One day, in an accessories shop near the train station, she spots a pair of fuzzy pink rabbit ears on a kind of hair band that light up. She thinks Vanessa would get a kick out of them.

“They’re all the fashion,” the salesgirl maintains. “You wear them to nightclubs and pop concerts.”

Rat wonders when she will see her mother next. She remembers how Vanessa always reached to the back of the supermarket shelf to find the milk with the longest sell-by date. Maybe Rat should pick something that hasn’t yet come into fashion, but will next year. “Excuse me, do you think they will be in fashion for a long time?”

The salesgirl looks at her as if she’s demented, and Rat’s so embarrassed she goes ahead and forks out five pounds for the flashing rabbit ears.

Chapter 6

When Rat opens a sleepy eye, there’s a boy sitting on the bottom of her bed. She lunges to grab him, only to find it isn’t Morgan, but Artemio. Remembering she’s naked except for her underpants, she slinks back under the covers, but not before his big brown eyes goggle.

“What do you want, Artemio?”

“Mumma said I was to wake you, and ask you if you wanted any breakfast before you go. She said you need to leave in plenty of time, the whole city’s snarled up because of the G8 conference—don’t even think of taking a bus.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She hasn’t really followed all that: Artemio’s got a lisp, on top of his gargly English accent. “Isn’t it time for you to have left for school by now?”

“I’m ill.”

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, then?”

“I’m not that ill.” He still doesn’t move. “I am here to offer you my official condolences.”

“What’s condolences?”

“Condolences are, Ha-ha, you lost.”

“I lost what?” It seems to her sometimes she’s lost everything.

“You lost the Olympics.”

“I lost the Olympics?”

“Ja. Jawohl, das is richtig. Paris lost, London won. There’s going to be the Olympics in London in 2012 and Jacques Chirac is in a snit about it. Ha-ha.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard at work already. What is a snit?”

“When you’re angry.”

Snit. Nice word, snit. They could use it in French. Franchement, Morgan, tu me snites.

“Paris is a mausoleum. London’s young and dynamic,” Artemio continues. “London’s up, Paris is down.” Bouncing on her bed.

“I’ve never been to Paris,” says Rat, meditatively.

“You haven’t? I have. There was an underground strike—we had to walk everywhere. Is it true that French people are always on strike because they’re lazy bastards?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m asking you.”

“How many French people do you know?”

“You. And Morgan. And Corinne, my old nanny.”