‘Oh, well.’ It was Yasmin’s turn to flush. ‘For now, just the two of us. But Irene said we could set up another, larger one in the library as long as we kept to the rules, only spoke in whispers, made sure nobody enjoyed themselves, blah blah blah. Oh, and she asked if I could stop her miniature poodle from chewing up her sofa while she’s at work. I mean, that’s easy enough – try listening to an intelligent, sensitive creature when they are telling you they hate being left on their own all day! So, another client for the Dog Mother’s Day Care.’ Yasmin leant forwards, cupping her mouth with both hands. ‘Would you have believed it, though, Irene has a dog! She’s called Veronica Fluff!’

After all that, the session ended up being mostly a lot of chattering, with a smattering of coaching whenever Irene frowned in our direction.

I remembered to invite them both to my party before they left, which meant a great deal more due to us deciding that the ReadUp Coaching had served its purpose, and this would be our final session. Jaxx arrived just as they were leaving, which prompted me to invite him as well, and while I was on such a sociable, friendly roll, I also offered Irene one of the invites I’d printed off. I felt a lot less intimidated by Irene Jenkins now I knew she’d named her poodle Veronica Fluff.

‘What’s this?’ She sniffed, as though I’d offered her a used tissue.

‘An invitation to my thirtieth birthday party.’

Irene’s mouth dropped open in a silent O.

‘There won’t be loads of people, I’m keeping it fairly informal, but Jaxx and Trev and Yasmin will be there, hopefully some of the other Business Builders. We’d miss you not being there too. And you’ve done so much in making the library available for all these different activities.’

‘The directors like the upturn in footfall,’ she mumbled. ‘If it means we avoid the next round of budget cuts, it’ll be worth it, I suppose.’

‘I heard the Library Lady stories are thriving.’ I gestured to where a crowd was already gathering in the children’s corner.

‘It’s getting unmanageable. Children spilling out into the local history section. I’m going to have to start another session on Monday. That is, if your crowd don’t come up with reasons to hang about in here every day of the week. You’d think they had nothing better to do.’