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group manifesto. They wanted an ice rink but wouldn’t accept that in this day and age it was up to the private sector to take the lead. Perhaps the new bowling alley would shut them up. She didn’t really expect so. Cllr Doon sometimes wished that young people could be allowed to hang around on street corners. They always used to, but now people thought that there was something wrong with it, that they should be quietly or noisily occupied somewhere else, or at least in somebody else’s neighbourhood. And even the ones who were allowed to hangaround on the streets were allocated Detached Youth Workers, whatever they were. Brightly coloured structures called Hangabouts had even been installed on some of the city’s estates so that the young people could have some official focus for their hanging about. Perhaps she was getting old … and now here was that window-woman come to bother her. Some people were never satisfied.
    â€˜Yes?’ She managed a smile, but pointedly, she hoped, didn’t put down her papers or offer a seat. There wouldn’t have been room for their two amply spreading behinds on the elegant little bench anyway.
    â€˜You said that if I needed help with anything …’ Mavis began.
    â€˜Did I?’ Bette asked (surely not!). ‘And how can I help?’
    â€˜Look at this. It’s laughing at you. Ha ha! I just came in to pay the poll tax and I caught my foot on the steps there, and now it’s split, innit. Got any glue here?’
    Mavis plonked her foot up on the bench next to the bag which contained Bette’s Marks and Spencer’s food shopping. At least it was all pre-packaged. The ancient pink-and-grey trainer had split, the sole flapped hideously, revealing the knob of a big toe in a whitish towelling sock of the sort that Bette imagined some men might wear to play sports.
    â€˜I’m afraid that I don’t carry glue,’ said Cllr Doon, but her scathing tone was lost on Mavis who was twitching her toe up and down, up and down, making the hole even bigger.
    â€˜Where’s the council glue cupboard then? I am a ratepayer, you know.’
    â€˜The council doesn’t usually take responsibility for people’s footwear.’
    â€˜Did it on council property, didn’t I.’ Mavis looked as though she might get violent.
    Would a pound coin send her on her way? I’ll just shout for security, Bette told herself, although she knew that it would take at least ten minutes for the council’s security guards to stub out their cigarettes in their coffee-jar-lid ashtrays and come lumbering up the stairs to apprehend the wrong person. She sighed.

Chapter 11
    Paul had spent a whole weekend bent double painting hopping frogs on the wide tarmac path that led to the Badger Centre. As he completed the last one some boys zoomed past his paint pot, their rollerblades missing it by a millimetre. He stared after them and saw that his bright green frogs looked as though they had been squashed by a stream of traffic. Oh well. The end of the line for the frogs. He lifted the stencil to reveal that he had smudged the last frog’s fingers. He considered finding a pot of pink and adding a lipsticky smile and some varnished fingernails to cover it up. He picked up the paint stuff and followed the frog trail towards the Centre. Paul loved the automatic doors. He thought of them as magic, and he smiled as he breathed in the Centre’s special smell of school trips, mice, crayons and sugar paper, seeds and aquaria. If ants had a smell, it would be there too.
    The Centre Manager, Madelaine, was sitting at the desk with Kirsty, a work-experience girl, who they hoped might stay on as a volunteer. She was developing a crush on Paul, so she probably would.
    â€˜Hi, Paul!’ said Kirsty. He wondered why as they had already said hello to each other that morning. He and Madelaine just nodded at each other when the need arose.
    â€˜Finished