My Daughter, Nicola

Convinced that her father did not love her because she was not born a boy, young Nicola Juler dreamed of the day when she could prove to him that daughters were as good as sons. Mostly content with her life in a small village - lying at the feet of "the most magnificent mountain in the whole of Switzerland," Nicola's days were filled with school during the winter, and caring for the dairy cows in the high pastures during the summer. But just as the Mountain was always there, a sort-of personality in its own right, so too was Nicola's conviction that her father's approval might be won through some act of daring. It was during one of her stays at the high-pasture summer-camp that the idea came to Nicola to climb down into the Mountain itself, into the old, long-abandoned mines....