Together, she and Morgan explore what was once a formal park. There are parasol pines and cedars, palm trees and eucalyptus trees and oleander. Hibiscus and snakey wisteria are draped across a tumbledown wall. The undergrowth is a solid mat of brambles.

Unhurried, they make their way towards the ruined outbuildings.

Morgan, dancing on his toes like a boxer, is caught between delight and trepidation. “Can we really stay here? It’s like—it’s like a fairy tale.”

They reach the cathedral-like building where she and Jérôme and Florian camped the night of Rat’s birthday. There’s no one home, but she can see that the older kids are clearly still in residence.

Rat takes advantage of their absence to take a good look around their living space. It’s been ingeniously equipped. The cement floor is carpeted in old rugs, empty sacks of grain. A couple of the smaller rooms have been converted into sleeping quarters: yellow crushed-velvet cushions from an old sofa, mattresses, sleeping bags unzipped and hung up on a laundry line to air.

Another area is kitchen, with the Primus stove and a box where onions, poatoes, rice are stored, a metal trolley with wire-mesh shelves containing plates, kitchen utensils. A plastic barrel full of water. Somebody’s accordion. Candles. A lantern. Several crates of books and papers. Homemade-looking pamphlets, printed in block letters, crude black-and-white drawings.

Rat picks up a flyer from the top of a pile.

“Don’t Let Machines Play with Your Children,” she reads aloud.

“What’s that?”

She reads on. “Something about the government using biometrics in schools.”

“What’s biometrics?”

“Don’t you remember, Jean-Luc was talking about it the other night. This new supersonic way they have of taking your photograph, so they know you’re not illegal.”

Morgan’s lost interest. “People actually live in this place?”

“Yeah, a bunch of them. Kids—older kids. They’re okay. Me and Jérôme met them the other night.”

“Are they coming back?”

“Looks like. Let’s go decide where we’re going to sleep. Dry ground, preferably.”

“Will they mind us staying here?”

“Well, it’s public property, isn’t it?” says Rat. “We’ll try not to get in their way.”

Together, they pick a space at the far end of the building, a room whose ceiling is still intact, its floor relatively dry. Rat lays out their mats and sleeping bags, unpacks their knapsacks. Their settlement looks sparse compared to the well-embedded hominess, the good husbandry of their absent neighbors.

She checks their water bottle. “We’ll fill up in the morning,” she says. “There’s got to be a spring somewhere near; otherwise, those guys wouldn’t be living here. It’ll be fun camping here awhile, don’t you think?”

“Mmmm. Are there wolves?”

“Morgan, there are only about three wolves left in the whole of France and they’re way up in the mountains.”