Louis had an idea. He announced it quietly, because that is how Louis announces everything, including, once, that there was a wasp on his head.

Louis: “We could make goals. Two buckets and a bit of rope.”

The buckets live at the car wash and come home with Louis on Saturdays, and Mr Mean allows it, in his way, which is as close as Mr Mean gets to being nice.

Mr Mean: “Those are my buckets.”
Louis: “They come back by five.”

They always come back by five. Mr Mean knows this. He says it anyway, every single Saturday, because saying it is the part he enjoys.

Ava: “Buckets have no NET, Louis.”
Louis: “No.”
Ava: “The net is the whole thing. The net goes...”

This is the noise. She does it with her entire body and she has been doing it since she was about four. Loudly, please.

SWISH!

It is, I am forced to admit, an outstanding noise.

A proper net hangs in a soft heavy curve, and it catches the ball and holds on to it, and that is where the noise comes from. Rope holds nothing. Rope watches the ball go past and carries on being rope.

Ava: “Rope does not swish. Rope goes nothing. Nothing is not a noise.”
Louis: “Rope is here, though. Ten coins are not.”

Proper goalposts, with the net, cost ten coins. Ava has six. Two buckets and a bit of rope cost nothing whatsoever, plus an afternoon.

Ava: “How long is an afternoon?”
Louis: “This one? About four goals.”

Ava's ears went forward. Both at once. That happens when she can already hear something that has not happened yet, and what she could hear was this. Go on.

SWISH!

Ears are Ava's. Yours will be something else. Mine is a small hopeful ping, which is embarrassing in a quiet park.

So here is the afternoon, laid out flat. One bit of rope. Two green buckets. Six coins that could sit on her band and grow towards ten. And no swish. Not today, anyway.

Nobody here thinks the buckets are the clever answer, by the way. The swish is genuinely excellent and I have been very clear about that throughout.

Right. You have got a grown-up. Go on, then.

Tap. Tap. Pause.