‘Alright.’ I get up and go to look at the lock I’d broken. There is a hard, yellow substance where the wood used to be, rounded slightly at the edges and fitted snugly into the old wood. If not for the difference in colour, it would look like part of the door. I tap it with my fingernail. Rock solid. In the space that Dana has cut out somehow, the new lock nestles perfectly, half the mechanism buried in the wood with a gleaming, gold-coloured block that slides out from the side of the door when I turn the key. The action is smooth and satisfying somehow. A few years ago, when there had been a number of reported thefts from sheds in the area, we’d had our old shed lock replaced by a professional. It hadn’t been as good a job as this.

‘What tools did you use?’ I ask.

Dana grins. If it was a challenge, she knows she’s won. ‘I’ve stolen a bunch from school over the years. I’ve pretty much got a full set now, though I have to haul them around in a plastic bag, which keeps ripping. I haven’t got around to nicking a tool box yet.’

‘Or making one,’ I offer. ‘You’re really good.’

‘Maybe.’ The wall in Dana’s eyes is coming down again. ‘I just want this place to be private, you know? Special. Like this.’ She walks back to the big bush with the thin leaves and purple flowers. ‘This is a buddleia.’

‘A bud-what?’

‘A buddleia. Butterflies love them. It’s nearly finished for the year now – there’s only a few flowers left because autumn’s been so warm. Most of them have turned black, look. But you should have seen it over the summer. You couldn’t see them for butterflies.’

As if to illustrate her point, a large, black-winged butterfly with red and white tips lands on the bush above her head, stays there for a bit, then flies off again and over the wall. We watch it go.

‘And this moss. It’s sphagnum.’ She almost runs to the wall which I’d ripped handfuls off of only last week.

‘Ss-fag…’ Languages have never been my strength.

‘It’s an astringent. You should know that word, Biology kid. They used it for putting on soldiers’ wounds in the war.’

I remember again the warm, numb feeling that had replaced the pain in my leg.

‘And in the spring, you wait, there’s a whole bunch of crocuses that’ll shoot up in the middle of the grass all over the place, pink, white and purple, with little yellow tongues in middle. They’re waiting, underground, for the cold to pass. Then they’ll pop up. Boing!’ She jumps over to me.