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saying so would feel like being ungrateful to her parents. “We haven’t found anywhere yet.”
    “I meant because you had to put up with all that noise and mess while your dad’s friend was fixing the house. You should have come and stayed with us. I asked my mum if you all could have and she didn’t say no.”
    “That was nice of her,” Laura said to cover up her disappointment at having learned too late. She wrote “Gone to
    Jody’s‘ on the board and made sure the front door locked behind her. “Don’t tell me what my present is, I want to guess.”
    Beyond the traffic lights Victoria Road climbed past the Sea Level Hotel, which was several hundred feet above sea level, to New Brighton station. Jody’s house was half of a burly pair. It overlooked the station and the bay from the top of a steep driveway which Jody’s father called his evening exercise. The hall was larger than the Orchards’ kitchen. The low tables strewn with magazines in the front room always put Laura in mind of a waiting-room, but if it was possible to tire of the view of the horizon giving birth to ships then she would have watched the trains and the streams of people they set free. Living close to the station would be like the start of any number of adventures, especially once her parents let her go on trains by herself, but she oughtn’t to let her dreams feel like the future, even though there was a house like Jody’s for sale a few doors away.
    Jody’s mother came downstairs on quick tiptoe. “I’ve turned your father on his side so the neighbours won’t complain about the noise,” she told Jody, and turned to Laura. “How’s life treating you, madam? Moved up in the world yet? Is there anything Jody should know to keep up with you at school?” she said without a pause as Jody grimaced at the ceiling.
    “The teachers gave her the homework we’ve been doing,” Laura guessed.
    “So long as she gets all the chances she’s entitled to. That’s all anyone can ask for.” A smile which was almost too brief to be called one, and which Laura knew announced a change of subject, crossed her plump lightly painted face. “You and the family will have to come to the restaurant so we can try our new dishes out on you now Jody’s gone vegetarian.”
    “Did you find what you were looking for in Greece?”
    “Everything we said we would. An island every day and a new dish from every island. We haven’t decided what to call them in English yet, except for Minotaur Steak.” She sat in the rocking-chair by the window and picked up a notepad loaded with long Greek names. “Take Laura up to your room but mind you don’t waken the slumbering hunter.”
    As soon as the girls were in Jody’s room, which smelled of hairspray and was strewn with even more clothes than usual, Jody said “Anything happened at school that my mum wouldn’t want to know?”
    “Someone in the fourth year dropped a condom when she was paying at the cafeteria.”
    Jody squeaked and covered her mouth. “What happened?”
    “She made out it was a balloon she’d got at someone’s birthday. And Diane had hysterics because a dog came into die yard, so Miss Haygarth sat on it until the stray man came.”
    “Diane’s bigger than Miss Haygarth.”
    “It was just a big soft dog, we thought it wanted to play, only Diane was afraid it’d bite her and give her AIDS.”
    “That isn’t how you get AIDS.” Jody finished spluttering and said, “I don’t think it is, do you?”
    “I think it’s the only way Diane’s going to get it if her mum never lets her wear make-up. Oh, and Trace kept showing us some hash in a matchbox she said she got from her brother, only Grace’s parents used to be hippies and she thinks it’s sealing wax.”
    “I hope Trace didn’t let Jackie Pether see it, though.”
    “Jackie Pether …” Laura stuck out her tongue as if she had swallowed some horrible medicine. “Ruth put some bubble gum inside her desk, Ruth’s desk I