Arvid is six years old and lives on the outskirts of Oslo. His father works in a shoe factory; his Danish mother works as a cleaner. Arvid wets his bed at night and has nightmares about crocodiles, but begins to piece the world together. One day his father is collected in a black car; his grandfather has died, like the bullfinch. When Arvid sees a photo of his mother as a young woman, he understands how time passes; then cries and says he doesn't want to get old. And one morning the teacher tells the pupils to pray to God because a nuclear war is looming...