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person in the world to have two men going at once. Pete had been staying with Fiona nearly every night since Aoife had been in hospital; the story was his housemates had guests over and he was making space for them, but Aoife knew it was because Fiona couldn’t bear when it was just the two of them. Pete was the ideal co-watchman, he did nothing except play football, and that was only at the weekends, so his continual presence was really beginning to piss Aoife off. Not to mention how bloody boring she found him. Getting rid of him for the night was almost as good as getting rid of Jailer Fiona. And to add to her resentment of him, Fiona told her Pete was moving in when the lease was up, and Aoife was no longer welcome there.
    The two cans of beer slipped down her throat like nectar to the gods. She could feel relaxation course through her; it seemed to start in her feet, working its way up her body until her brain hit that relaxed, comfortable state. For the first time in a month, Aoife felt normal. She ate half of her pot stash. No effect. She ate more. Still nothing. Where was the high she was waiting for? Finally she ate the last of it. What she hadn’t anticipated was the delayed reaction of eating grass compared with smoking it. When it eventually hit her, it hit hard. First the giggles kicked in; everything was hysterically funny. She popped Mrs. Brown’s Boys in the DVD player. Normally she found it crass, but tonight it was hilarious. Until her feet disappeared.
    Aoife could see her legs, but there were no feet at the bottom of them. The legs just stopped dead, at the ankles, but even her shins were fading in and out. Someone had stolen her feet. Oh, boy, did that make her mad! How dare someone steal her feet? She needed them. How was she going to get to bed with no feet?
    Mrs. Brown on the TV show had taken them—she must have, as there was no one else in the room. Aoife looked under, over, and behind the TV. Wait a minute… how stupid. How could a TV character steal her feet? Someone had to have sneaked into the house. They were probably still hiding there, the bastards, laughing at her struggling. Half giggling, half shouting, she admonished the thief.
    “Hey, you! I know you’re there. Unhand my feet this minute!” she shouted. Then she started giggling, “Unhand my feet, how silly, sounds like something out of a Harry Potter film. But even if I had hands, I could walk on them. Unhand my feet. Oh, my god, that’s nuts.”
    She crawled along the floor, looking for her feet or the thief under the table, in the cupboards, under the sofa, in the bathroom, even as far as her bedroom. Surely her feet couldn’t just disappear? Someone had to take them. But where would they leave them?
    “Okay, you’ve had your laugh. You can give me back my feet now,” she shouted, starting to get worried that she might never get them back. And still, upset as she was at their loss, Aoife couldn’t get over what a great joke it was that someone thought of stealing her feet. Who needed ugly feet with curly toes? When the thief saw the state of them, Aoife would have the last laugh. There would be no painted toenails in high-heeled peep-toes for that robber; that was for sure. They would soon give those ugly appendages back. She was caught between laughing at their disappointment and crying at her loss, and then wondering where those strange sounds were coming from, thinking it was probably the thief.
    She was overtired—that had to be it. Aoife decided the best place for her at that moment was bed. For a footless woman, Aoife did a great job of finding where Fiona had hidden the sleeping pills, climbing on a kitchen chair to retrieve them from the top of the kitchen cupboards. She swallowed two down, and decided that might not be enough because of her missing feet, so she brought another one into the bedroom in case she needed it later. Aoife dropped it on her nightstand and somehow managed to get out of her clothes as she