Book excerpt: Mister Fick, everybody addresses him that way and Sofie wondered what his Christian name was. He was a tall man and skinny, and as he got older his back began to bend so that when you looked at him side on, as Annie once put it while they were in church, he looked like a crochet hook. The high-bridged nose and the lantern jaw gave him that look. His wife, on the other hand, was short - even shorter that Sofie - and ten times as plump. A little ball and always quiet.