‘Dell’s fighting,’ Peggy blurted out. ‘She’s going to win.’

Heidi squinted a bit into the sun. ‘We’re all fighting. We all think we can win. Like, you and me. But Dell’s fighting different things.’

‘What different things?’

Heidi thought for a minute. ‘We’re making signs,’ she said. ‘Dell’s trying to stop this sort of thing happening.’ And she waved her hand between Peggy and Greta.

‘Dell’s deluded,’ Peggy said.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Heidi. ‘She might be right. I just can’t do what Dell does. Not anymore.’

‘Did you always know it was fake?’ Greta asked.

‘Is it fake?’ Heidi said.

‘It’s fake,’ Peggy said.

‘I mean, yeah, I know it’s fake, but it’s all we’ve got,’ Heidi said. ‘So it doesn’t really matter what it is, or whose it is. That’s what I’m talking about. Dell’s trying to fight the things that are out of our hands.’

‘Things are getting weirder,’ Peggy said. ‘Things are getting weirder, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ Heidi said. ‘I guess it’s getting old.’

‘Did you bring Dell back?’ Greta said.

‘That’s exactly the sort of fighting I’m not doing. It was Dell who came back – no one brought her back,’ Heidi said. ‘At least, no one we know. Anyway, I don’t think it works like that.’

‘How does it work, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Heidi said. ‘At least, I don’t know how it works for you, but it seems like stuff happens and we react and that makes more stuff happen. I think that’s why it’s getting weirder.’

‘Edge cases,’ Peggy said.

Heidi nodded.

‘That’s what we thought,’ Greta said. ‘It’s falling apart.’

Heidi nodded. ‘We all are.’

They all watched the volleyball game now. The players kept the ball in the air until finally they didn’t.

‘We thought Dell had magicked the phone to us, somehow. That she was trying to send us messages, or maybe it was a way for her to travel, like, through time or something. We thought she was winning,’ Greta said.

‘Dell’s gone,’ Heidi said.

‘What?’ Peggy and Greta looked at her.

‘I think she must have left from your place.’

‘Where?’

Heidi shook her head. Her face looked slightly hot from the exercise and her scars showed a bit more. She had her hair pulled up, which she hadn’t done for years, and now she’d done it twice in two days. But probably just because it was getting warmer, and Dell had come back from the dead and she couldn’t see any reason to be bothered anymore. ‘She’s off to fight some new impossible thing,’ Heidi finally said.