Ten Past One

Maja can’t sleep. She wants to, but she can’t. Every night she sets her alarm for ten minutes past one. Who else is going to wake up her mom, dad and little sister when their house collapses into the mining pit? She keeps a duffle bag with a change of clothes, a flashlight and other important things underneath her bed. In case they have to escape head over heels.

Because of the mining company’s subterranean detonations, the entire town of Kiruna – people as well as buildings – must be relocated. Maja’s family will be provided with a nice, new apartment, but all she wants is to stay in their old house. She doesn’t trust the politicians and corporate executives who claim the town cannot collapse. She can hear the rumbling of the nocturnal detonations; she can feel the ground shaking!

Maja worries that her best friend Julia will have to move all the way to Luleå, and that Albin in the other class will fall in love with one of the pretty handball players. But nothing frightens her more than the iron ore mine.