lot of bad words. Dimitri was helpless with laughter and choked out “That’s your best idea ever, Björn, but it would be much better if we had some girls to help too.”

He looked at me, and said, “Ingrid—“

I didn’t let him say another word, “Don’t even think about asking me to pull my knickers down, Dmitri, or I’ll never speak to you again.”

Eventually a team of men with things that had a flame coming out of them arrived to free the eighteen wheeler.

The boys got away with it twice, but were caught the third time and Uncle Rolf and the other boys’ fathers were not amused. They decided to discuss the punishment at work so all the boys got the same. They all got a thrashing, and Liv Björn’s wife told me years later he still had the marks to prove it.

After the boys had been caught and the full story had come out, Mamma took me to one side and said, “That was a lucky escape, young lady. I think it’s time for you to stop playing with the boys, and make the effort to find girls to be friends with. Even if it means girls who live on the other side of Lugnagatan, I’ll take you in the car when necessary or take them home, but till you reach the stage of kissing boys I suggest you stay away from them. Unless you really want the boys to find out what you have in your knickers?”

“Nej, Mamma!”