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me.
    ‘
You
know,’ said his mum. ‘The prize! The Yellow Jersey! For the day’s best bouffons! Don’t be thick, darling. You know what I’m talking about.’
    ‘My brothers,’ Jelly said to me. ‘Twins. Very talented.’
    I tried to show nothing. A dreadful burp of cod and fizz rose in my throat.
Now I know what you’d look like, Jelly, with a big white beard strapped to your face, sans the hair, sans the bags under the eyes. Young. Hopeful. Full of juice and ghastly fun
. Show nothing. Hold still until Jelly shows how much he minds. Then just echo that, on my own face. That’s the safest.
    ‘But … Hobbies can’t win a Blouson,’ Jelly said. ‘They can’t even go in the—’
    She tutted and sighed. ‘I
told
you they’d been jumped up.’
    ‘You did?’
    ‘Yes, at the Mask Ball, remember?’
    ‘I didn’t go,’ said Jelly hollowly, lifting his gaze from me to his mum. ‘I didn’t go to the Mask Ball.’
    She stamped her slipper. ‘Well,
anyway
. Tit for Tat, they call themselves, and they’re
very good
. I mean, clearly! The premier Blouson at their very first games! Isn’t it marvellous?’
    In my mind’s eye, Tat draped himself over the fountain. Even without the bullet, that crack to the head would’ve—And Tif ran for the trees, his real mouth square with terror.He tripped on his billowing silks, he tumbled like a popped balloon—Nope, there was no going back.
    ‘Marvellous,’ Jelly said. ‘Will there be a party?’
    His stagy curiosity made her face light up. ‘Oh, darling, will there! Bring all your friends!’ She gave me a three-quarter back view of the croquembouche—she’d be doing something with her face to say,
Not
this
friend, though
.
    ‘I will! I’ll be there!’ Jelly brayed.
    ‘Tonight!’ And she swept out of the Puffin, touching a petit-chou of her hair, her tutu wagging above her jewelled hosiery. All she needed was a white pony and a circle of sawdust to ride around.
    The burp came out through my nose—it was soundless but it fouled the magnolia air. Jelly watched me watch him, his face mask after mask, each the tiniest bit different, but the eyes always dark, almost smoking.
    ‘That will be a fun do,’ I ventured, when he looked down at the dessert menu.
    He winced. ‘What can they expect!’ he spat.
    ‘It’s only fair,’ I said evenly. I laid my hand on the Fiore case, thinking of the slow squeeze and
thunk
of firing her, so smooth and leisurely.
And the way it lifts them, all slowmotionly, their silks flapping, the mouth inside the painted mouth opening, the nose drawing a red curve on the sightscreen—
    ‘Made up your minds, gentlemen?’
    I came out of my twitch and blinked at the waiter,standing there with his pencil cocked, kiss-curls painted across his forehead.
    ‘I can recommend the mousse,’ he said. ‘Light as a feather, but
intense
flavour.’
    Jelly dug for money and folded it into the waiter’s hand. The man backed off bowing when he felt the quantity. My mouth hungered after passionfruit, but was I going to insist? Jelly picked up the Fiore.
    I concentrated hard, following him through the markets, dodging loaf-stalls, iced-bun stands, sproutings of glazed-dough kewpie dolls on candy-sticks. Night was closing in. Was I going to lose him, and the Fiore along with him? Would he go all funny, turn on me? These rich kids, how much could you rely on them?
    He led me through the safety fence around the church tower, in through the shot-away door, up the stairs, out onto the balcony-thing. He sat himself between two winged gargoyles with their heads knocked off, and I parked nearby. There was a chilly wind, and the rain was coming on again. Below, the market glittered pink like a rosette-firework, but the rest of the city was a wet freight of stonework, stacked all the way to the horizons. Jelly sat hunched as a gargoyle himself, smoking and coughing and smoking, his rollies sheltered under his hand.
    I tried out several sentences in my