Mum had turned stone-faced again. Her eyes had cooled. She looked away.

“Anyway, isn’t it time you were off to school?”

She was right. He was late. He got up.

“Listen, Mum, I didn’t mean to … it’s just such a lot of work … and we’ve only got a week…”

He could see that the fog had started to come back across her face already.

“I do try, you know…”

Marty’s stomach tied in a knot.

“I know … I know … and as you say, we’ve got a little time…”

“So, thanks for the fish smell.”

Marty’s face fell.

“What?”

It was the annoying girl again.

“Thanks to your allotment, my clothes, my coat, everything stinks of fish…”

“What…? Where…?”

He watched as she sat down.

“I live behind the allotments,” she spelled out to him slowly, as if he had precisely three and a half brain cells.

“I left my bedroom window open last night, and now everything in my house stinks of fish…”

Marty began to mount a defense for himself.

“Don’t even try and say it wasn’t you, because I saw you there—and your uncle? Grandad?”

Marty’s shoulders fell in defeat.

“Grandad…”

He wanted to shrink. Shrink away and disappear.

“And by the way”—she leaned over and sniffed the shoulder of Marty’s sweater—“just so you know, you don’t smell so good either.”

Marty lifted his arm across his nose and took a good sniff of his sweater. This day just could not get any worse. He had eaten his lunch quickly, gobbling down the food, hardly tasting a thing so he could go and sit outside and think about how he and his mum were going to clear a whole house in a couple of days … And now, on top of everything, he stunk of fish …

“It’s my grandad; he makes fish gunk and he bought me this seed for my birthday and,” Marty continued, “he really wants it to grow and…”

Marty noticed she was looking at him funny.

“Er, yeah, don’t worry about it. I’m Gracie…,” she said.

“I’m Marty…,” he answered.

They sat for a moment in silence just stinking of fish.

“You must be rich, then…,” he said eventually.

“What?”

“Living in one of those houses? They’re huge.”

She shrugged. “They’re all right.”

Marty knew he shouldn’t have asked, but the words came out of his mouth before his brain cells kicked into gear.

“So, how does that thing work, then?” He nodded to Gracie’s cochlear implant.

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Your social skills are spectacular.”

“I mean, the deafness, does it fix it?”

“I don’t need fixing, thanks…”

“Er, well, yeah, I know that, it’s just that…” Marty trailed off. She had a knack for pushing him to some really awkward places in his head.

Gracie was quiet a moment.