There were only men working in the electronics shop, which she never liked. But they were a lot like the guys she’d worked with at the call centre, which gave her a bit of confidence. All the men were wearing lanyards with swipe cards and security keys. She stood at a distance at one of the counters while two men finished a jokey conversation. One of them looked up and she came forward with the Tamagotchi phone already in her hand.

‘I think I’ve lost my charger,’ she said, and put the phone on the counter.

‘Okay.’ The guy wasn’t looking at her. He was still looking at the computer on the desk for a moment and then he did look, and he picked up the phone and turned it over in his hand and laughed. ‘Where’d you get this?’

She shrugged. ‘You know?’ she said and laughed. An exhale standing in for a laugh, just to get him on her side.

‘This is really old.’ He turned it over in his hand again. ‘Like, maybe ten years old.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I don’t know if we can get a charger for this,’ he said, typing on the computer. ‘I don’t think they even came out here.’ He typed some more. ‘Yeah, see.’ He turned the screen round. ‘Yeah.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s like a PHS or a PAS. It’s just meant for in a small area. It’s like a walkie talkie. It’s from Japan, they’ve never been here. It won’t work here. I don’t even think the game will work here – the pet. It would never have worked here. It’s like a . . .’ He searched for the words. ‘Like a schoolgirl phone. Like – anime,’ he finally said. ‘Do you know anime?’

She nodded and read the screen.

‘It was only in Japan,’ he said, ‘and only for like a few years. And for, like, kids.’

She nodded again and looked at him now. ‘Can I get a charger?’ she asked.

He looked at the phone again, turned it over and looked at the recharging port at the bottom. ‘Theoretically,’ he said. ‘It won’t work though.’

‘I probably don’t need it to work,’ she said. ‘I just need to turn it on.’