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playground and a couple of wolf whistles on the way to the market.

‘You all right?’ Cal says.

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t look it.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Well, I’m bored.’

Which is dangerous, because obviously I’ll have to say yes to him if he asks to go back home.

‘Zoey’ll be back in a minute. Maybe we could get the bus across town. We could go to the magic shop.’

Cal shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘She won’t want to do that.’

‘Look at the toys while you’re waiting.’

‘The toys are crap.’

Are they? I used to come here with Dad and look at them. Everything used to gleam.

Zoey comes back looking agitated. ‘Scott’s a lying bastard,’ she says.

‘Who?’ ‘Scott. He said he worked on a stall, but he’s not here.’

‘Stoner Boy? When did he tell you that?’

She looks at me as if I’m completely insane and walks off again. She goes over to a man behind the fruit stall and leans over boxes of bananas to talk to him. He looks at her breasts.

A woman comes up to me. She’s carrying several plastic bags. She looks right at me and I don’t look away.

‘Ten pork chops, three packs of smoked bacon and a boiling chicken,’ she whispers. ‘You want them?’

‘Yes.’ She passes a bag over, then picks at her scabby nose while I find some money. I give her five pounds and she digs around in her pocket and gives me two pounds change. ‘That’s a bargain,’ she says.

Cal looks a little afraid as she walks away. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Shut up,’ I tell him, because nowhere in the rules does it say I have to be glad about what I do. I wonder, since I only have twelve pounds left, if I’m allowed to change the rules so that I can only say yes to things that are free. The bag drips blood at my feet. I wonder if I have to keep everything I buy.