sisters.

Two little girls come racing round the corner and plop down on two chairs in the middle of the row. Out pop two books and a crayon box.

Then another girl turns the corner, and one earnest colourer breaks off to clutch the seat next to her, and shake her frantically, black curls flying out behind. Big sister.

In a minute, a littler girl with little black ringlets and a bag round her neck bigger than her body, which knocks the breath out of her at every second step, comes running round. And she wriggles into the empty seat. The other two don't even look up. Little sister.

She looks intently at sister and friend. Pulls out a book, and opens to a page with a picture in the bottom-right corner, like theirs. Looks again- at the bowed head, curls quivering, and man and house and sky yellowing beneath the hand. Then reaches for a crayon lying in her sister's lap, and begins to red a man of her own.