The Dinosaur Feather

split and the potatoes rolled off in every direction.
    ‘Oh, no,’ Anna gasped. Her hands hung limply by her sides. It was all too much. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’
    Lily started crying again.
    ‘Come on, allow me,’ Søren said. He put down his basket, which contained a strange mix of groceries. ‘Let me help you, please?’
    Anna straightened up and gave Søren a look of disbelief. ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘Shopping,’ Søren said, innocently.
    Anna started picking up the potatoes. ‘I’m not talking to you,’ she snarled, keeping her eyes on the floor. ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I don’t want to hear it.’ She looked up at Søren and her eyes glowed yellow.
    ‘I’m going to pick up your potatoes,’ Søren said. ‘And then I’m going to carry your shopping and your kid home.’
    ‘No, you bloody aren’t,’ Anna snarled.
    ‘You bet I am,’ Søren said.
    ‘Over my dead body,’ Anna said, theatrically.
    ‘Sure, if that’s how you want to do it,’ Søren replied, unperturbed.
    Anna glared at him, but Søren held his ground. She looked like shit. Scrawny and spotty, and Lily, in the trolley, looked neglected, with tears down her cheeks, snot across her mouth and a filthy teddy in her arms. Anna hadn’t even noticed that the other shoppers were staring at her or shaking their heads. A socially disadvantaged, impoverished single parent was precisely what she looked like. All that was missing were some beers and crisps in her trolley. But Søren was bowled over. It was madness – he didn’t even like her. Contrary and stuck-up, as she was. And he had only known her four days, during which time she had grown increasingly hostile to him. But he was completely smitten.
    Lily refused to walk. Anna told her she had to, but Lily had made up her mind and was sitting down on the steps of a shop that was closed. ‘No,’ she declared and stuck out her lower lip in defiance. ‘You
have
to walk,’ Anna repeated. Søren was about to say something, but Anna turned to him when she sensed his lips moving.
    ‘She
has
to walk. If she doesn’t, we can’t get home. I can’t carry all those bags, my books and a child. I’m not strong enough.’ She was on the brink of tears. Søren emptied his shopping into Anna’s least full bag, tied the two remaining ones together and hung them over his shoulders like a yoke. Without asking for permission, he lifted Lily and put her on his shoulders.
    ‘Keep your feet still, or you’ll break the eggs,’ he told her.
    ‘Okay,’ Lily said, proudly.
    Søren started walking on and he soon heard Anna’s footsteps behind them. A gleeful Lily called out from her vantagepoint, ‘I can see all the cars in the whole world, I can see all the houses and all the boys and girls.’
    Anna didn’t utter a word the whole way back, but when they reached the stairwell, she said, ‘Thanks for your help, I’ll take it from here.’
    ‘Anna,’ Søren said, as he let Lily down. ‘I’m coming upstairs with you.’ He was in no mood for an argument.
    Lily, now rested, started to climb the stairs. Anna faced Søren, her eyes brimming with tears.
    ‘I know what you’ve come to tell me and I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it!’
    ‘Anna,’ he said gently, ‘it’s not going to go away just because I don’t tell you, and I have to talk to you. What the hell were you doing outside Johannes’s flat? And why did you run?’
    ‘Muuum,’ Lily called out from the first floor landing. ‘I’m having a wee-wee in my snowsuit.’
    ‘Shit,’ Anna exclaimed. She raced up the stairs and tried running all the way to the top with Lily. Lily laughed. Søren followed with the shopping.
    Mrs Snedker was waiting for them on the fourth floor.
    ‘Hi, Maggie,’ Søren heard Anna say. ‘Emergency. Lily needs the toilet.’
    ‘Aha,’ Maggie said. ‘Is that nice copper with you?’
    Søren arrived in time to see Anna give Mrs Snedker a baffled look, then she unlocked her front door and disappeared into the flat with Lily.
    ‘Did you remember my bread?’ Maggie asked him sternly.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Søren replied. He untied the knots on the shopping bags and handed her a paper bag from the bakery. Anna appeared in the doorway.
    ‘Maggie, why don’t you go back to your own flat? I’ll come and see you later, okay?’
    The old lady nodded, disappointed, and left.
    ‘Why did you give her your bread?’ Anna asked while she