‘Well, I never feel hungry till round about lunch time. Not even then, sometimes. Probably got a different metal…metab…’

‘Metabolism?’

‘Yeah, that’s the word. I’ve just got a different metabolism to everyone else. Maybe I was supposed to be born on another planet and got landed here by mistake. Saturn, that’s the one I’d choose, that one with all the gorgeous spinning rings. Seymour, does this outfit look okay? Do I look smashing?’

It was as though she really cared about his opinion and, flattered, he nodded, though Angie really looked more suitably dressed for a party than a midday tram ride. She was wearing a dress that was sometimes blue and sometimes pearl green, and looking at it more closely, he saw that the material was textured in scalloped patterns which made the colours shimmer into each other. She also wore high-heeled silver sandals, and he decided that although it wasn’t the sort of thing people wore in the day time, it somehow looked just right on Angie, who was so beautiful.

‘Neptunia,’ she said. ‘That’s what I call this dress, because it looks like under the sea. Chosen my earrings yet? You did such a good job last time, I’ll let you be my official earring selector.’

He opened the box and found a pair of large iridescent hoops to go with Neptunia.

‘Oh, I just adore summer!’ Angie carolled when they went out through the back gate into the alleyway. ‘What I’m going to do one of these days is nick off to Queensland and open a little craft shop. I’m pretty good at making things, you know, handcrafts and that. I got A’s right through school for art. If only I could get some money together, I could easily run a little craft shop and sell all the stuff I make. Shell necklaces and straw sun hats and umbrellas with flowers painted on them, things like that. But at lunch times I’d shut up that shop and just lie on the beach all afternoon. What a life, eh? How about if you came with me to Queensland? You could do with a suntan. Your folks probably wouldn’t even notice you’d gone, either, you’re that quiet.’

Seymour, conscious of the length of the alleyway to the main road, of all its possible dangers, was too preoccupied to answer. He kept close to her side, even though no one else was about in the warm, still morning. Angela walked carelessly, as though the alley were a peaceful country lane, stopping to pat a stray cat, standing on tiptoe to look over a fence at a hanging basket of fern.