‘It’s more of an if than a when,’ Norah admitted.

‘What’s the problem?’ Poppy asked casually.

‘Umm...’

Poppy shook herself. ‘Sorry...’

‘No, it’s fine. I just... I think the hamster has fallen off the wheel,’ Norah said.

Poppy’s eyebrows flew up. ‘What?’

‘It’s something my dad used to say...’ It still felt weird to use the past tense about him, but Norah tried to shake that off. ‘It means something about not running at full function.’

‘Oh. Yeah. I get it. But I mean, you wouldn’t be, would you? Running at full function. When I...’ Poppy stopped. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t supposed to talk about this.’

‘No, go on. Say what you were gonna say,’ Norah prompted.

‘You sure?’

‘Might as well,’ Norah shrugged.

‘OK. Well, when my dad died, I wouldn’t get out of bed for about two weeks. My mum did everything to entice me. She even tried to drag me out once. I bit her.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Ten.’

‘That’s a horrible time for that to happen,’ Norah observed.

‘There’s no great time to lose a parent,’ Poppy shrugged.

Norah was amazed at the way Poppy was talking. Everyone else tiptoed around this subject, and it made Norah feel like she should stay quiet on the subject, too. But Poppy was just talking about it like it wasn’t a forbidden topic but simply a thing that happened.

‘What caused it?’ Norah found herself asking.

‘Heart disease. He didn’t know he had it until it was too late. He was at work; he was an insurance adjuster, and he hated it, according to my mum. She thinks it was the stress that did it for him. That and doughnuts.’ She sighed. ‘He died on the way to assess a house fire.’

‘Did he crash?’ Norah asked, horrified.

‘No, luckily, he was able to pull over, or he might have taken people with him. He flagged down someone passing. They got him to the hospital. But he died there.’

Norah felt her stomach turn. ‘Did you... see him?’

‘No. My mum did, though. She raced straight there. I was at school. She thought she’d have time to get me. But it happened pretty quickly after she arrived.’

‘I’m sorry you weren’t there,’ Norah said with feeling.

‘It was better, I think. My mum said... It wasn’t good.’

‘But you didn’t get to say goodbye,’ Norah said.

‘Did you?’ Poppy asked and made a face. ‘I’m doing it again. Should I shut up?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually, the only honest answer she could give.

‘Alright.’ Poppy paused. ‘You wanna see a movie?’

The tone change threw Norah. ‘Oh. Umm...’ She thought over what her evening would look like. Her mum was due back soon from work. They would eat dinner together and then sit watching TV in a silence so thick you could spread it on bread. ‘What movie?’ Norah asked.

‘It’s called Monkey Killers.’

‘Monkey Killers?’ Norah repeated in disbelief. ‘Are the monkeys themselves killers, or are people killing monkeys?’ she asked.

Poppy stood. ‘The first one. If we go right now, we can just catch it. But I should warn you, the movie won’t be good.’

‘I got that from the title.’

‘The reviews say the plot exposition is so bad that they might as well have turned to the camera to explain. It got one star from the local paper, and the same reviewer thought that the Britney Spears movie was “An underrated gem.”’

‘You know that, and you’re choosing to pay money to see it?’ Norah asked.

‘It’s kinda my thing,’ Poppy explained. ‘I like watching terrible movies and imagining the number of idiots that had to be rounded up to create something so awful. The number of opportunities people had to say, “Are you sure about this?” that no one ever took. Incredible when you look at it like that.’

‘I might have to rethink your review of my graphic novel,’ Norah said with a small smile.

Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘I can tell the difference between good and bad. I can just get pleasure out of either.’

‘That’s a good skill to have,’ Norah noted as she followed her out.

She felt a little nervous about spending an evening with Poppy but also hopeful. Poppy wasn’t uncomfortable knowing what Norah was going through, and she wasn’t scared to talk about it. She knew the experience intimately. Even if they never spoke about it, being around her felt like a relief. Poppy just got it.

‘Hey, if you could choose, would you rather be able to fly, but you can only go twenty miles a day or read minds, but it’s only dogs?’ Norah suddenly heard herself ask as they walked down the street to the bus stop.

Poppy looked at her like she was bonkers. Norah supposed it was a bit silly, but she’d always liked hypothetical. Usually, they stayed in her head. But it felt good to talk about nothing.

‘Cauldwell, are you insane?’ Poppy said with a tut. ‘That’s no question at all. I’d read the minds of dogs.’

‘What?’ Norah said. ‘You wouldn’t fly?’

‘Twenty miles? I’d get as far as what? The next town? Pointless. Might as well get the train.’

‘But you can fly!’ Norah said.

‘Or I could know the mind of a dog and all its mysteries. Clear winner.’

‘You’re nuts,’ Norah said with a shake of her head, grinning.

‘You’re nuts,’ Poppy grinned back.