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of time!’
    â€˜I don’t care about the dawn of time! This is the modern world.
A world that costs!’
    Far from giving up, Fee doubled his busking efforts. Night after night, rain or clear, he was out there on the hill. It was a busy time for all of them. Mena doubled her efforts too, her tailor’s dummy up to its neck in office-party frocks. Even Bentley foundhimself caught up in Christmas preparations, staying late for rehearsals of the school pantomime, in which he was lumbered with the role of Chief Executive of Santa’s Toyland.com
    He pleaded with Abren to come and see it – and she said that she would. But on the night she cried off. She was feeling sick, she said. And maybe the thought of leaving her fortress did really make her feel sick, but the more important truth was that she had some Christmas preparations of her own, and wanted to get on with them.
    So, when they’d all gone out, Abren settled down to make a Christmas present for Bentley, Fee and Mena, stealing a corner of party-frock cloth and a couple of skeins of embroidery silk, and starting to stitch a picture of birds and flowers, copied from her comfort blanket. When Fee and Mena came in, teasing Bentley over his success, Abren hid away her handiwork.
    From then on, however, every time she was alone she did some more – stitching as fast as she could because Christmas was drawing close. And with its bustle of excitement came unexpected fears. What would Christmas Day bring for Abren Bytheway, playing the part of an ordinary girl in an ordinary family? What memories and questions would it trigger?
    Abren felt the tension building up – not just in her, but in Mena too.
    When Fee brought in a tree for them to decorate, Mena said that the real star of Christmas wasn’t made of tinsel, it was made of openness and trust. She looked at Abren as she said it, and Abren blushed.Then, the next day, Christmas Eve, busy cooking everybody’s favourites while Fee was out dressed up as Santa Claus on Pride Hill, she suddenly said, ‘I wonder what your mother’s doing right now. I wonder if she’s missing you.’
    Again she looked at Abren, as if blaming her for something. Abren flushed. She didn’t say a thing, but when Mena turned to get something out of the oven, she slipped from the room, stumbling down the stairs with tears pricking her eyes. If it hadn’t been for bumping into Bentley, on his way to market for their last-minute shopping, she didn’t know what she would have done.
    â€˜Do you want to come?’ he said, as if he could tell that something was wrong.
    In the end, Abren was glad that she said yes. Down in the market – surrounded by a sea of turkeys, geese, wild hares, pheasants, partridges, huge slabs of pork and rolls of beef – it was impossible to think of anything but Christmas. Bentley dragged her between stalls of fruit, vegetables, nuts, home-made pork pies, home-cured bacon, jars of fat olives, slabs of pinky salmon, floury loaves of bread and twists of rolls, new-laid free-range ducks’ and hens’ and quails’ eggs, and every sort of cheese that Abren could have imagined, from plain to holey and from starkest white to pinks and greens and oranges.
    He did the shopping, and Abren helped carry the bags, trying to keep up with him. The market hall was heaving, everyone pushing and shoving, and in the crowd they became separated. Abren found herself wandering on her own down an avenue of flower stalls. At the end she saw a boy who she thought wasBentley. But when he started coughing, she realised that he was someone else.
    She fixed her eyes on him – a tall, thin boy with a big black coat, looking at her as if they’d met before. And he looked familiar to Abren too. But only later did she realise that he was the boy she’d seen going through the bins. The one who’d left the roses behind, but no food.
    She turned away, bumped into the