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on earth have we started?”
    Of course, she could just throw the whole lot in the bin, but there was stuff there that was needed. She could only sort it by sitting there like a pathologist and pronouncing life or death on every coloring book and felt pen and all the rest of it, and there just wasn’t the time for all that. She still hadn’t worked out what she was giving anyone for lunch. She glanced up at the clock. Fine. Not quite twelve o’clock. No panic. Got a while yet. Just time for another creative solution…
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    Bubba brushed her feet on the mat, coiled her lower leg round the back door, flicked it back into its frame. And suddenly, just like that, she had what she liked to call one of her lightbulb moments. Ding! she thought. Then doubted herself. Did lightbulbs actually go ding? What did she mean? Flash! Or just ta-da! Anyway, the point was, she had a stonkingly bright idea. Her garden was, indeed, very heaven. She didn’t want to sound too boasty or anything but she thought it was probably a lot more very heaven than the gardens of any of the other families at St. Ambrose—what Mr. Orchard, bless him, kept calling “our community.” Yikes! Anyway…Why not share it with them in some small but special way? They could throw something magnificent here, which would knock everybody’s socks off and raise an enormous amount of money for those poor kids. She had felt so sorry for Bea the other night, at that meeting. All those pathetic little ideas of how to make a few bob here and a few bob there. They’ll still be at it with one foot in the grave at this rate—selling raffle tickets at their own funerals, holding a cake stall at the back of the crematorium…
    The Greens should make a substantial contribution, and this could be it. A summer ball. For St. Ambrose. The St. Ambrose Summer Ball. She could see it now: a marquee down by the pond…No, by the lake. For one night only, she would allow the pond to be the lake. A Lakeside Summer Ball. A- mazing!
    â€œKazia!” Kazia jumped, dropping the iron with a clatter. All Bubba’s fault—she didn’t normally appear in the laundry twice in one morning.
    â€œSorry—did you burn yourself?—but listen: I’ve had an incredible idea.” Kazia listened intently as Bubba outlined her grand scheme. It was growing as she spoke: it was already a sit-down dinner for up to two hundred people, with fireworks and dancing and a jazz band by the lake. She was so excited that it was quite a shock when Kazia chucked a bucket of Eastern European cold water all over her.
    â€œMrs. Green, I’m not so sure…”
    God, what was it with these people? Kazia was as bad as Tomasz. Honestly. Meet our live-in couple, Mr. and Mrs. Strindberg—Gloom and Grump. If Strindberg was actually Eastern European. Which she might have to check…
    â€œWon’t it mean a lot of work?” Kazia studied a rising blister on her finger.
    â€œOh, Kazia,” Bubba said, putting her hand on the ironing board in a gesture of affection. “You know I’m not afraid of hard work.”
    Friendship restored. She trotted into the kitchen and dumped the dirty mugs on the draining board, happy once more. Now she had something to get her teeth into. Heavens, was that the time? Twelve o’clock. Where did the mornings go? She was due at this grim-o lunch over at Cold Comfort Whatever any second. She could announce the ball idea right there—that would cheer them all up, bless ’em. Christ! She only had twenty-five minutes to tart herself up. Better crack on.
12:30 P.M. LUNCH BREAK
    Georgie was bent over the table, gathering up piles of stuff with her arms and shoveling them all into a bin marked COMPOST —it was empty for once, and amazingly nonsmelly; well, just the odd whiff of cauliflower leaf and potato peel—when Will burst in from the yard.
    â€œHELLLLOOOOOOO!” He did