She hadn't been so near to tears for ages. If she only had a friend to go to on such an evening, but she hadn't been so long in Uppsala and she didn't know anybody well enough.

After one hour by herself sitting curled up on her bed with her chin resting on her knees, a feeling of terror seemed to come out of the darkest corners and she thought that somebody was watching her. It was a strange, unexplainable feeling that she was no longer alone.

In panic she ran to the outer door and tested the handle. It was locked, so nobody could have come in that way. Afterwards she checked the windows. They were all closed, but the feeling that she was being watched became stranger. She turned round to see whether there was some monster lurking behind her, but there wasn't.

Linnea felt that she ought to do something about this. It wasn't possible to go to her neighbor and anyway there might have been some horrible monster waiting on the stairs. She decided to lock herself in the bathroom and wait until her parents returned. She dragged in a mattress, quilt and pillow and locked the door from the inside.

A maniac with an axe could, of course, have broken through the door and in this case she could only scream and hope that somebody would hear her.