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on purpose, I thought scowling. He’s brainwashing Lola, making her think coming here was a mistake.
    This wasn’t supposed to happen. Brice was supposed to look bad, not me.
    By this time crowds of office clerks were hurrying through the streets. They were on their way to work, but in their gloomy suits and high stiff collars, they looked more as if they were going to a funeral.
    Brice was still reeling off depressing Victorian info.
    “Most of these sad characters work in the counting houses in the city,” he said. “What a way to spend your life, copying figures into ledgers all day.”
    I didn’t need an ex-PODS agent to tell me how hard these people’s lives were. I could see it in their bleak expressions and their unhealthy, greenish complexions, as if they rarely saw daylight.
    It’s like they’re trapped in some nightmare machine and don’t know how to get off, I thought. I was feeling fairly trapped myself.
    Lola gave me a searching look. “Did you do that protection thingy?” she murmured. “Because you look a bit -”
    Oh, no wonder ! I thought. What with my little hand-holding humiliation earlier, and the watches malfunctioning, I’d forgotten to run though my usual landing procedure. Basically since I got here, I’d been soaking up negative vibes like a sponge.
    I mentally instructed my angelic system to protect itself from any cosmic toxins in the locality. Ahh, that’s better I thought.
    “Shouldn’t we be running into our human at some point?” I said aloud.
    “You’d think,” said Lola.
    A horse-drawn cab pulled up to the curb. A middle-aged lady got out carrying two carpet bags.
    The street was super busy by this time, so she started off towards the crossing. I don’t know if it was her crinoline or the corset underneath that made her take such little steps, but it made her look like she was on tiny wheels! When she reached the crossing, I saw the lady crinkle her nose. There were piles of horse manure everywhere.
    Suddenly a little boy appeared, flourishing a bald-looking broom. He made a bow to the lady and grandly swept all the poo out of her path.
    The lady fumbled in her purse and gave him a very small coin.
    “I’ll carry them bags for yer, if you like, lady!” he said eagerly. “I’ll carry them to Timbuctoo if you just says the word.”
    She clutched her bags. “Certainly not! Such impudence! Run along, you little guttersnipe. Shoo!”
    “Stop thief!” An older boy came dashing through the traffic complaining at the top of his voice. “Turned me back for a second and the little tea-leaf swiped me broom!” he panted.
    “Call that a broom?” jeered the little urchin. “Where I come from, we calls that a stick.” He flung down the broom and legged it down the nearest alleyway.
    For no obvious reason we all went chasing after him. The people in the tenements had strung their washing across the alley. Victorian pantaloons, nightgowns and petticoats hung limply overhead in the stagnant London air.
    In mid-sprint, Lola and I exchanged glances.
    “It’s him, isn’t it?” I panted. “He’s our kid?”
    I saw Brice grinning to himself.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Nothing,” he smirked.
    “Can you believe that!” said Lola breathlessly. “We went all the way to Australia and we still hooked up with our human!”
    “Agency timing is quite cool like that,” Brice admitted.
    “What about PODS timing?” The remark slipped out before I thought.
    “Also excellent,” he said coldly.
    Lola gave me a look. Like, how could you be so mean? So I gave her a look right back. Like, was I being mean?
    Our human slowed down to a leisurely amble, but he didn’t totally relax. He was like an animal in the wild, noticing the smallest sound or movement, alert for trouble.
    They’ve picked us a real character this time, I thought.
    He wore a battered stove-pipe hat and a swallow-tail coat at least two sizes too big for him. The coat was full of holes which he’d tried to mend