‘It was, what, fifteen when you moved in?’

‘Thirteen,’ Gordon replied defensively.

‘Still a change,’ Dog said. ‘It gets below ten, you’re gunna have to tie the furniture down.’

Tonsure Man, who was sorting through the donated clothing bins Lou had set up beside the lending library, emerged with a onesie in each hand—in the left a spotted cow, in the right a dinosaur—and commenced speaking as if he had been waiting for Lou for a pitiably long time.

‘What kind of stain would rule out a onesie?’ Tonsure Man asked. ‘The cow’s got something small but real crusty, and the dinosaur’s got one that’s big and dark but maybe not a biohazard.’

‘To humans or dinosaurs?’ Lou said, inspecting both onesies. ‘Dinosaur can survive, but the cow’s for the abattoir.’ She handed the onesies back to Tonsure Man, who put the cow back in the clothing bin.

‘It’s a real service you’re doing, love,’ said Josie. ‘I can’t get over their attitude at the church. I’m never going back.’

After finding that the churches turned up their noses at clothes without tags attached, Lou had asked, ‘But who would donate new things?’ Second-hand clothes were being dumped in landfill, so she decided The Lodge could distribute them—there had to be people in Bluebird desperate enough to take used clothes but too proud to go to a church. It was Lou’s unwritten rule that if you took something from The Lodge, you left something else: books for the library, a board game, a cake, a bag of coffee beans, even a few dollars if you felt so inclined. Up to now, the only takers for donated clothes were Tonsure Man, Red Cap, Cnut and Snake, who took what they fancied and left bugger-all in exchange. And the only one who left cash was the one whose money was not welcome.

‘You don’t go anyway, you’re an atheist,’ Red Cap told his mother, who was beetling to the kitchen.

‘Agonistic!’ Josie retorted over her shoulder, before putting on a wet smile and saying to Lou, ‘We were hoping you might crank up the coffee machine one last time, dear?’

Lou rolled her eyes at Gordon. ‘I’ve got my squad coming.’

‘You’re doing wonders with those kids,’ Josie said ingratiatingly. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re a loss to motherhood.’

‘And a gain to everyone else,’ Red Cap added.

‘The parents should be paying you,’ Tonsure Man said. ‘If it was the fucken BSLSC, they’d be up for four hundred a season.’ ‘You know she’s not allowed to charge,’ Gordon said. ‘She can’t even crowdfund,’ he added, to show he was aware of her latest tricks to help him.