The daughter of Lester Scavenger has blonde curls and a blue dress, with which she’s careful as she picks her way over rusting Kelvinators and sloughs of compost. She’s lucky; they made a new drop during the night. She gathers watch cogs and batteries, a silk kerchief, most of a cake still in the box. It’s all treasure, and she holds it close.

When she comes home at dusk her father is stoking the blue fire. “What have you got today, my darling?” asks Lester.

The scavenger’s daughter clicks her mandibles happily, and opens wide the brass cage of her heart.