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go,” he said. Then, “Wait. What’s your name?”
    “Robbie.” My lips were chafed, burning.
    “I’m Luke.”
    “Nice to meet you.” We laughed, ordinary.
    He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out the packet of mints.
    “I got these for you,” he said. And then he left.

brenda
    “You be a good girl, now, won’t you?”
    “Yes, Mr. Eggers.” Brenda’s jacket hood snagged on the door handle. She fumbled to tug it loose, hating the man’s yellow eyeballs. How could he see to drive? He reached across the seat to help, but she wrenched the jacket free in time to avoid him touching her by accident.
    “Cheerio!” Brenda jumped down, ignoring a tweak of pain in her ankle as she landed. The truck rattled off behind her but she didn’t turn. Urg. Blech .
    A face was pressed inside the window of the house, making fishy-mouth against the grimy glass. “May your little self never grow up to be a yellow-eyed, hairy-knuckled, mucus-spewing dragon.” Brenda waggled her fingers like worms in front of the boy. His face disappeared and a second later the door opened.
    “Hello, Auntie Bren!” shouted Christopher. “I saw you first!”
    “Awesome child,” said Brenda.
    “Before Jerry. I saw you before Jerry did.”
    “No fair, Chrisfer!” Jerry was right behind him, shoving to get past, fists yanking on his brother’s back pockets.
    “Steady on.” Brenda laid a hand on each shaggy head, steering the boys back inside. “I need a bicky, how about you?”
    Kath peeked out from the kitchen, circles stained under her eyes. “Thank the sodding Lord you’re here. I’m ready to smack heads together, I’m so fed up.”
    Brenda dropped her schoolbag beside the radiator in the hallway.
    “How was your limo drive today?” asked Kath.
    Their dad had arranged with Mr. Eggers to bring Brenda into town after lessons, seeing as he worked out at the school, digging and fixing, moving the rubbish bins around.
    “First, there’s the gurgling accent. And that little hiccupping cough,” said Brenda. “And then the juicy clots that he loosens up, while I’m pretending not to notice that he’s got to have a great green glob of mucus sitting in his mouth, waiting to spag it out the window, if he can get the window rolled down while he’s driving like a yellow-eyed fiend along the York Road.… It was hideous, thank you for asking.”
    “Auntie Bren said bicky.” Jerry banged his mother’s bum with a small fist. “Bicky, bicky, bicky.”
    “He’s treading on my last brain cell whenever he openshis yapper,” said Kath. Funny how quickly she could move when getting out of the house was the goal; snatching up keys, dumping coins from the Marmite jar on the back of the cooker, jamming arms into the sleeves of her denim jacket, slinging a purse over her shoulder. “We’re out of biscuits.”
    “Biscuit!” demanded Jerry.
    “Shut it,” said Kath.
    “All right,” said Brenda. “Off you go, then. Jerry, let’s have honey crackers instead.”
    Kath worked at Bigelow’s every day from four till seven. Brenda stayed with the boys for those hours, before she went home to make supper for Dad. She wished more than anything she could be a boarder at Illington Hall instead of a day girl, even though she loved Christopher and Jerry like crazy. She secretly thought that she loved them more than Kath did. Her sister was such a grouch.
    “You’re my saviour, today, Bren, I kid you not. I was nearly one of those mothers you read about in the Daily Express . ‘Mother of Two Sets Fire and Kills Tots.’ I swear to god.”
    Brenda would have laughed except that she believed her. “Anything I should know?”
    “Christopher pissed the bed, Jerry spewed his Cheerios all over the breakfast table, the telephone’s been cut off, oh, and the greasy munter who is Jerry’s father did not bother to mention the fact, which I heard from Suze at the chip shop, that his wedding to Lanny Giles is back on despite her