The girl looked at me, her cries dying away as she focused on this bizarre stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere. ‘Would you like a try?’ I beamed, thrusting the ice cream into her hand before spinning around and grabbing the boy as he slipped off the shelf.

‘I know a good book about monkeys,’ I told him, as he wriggled out of my grip. ‘If you can find it before the book-exploding countdown, I’ll read it to you.’

‘What?’ The boy squinted at me suspiciously.

‘Ten, nine, eight…’ I began, trying to sound ominous, while pointing at the messy pile of books urgently.

To my immense relief, he started searching amongst the picture books, slapping them this way and that as he looked for one with a monkey. By the time I’d counted down to five, Trev had arrived, holding the hand of the older boy, and the mum had managed to position herself so that she could keep feeding while cuddling Holly.

‘What’s this?’ Trev asked. ‘A book hunt?’

‘We need to find the monkey book ’fore it explodes! Help me, Hudson!’

‘I can find it quicker’n you!’ Hudson bent down next to his brother, who by process of elimination must be Harry, and joined in the hunt.

‘Here!’ Harry announced a second later, just after I’d drawn out a slow three. I breathed a whoosh of relief. I’d spent enough time in libraries to know a monkey book was a fairly safe bet, but the selection here was more limited than most. ‘I found it! Now you have to read it to us!’

I took the offered book, and felt a prickle of pleasure that it was a good one. One so good, I’d used it in adult literacy classes more than once. Without needing to open the first page, I quoted the opening line, eyebrows dancing, eyes wide with anticipation.

‘All was dark and quiet in Monkey Forest. Until, just as the wise, old owl hooted midnight, something stirred in the bushes below…’

‘What was it?’ Harry squealed, jumping up and down in excitement. Hudson, trying to pretend he wasn’t bothered, nevertheless gave me a sideways glance through his overgrown fringe.

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you. But you must be quiet! Otherwise you might scare it away…’

‘Excuse me, it’s saying my card isn’t valid again,’ a man called from the automatic checkout machine, freeing Irene from where she’d been standing at the edge of the children’s section in a frozen stupor. She took a moment to regain control of her flapping mouth before ordering us to return the children’s corner to its previous order, and heading back to deal with the growing queue.