Svein's best friend is a fancy rat named Halvorsen who goes missing during a pet contest, leading to chaos with newspapers reporting a rat invasion. To avoid losing both Halvorsen and the competition, Svein must work to keep his parents unaware of the situation.
A meeting between the Swedish/French Simone and the Norwegian Stein at a book convention in Frankfurt turns into something more. They keep contact by phone and cassettes, but it seems they don't dare to take the relationship any further.