Wrap Your Arms Around Me

Prologue

Jönköping, Sweden
October 1954

Ingvar Fältskog and his pregnant wife, Birgit, walked into the local skating rink with their 4-year old daughter. There were a bunch of children that were slightly older than the young girl skating around as the instructor turned around and noticed Ingvar and Birgit with their daughter.

"Hello, how may I help you?" The instructor asked.

"Hello my name is Ingvar Fältskog and this is my wife, Birgit, and our little girl, Agnetha," Ingvar replied as he and Birgit shook the instructor's hand. Agnetha herself hid behind Birgit's legs. The little girl has always been shy.

"We spoke to you on the phone about possibly signing our daughter up for skating lessons," Birgit said.

"Oh right! My name is Malin Lundstrom. I am the skating instructor here," Malin said shaking Ingvar and Birgit's hands. She then got down to Agnetha's level. "How old are you, sweetie?"

Agnetha was still very shy and continued to hide behind Birgit's legs. Ingvar chuckled a bit and said, "Sorry about that. Agnetha's a bit shy. But to answer your question, she's 4."

"She's a very pretty girl for sure. But sadly, I don't take on students who are this young. The minimum age of my students is 6 years old. I'm sorry. I have a class waiting," Malin said as she turned back over to her class, who were all waiting for her to come back.

Ingvar, Birgit, and Agnetha watch Malin skate to the center of the ice where all the other students are gathered around. Birgit is staring bullets at Malin before turning to Ingvar, who also nods and gets down to Agnetha's level.

"Go on, skate. Show her that you can do it!" Ingvar exclaimed.

And with that, Agnetha breaks out of her shell and skates around the perimeter of the rink with a huge smile on her face, which was contagious. Never taking her eyes off Malin, she picks up speed. As much as Malin tries to ignore the little girl, she can't keep her eyes off of her. There was just something in the air that night. And to top it off, Agnetha somehow thrives on the attention despite her extreme shyness. And finally, Malin stops teaching and smiles back at Agnetha and then to her parents, who are beaming with joy. Ingvar and Birgit were poor, but they are willing to work extremely hard and do whatever it takes to make their daughter happy and they vowed to do the same with Agnetha's younger sibling who was growing inside of Birgit's stomach.

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Just an FYI, some of the characters/events are going to be fictional, yet they are going to based off of real life events. So this story is pretty much historical fiction.