“Bad timing,” says Pauline, finally. “Pre–September eleventh, pre-Schengen, you could talk your way through most borders, more or less. After the Soviet Union collapsed, there was this little pocket of freedom. Nowadays it’s Paranoiaville—they’re looking for terrorists, they’re looking for illegal aliens, they’re looking for pedophiles. It’s a minefield. Even trying to get onto a train these days is, like, a major production. Sometimes you get lucky.”

“Maybe they should try a ferry,” Dany suggests.

“What ferries?” asks Rat.

“Up north, across the Channel.”

“Where do they leave from?”

“There are ferries from Calais. Where else? Le Havre, Dieppe.”

“Where’s that?”

“Normandy.”

“They’re not cheap. But you could try.”

“That would be fun,” says Rat, brightening. “You want to take a boat to England, Mo?”

Morgan grunts.

“You can just walk onto a ferry?”

“Walk on, yes. Or drive on.”

“Yeah, me and Morgan did that when we went to Morocco. Remember, Morgan, when we went across the Strait? That was back when Morgan was a toddler.”

They smile at her. “Sure. Find some family to adopt you for the crossing.”

Rat makes a face. “It’s family we’re getting away from.”

That night, lying in her sleeping bag on the hard cement floor, Rat twists and wriggles in search of an endurable position, a more padded corner of hip or bottom to rest on.

Morgan’s breathing tells her he’s awake, too.

“Morgan?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like this place?”

“Yeah.”

“This is where Jérôme and Florian and I came for my birthday.”

“It’s nice.”

“And those kids are nice, too, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.” A pause. “Why’s he called Pauline?”

“Who?”

“The one with the metal in his mouth. I thought Pauline was a chick’s name.”

Silence. Rat reflects on Morgan’s misunderstanding—goes down the checklist of all the things that might constitute womanliness in Morgan’s book—breasts, hair, makeup, jewelry, a fundamental indifference to a car’s inner workings.

“She is a chick, she just doesn’t have tits, that’s all. There are lots of different ways of being a chick. Do you think you can go to sleep now, Mo?”

She reaches over and takes hold of his hand. Morgan eventually falls asleep, still clutching Rat’s hand. When she’s sure he’s sleeping soundly, she frees it.

For what seems like hours, she lies awake, listening to the sound of Morgan’s sleeping breath, her mind racing.