Second in series but I had not read the first and fully understood the characters and setting after the first chapter. These are Ulf's reminiscences of his life growing up in Sweden after the second world war. Percy is a boy who is fairly new to their school but has become Ulf's best friend ( in the first book) and now it looks like he will have to move. Percy does everything to "hate" his new life in the village - even breaking a window in the classroom at one stage - so that it will not hurt so much when he leaves. Ulf wants desperately to help but has his own troubles with Lasse the village bully, who forces Ulf to get cakes from the local shop and put thenm on his mother's "account" or risk a boxing glove to the face. Ulf tries his hand at hypnotism and also thinks he has convinced the local beauty Marianne to be his girlfriend. But it is his father's ham radio contact with the Sheik that changes everything. A delightful, old world story of another time and place where the characters are semi-oblivious to to what is obvious to the reader. Not sure our "sophisticated" teenagers would like this one but I think adults would love it.