She wasn’t what I expected, though. She was dirty, for certain. Mud caked into the creases in her knees and black crescents in all of her fingernails. She didn’t have my mum coming at her with a hard brush and a bar of carbolic soap every Sunday night, that’s for sure.

But she didn’t seem very dangerous.

“Maggie?” Una picked up the bag. “D’you mind if I go now? I’ll give you another ear-wiggling lesson another day, I promise I will. It’s just that my dad, he’s really hungry. I’d like to get this food back to him.”

“Oh. Yeah. Course.”

“It’s been fun, though.” She stood up and brushed off her dirty dress. “It’s ages since I had any friends.”

Friends?

“And don’t worry about the ear wiggling. Takes a lot of practise. Took me a full month before I got anywhere at all. If you’ve got a mirror, use that.”

She slung the bag over her shoulder.

No more hesitating, Maggie middler. No more waiting. Find out where she’s living. Find out right now.

“I’ll, um, bring more food,” I said. “Where can I, um…” My throat clogged up. I coughed. I tried again. “Where can I find you? I mean, where are you living?”

“We’re stopped up in a barn,” she said, pointing somewhere vaguely beyond the boundary.

Beyond the boundary? No way could I go beyond the boundary.

“But you’ll never find it,” she said. “Just come here, to the cemetery. I’ll find you.”

“Oh. OK.”

“You won’t bring anyone else, will you?”

“No. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t.” She wasn’t grinning any more. Her face was still.

No more hesitating, Maggie. No more hesitating.

“Why not?” I said.

She sucked her lips between her teeth, looked at the ground. “People in towns can be dangerous sometimes, that’s all.”

Us? Dangerous?

“If we’re so dangerous,” I said, “why are you here?”

“I really need help. My dad’s hurt his leg and he’s getting a fever and he can’t hunt. He can’t even travel, which is why we’re stuck at the barn. We’re so hungry. And when I saw you help that girl, the one who fell out of the tree, I figured you and those boys—”

“Jed and Trig. They’re my brothers.”

“Yeah, you and your brothers, you seemed different. The sort of people who might help.”

I picked at the skin on the side of my thumbnail.

“Thanks so much for this, Maggie.” Una patted the bag. “You’re the best. I’ll bring your bag back. Promise. Will you come again soon? Sooner than Sunday?”

“Yeah. OK.”

She squeezed through the thinnest part of the hawthorn hedge. Beyond the boundary. The grass looked brighter out there. Fresher.

Maybe it was just the sun.