Next thing I know, my brother is shaking me awake. “Ratfinks,” says Jorzy, looking into my face. His nickname for me doesn’t sound so friendly now. “Come on, time to get home.”

I follow my brother groggily out into the amber street. A man pushing a handcart goes by, the cart’s wheels loud on the cobbles. Remembering that man’s clenched fist, I glance at my brother’s stern profile.

“What were you talking about in there?”

Jorzy sends me a swift glance. His hands are shoved into his pockets. He has a sack containing his lunch box and his goggles slung over one shoulder. His strides are long, and I’m having trouble keeping up.

“D’you know,” he asks, side-stepping the question, “the story about the mermaid?”

Despite myself, I smile. “A mermaid?” It sounds too fantastical, especially for someone like me who has never seen the sea. “With a tail?”

“Aye, with a tail,” says Jorzy, tipping his cap at a young woman who is walking the other way. “And you might think that mermaids only live in the sea, but it’s not true. This mermaid – her name was Elsa – lived in our river. Not near the city, of course, that would be too noisy for a delicate thing like a mermaid. No, she lived in a secret pond off in the countryside, where there were plenty of tasty fish and a nice cave to sleep in at night. Anyway,” he says, tipping his hat again and making another girl blush, “Elsa the mermaid, she had a curious nature and decided one day to explore the river. Secretly, she was probably hoping to find a boy mermaid – a merman.”

That makes me flush a little, thinking about Emee, and I stick my hands in my pockets.

“She came to a mansion overlooking the river, and thought, Ah, my merman is bound to live in this fine place. So she lay on the beach in front of the house and preened her long, sweet hair. Little did she know, however, that a bad man lived in that house, a man that walked on two legs and ruled the world–”

“Like the Director,” I whisper. He might be talking in riddles, except I know what Jorzy is telling me.

My brother frowns, and continues with his story as we turn into another street. “And that man imprisoned the beautiful mermaid. He put her in a horrible old pond at the bottom of his garden, with a fence all around it, so she couldn’t get out and couldn’t do anything except stay there. Every day the man would come down and ask her to grant him a wish.”

We come to a vegetable barrow and Jorzy stops to buy a cucumber.