“Yes, me too,” said another, pulling the little boy away until eventually it was just Sofia and Carmen left in the shop.

“Well, you had a shot,” said Sofia in a voice that was a lot more patronizing than she’d intended. Carmen eyed her.

“I’m sure you can tell Mum and you’ll all have a good laugh,” she said, straightening up. “God, why can I never get anything right?”

“That’s not true,” protested Sofia. “I mean it!”

Behind her, it turned out that the shop wasn’t quite empty. The little girl with the huge eyes was still there.

“That was a very sad story,” she whispered to Carmen.

“I know,” said Carmen. “I forgot stories all have to be happy and jolly these days.”

The little girl shook her head. “I liked it,” she said, still whispering.

“We’ll take it,” said the well-heeled-looking mother. “That’s a beautiful edition, in wonderful condition too. Children’s books today are so terribly anodyne, don’t you think? Love yourself, love yourself, be kind, blah blah, love yourself. I think we can get a little beyond that, don’t you, Leone?”

And tiny Leone smiled and took the book after Carmen carefully wrapped it up in paper and held it tight to her breast, as if she both loved it and was slightly scared of it, which was not, after all, the worst emotions to feel about a book.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You know,” said the mother as she turned, Leone ahead so she could peek around the corner and gaze at the train set with those huge eyes of hers, “that’s the first time she’s spoken in public since she started school. Thank you.”

And the bell tinged, and Carmen watched them leave, just as the very lanky studenty man came in. He frowned at Sofia’s tear-stained children.

“There’s also a lot of crying children in the street,” he said, looking bemused.

“It was a sad Christmas story.”

He looked puzzled. “I thought Christmas stories were happy.”

“So did I,” said Sofia quietly, trying to haul the children away, even though Jack would have happily sat for several hours watching the train set.

“‘The Little Match Girl,’” said Carmen. He shook his head. “You don’t know it?”

He smiled. “I don’t . . . I don’t really know any Christmas stories.”

“What, at all?” She frowned at him.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Oh! Sorry,” said Carmen.

“No need,” he said. “From where I’m standing, it looks like a full-time job.”

Phoebe had stopped sobbing, her head whipping around. “You don’t celebrate Christmas?” she said loudly. Sofia grabbed her hand.

“Lots of people don’t celebrate Christmas, darling, don’t you remember? You learned it at school. Which has lots of people from different backgrounds. So there’s Eid and Hanukkah . . .”