The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Rome

the same name. Both fruit and mother were deliciously sweet and zesty. ‘Mummy’ suddenly seemed a dull and inadequate word. Taking one of the toast soldiers, Freja dunked it in the gooey egg yolk, nibbled it down to her fingertips and returned the uneaten stump to the plate. She repeated the ritual for the three remaining soldiers. Popping the crusts into the hollowed-out eggshell, she licked her fingers and wiped them on her tights. The doorbell rang. Mrs Thompson, the lady who had just moved into the house next door, was ushered into the living room. Clementine made some light- hearted chit-chat about the weather, then pointed out the bathroom, the kitchen for making tea and the table in the corner, which, under no circumstances, was to be approached. ‘Just my luck,’ muttered Mrs Thompson. ‘The child is not normal.’ While this was a rude and hurtful thing to say, it was, in fact, absolutely true. Freja Peachtree was not normal. She was an exceptional child. Although only ten years old, she had perched on clifftops with puffins, swum with seals, rubbed noses with reindeer and wrestled with Arctic fox cubs. She had lived in seventeen different homes, including a log cabin, a cave, a boat, a yurt, an abandoned church and an igloo. She knew all about the flight patterns of cold- climate bumble bees, the mood swings of walruses, the pooping habits of polar bears and the precise

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