That was the whole of my ambition.

I found her reading glasses on their chain, and her pincushion shaped like a tomato, and I threaded a needle by the bay window where the light was good, and I started with the easiest thing, which was Yusuf’s blazer button.

I had just tied it off when the cracked bell went clunk, and a tall skinny kid in a school blazer with one button missing stood in the doorway, and stopped, and said, “Oh.

You’re not Miss Franny.”