‘Join me at my bench,’ Steve said, then waved at the moms and told them. ‘Your kids are doing so great over there,’ which made the quartet crack proud smiles.

Steve’s bench was back by reception and he looked across at Charlie as he led the way. ‘I agree with what you said about the virus situation. The problem with setting up any open maker community is you can’t tell big mouths like Jerry McLeod to go eff themselves.

‘And mommies would rather have a good-ol’-boy telling them I’m still standing, than deal with the reality that the children they adore might soon die from a synthetic virus made in a suburban garage by couple of college dropouts.’

Charlie enjoyed Steve’s bossy-but-cynical vibe and reluctantly cracked a smile. His desk was a particle-board workbench, covered in circuit boards, chocolate-bar wrappers, half-drunk Starbuckses and a soldering station.

‘A lot of eggheads come here and sneer at my Wednesday-night appliance-repair workshop,’ Steve told Charlie. ‘They’d rather build killer robots than fix a suction chamber on a ten-year-old Dyson.

‘But the wannabe robot builders get frustrated when they realise how complex it is, while my appliance fixers build up a skill set – learning how everyday things work and what tools you need to repair them. It makes a starting point for more ambitious maker projects. There’s also satisfaction, when a struggling family gets their air-conditioner fixed, or we fit new batteries inside old iPads, load them up with educational apps and send them off to a school in Mozambique.’

‘Sounds amazing,’ Harry said, giving Charlie a nudge for encouragement.

‘And before you ask in a sly and embarrassed fashion, yes Steve will write a reference for your college application stating that you’re a wonderful young human, who repaired lots of computers for poor kiddies.’

Charlie seemed to have forgotten her humiliation a few moments earlier and looked hopefully at Harry. ‘You could join too.’

‘I do running club with Matt on Tuesdays,’ Harry said, shaking his head. ‘Plus it’s dark way before nine, so I’d never be able to drive home.’

‘Aww,’ Charlie said, then smiled at Steve. ‘You’ve sold me. How do I sign up?’

20 NAPALM DROPS

After leaving Maker’s Yard, Harry and Charlie strolled around Swallow Park’s lakes, talking about London, pets, White Boulder, bad music, apps they played when they were kids and funny shit that had happened at school.

They watched cute toddlers in masks feeding the water birds, got honked by an old coot in a golf buggy and watched a girl get screamed at by a spectacularly pompous dad, after she’d piloted his model boat into a tangle of reeds.