Well, it was better than mooching about trying to work out what the time difference was between LA and Edinburgh. Carmen traipsed back through the stacks.

“Is this a lunch hour again?” said Mr. McCredie, but his face wasn’t quite as low as it normally was.

“Possibly . . . Are you reading White Boots?”

“Possibly. Don’t worry, I’ll hold the fort.”

Carmen smiled. “Do you remember how to work the new card machine?”

“You wave it,” said Mr. McCredie. “And magic beams come out of people’s magic devices.”

“Their telephones.”

He snorted. “That’s not a telephone,” he said. “It’s a magic wand hell-bent on destroying the world. But you call it what you want. Magic waves, blah blah blah.”

“Good,” said Carmen. “Ooh, and upsell.”

“Upwhat?”

“Upsell. Say we’ll wrap things for a quid. Ask them if they want it wrapped, then wrap it with the paper under the desk and charge them an extra pound.”

Mr. McCredie blinked in sheer misery. “That is the single most vulgar thing I’ve ever heard of!”

“Is it?” said Carmen. “Good for you, but every little bit helps. Anyway, who wraps your gifts?”

Mr. McCredie looked down. “I . . . I don’t . . . I don’t really . . .”

Carmen swept in to save him. “You don’t have to give gifts,” she said quickly. “You’re too busy giving books away all the time.”

He smiled hollowly, grateful.

CARMEN STILL LOOKED pensive as she joined Oke on the sidewalk outside the shop, her breath showing in front of her. The lights strung up between the lampposts and the great silver snowflakes dancing in the twinkling light all the way down Victoria Street never failed to make her smile.

“You’d think,” she said, without even realizing what she was saying, “people couldn’t possibly be unhappy somewhere so beautiful.”

Oke gave her a look. “I thought you were unhappy,” he said.

“I never said that,” said Carmen.

Oke stopped and looked puzzled. “No,” he said. “I apologize. You did not say it.”

“But you thought I was?”

He held up the half-price voucher and pretended to study it. “No.”

“You don’t have anyone else to share that with?” said Carmen, wondering.

He blinked. “Yes. But most of them are busy.”

His accent was so faint, just a slight th sound on the “s” of “busy.” She liked it.

“I was busy.”

“That’s true.”

She glanced at him. “Do you always literally have to tell the truth? Always?”

“It’s just a habit,” said Oke, looking a bit awkward.

“Should I ask you how many people you asked before . . . ?”

“So—fortunately it is just here and there’s no queue, look!”

“Hence the voucher,” said Carmen.