The girl offers them each a nectarine, and bites into one herself. Hunkers down on her heels, haunches long and sinewy. Wiping her dripping cheeks with the back of one hand, she gazes at them.

Morgan wolfs the nectarine down in an instant. Sits, staring fixedly at the remaining food.

The girl reaches into a crate, and tears off a great hunk of bread. Hands it to him.

Rat feels embarrassed. She’s been trying to provide Morgan with regular meals, but Morgan isn’t a boy with a regular stomach. Morgan’s got a stomach like a dump truck. “We had lunch, but …”

“These potatoes will take a long time to roast. It’s not exactly fast food. Have some more bread.”

The older girl’s manner is reserved, but she nonetheless makes it clear that she considers these child-invaders their guests.

“Do you live here?” Rat asks.

The others exchange glances.

“We’re in transit,” one of the boys says.

“Long-term transit,” adds the other.

“Terminal transit!”

Everybody laughs.

“Do you mind if we camp here a while?” Rat asks. “We stashed our stuff in one of the rooms …”

“We saw,” says the girl in Doc Martens. “It isn’t ours; it’s a Free Zone. For the time being, at least. I guess you know the government’s planning to turn it into a marine research center.”

“That’d be a shame,” says Rat. “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, but I never thought of staying here long-term. What do you do for fresh water? Is there a spring?”

“Yeah, in the woods. We’ve tested it; it’s fairly pure.”

“Cool,” says Rat, appreciatively. These guys are organized.

That evening, over dinner, Rat learns more. There are five of them, three girls and two boys, camping at the dynamite factory. Until recently, they were squatting with a bunch of other friends in a very beautiful medieval building in the center of Lyon. But the government finally succeeded in getting them expelled, and its occupants have been obliged to find other accommodations. They have been staying at the factory a few weeks.

“Are you students?” asks Rat.

“We’re gleaners,” says the girl in Doc Martens, whose name is Pauline.

“Parasites,” says the blond-bearded boy called Dany.

Pauline explains. They have worked out a fairly simple and portable way of living virtually without money. They go around the markets, after they are over and the sellers have packed up, gathering the leftover fruit and vegetables that have been thrown away. When they lived in Lyon, they baked their own bread, but now they retrieve the day-old bread that bakeries give away. It’s not just that they are cheapskates, like Vanessa, or can’t be bothered to get jobs or sign up for welfare, Rat gathers: it’s more a matter of principle. A demonstration that society is so wasteful you can live pretty decently off its leftovers.