Lettie smiles. She’s enjoying this. “Only during the day. And with visual aids.” She pulls out her yellow glasses from her pocket and perches them on her nose. “Reading, though. It’s the small type I struggle with, and those large-print books are just too damn heavy.”

Lucy nods and walks off with a wave.

Lettie snatches the card off me. “You nearly dropped the ball there, kiddo.” She whistles, looking at the card.

“What?”

She shows it to me: Lucy Geddes, Department of Health and Human Services, Child Protection Operations Manager.

I pick the book up and sit down. My hands are shaking. I find the right page. The looking calms me. Lettie tucks the card into her jacket pocket, settles back in her chair and gives me a wink.

I stare down at the book in my hands. The one her daughter had loved.

“Lettie?”

“Yep?”

“You were smiling before, when I told you I’d said you were blind as a bat . . .”

“What about it?”

“Was it because I reminded you of her, of Lana?”

She snorts. “No, you ninny. It was because you reminded me of me.”

I find her answer oddly calming.

DAY 44

MONDAY

THE NOISE NEXT door starts up early. People banging around there from six thirty. I let Splints out for a wee and poo and put his dried-food bowl out with him. I’m going to leave him outside. They’ve seen him around now. And the garden looks cared for. I add some more blood and bone, a couple of piles near the fence. It seemed like a good idea but Splints is straight into it, snorting and sneezing, tail wagging like it might fly off. He’ll either help spread it around or dig up all the plants trying. I watch him for a sec. All that hard work. I guess it’ll look like the typical back garden of a family with a dog, all dug up. I shut the door on him. For once he doesn’t notice.

I’m at school with time to spare. Lunch packed, homework done. I keep my head down, smile. The model student until the last bell.

I WALK PAST Oscar’s place quickly: eyes ahead, no dawdling. I stop when I get to our gate, though. There’s someone on Lettie’s porch wearing one of those white suits, spraying down the front with a high-pressure hose. I wonder about their priorities. The porch was the only clean space she had. Lettie’s nowhere to be seen; I can hear a sound like a humungous vacuum cleaner inside her house. I go into our house and straight through to the back, to find Splints a dirty stinking mess. He wiggles his bum off at the sight of me and tries to give me a lick. I push him away and lift myself up to peer over the fence.