After a decade of living in Australia, Olav Johannsson and his family moved back to Iceland. To be sure, for Olav, the move was more “To” Iceland than “Back To” as, even though Olav had been born on the island, shortly after his birth, his father’s company promoted him and moved him to an office in Australia. Now, a decade later, Jon took another promotion, which moved him back to the land of his own birth. Now, while Jon and his wife Helga were happy to return home, Olav was — as could be expected — far less than thrilled. Having, quite literally, grown up in the mid-25s-to-high-30s-Celsius Down Under, to now facing temps from 3 to 12 degrees, Celsius was akin to a prison sentence for the young lad. Needless to say, this was an overriding reason that he was such a sullen child upon relocation.
Unfortunately, this attitude proved a tad difficult for him to make friends, especially at the start of the new school year. Still, given the pleasant, outgoing nature of Icelandic children after a month of him interacting with the locals in his school, he did manage to become friendly with a few of them. Two classmates with whom he became especially close were a pair of twin girls his own age named Gudrun and Kristin.
The girls both had very outgoing and upbeat personalities, making it almost impossible for Olav, even at his most sour moments, to stay grouchy. Soon enough, the three became nearly inseparable. So, even when Olav would gripe about the weather, temperature, or lack of a sandy beach, the girls would look past his mood, and find ways to cheer him up. While his association with the girls did much to lighten his mood, there was always a layer of irritability underlying his personality over having been forced to move from the warmer climes of Australia to the fridged forever of Iceland.