Everybody in Silverton has a money-band. And now a shop on Spend Street has started selling covers to go over the top of them.

Glittery ones. Ones that go PING. And one, right on the end of the row, that plays a small trumpet noise every single time a coin goes out. It sounds like this.

Toot! Toot! Toot!

COVER YOUR BAND. MAKE IT SING.

Ava: “A TRUMPET, Walbot.”

I heard it.

Ava: “EVERY time. Every single time.”

Now. I have a concern, and I am going to say it politely, once. A noise that says well done normally goes off at the end, after you have done the thing and everybody has had a look at it. That trumpet goes off in the middle.

Ava: “That IS the end. Spending is the end.”

Spending is the start of owning something.

Ava: “Then it is the end of choosing, and choosing is the hard bit, and the hard bit is what you get a trumpet for.”

She is, I am forced to report, extremely good at this. We have agreed to disagree. She agreed to disagree very fast indeed, which I think means she won.

Louis: “How much is the trumpet one?”
Ava: “Five. And I have seven, Louis, which is MORE than five.”
Louis: “It is more than five.”

Ava's tummy had gone hot. The good hot, the one that turns up before you have worked anything out. Mine goes warm behind the screen. Everybody has their own bit and nobody chose theirs.

Zion: “Listen. LISTEN.”

Zion had one on. He bought a bag of sweets so we could all hear it, and the trumpet went, and it was, I concede, a very good trumpet. Here it comes again.

Toot! Toot! Toot!

Louis: “It is a cover. It goes over the top.”
Ava: “It goes over the top BEAUTIFULLY.”

Seven coins. Five for a cover that goes over the top of the band and plays a trumpet whenever a coin goes out. Two left over afterwards, going PING at nobody.

I have said my bit. Ava has said hers. Neither of us is in charge of yours, and there is somebody sitting right beside you to say it to.

Tap. Tap. Pause.