A Boy with Sixteen Trolleys

The shopping list said food that doesn't need much doing.

Underneath, Mum had written milk, fruit, bread and something Toby will eat without a meeting. There was money folded inside the list, less than Leila would have spent without looking carefully and more than she wanted the responsibility of stretching.

She went to the supermarket after college on Wednesday because it stood between the bus stop and the hotel. Her art folder knocked against her leg as she walked. She had meant to leave it in the department, but leaving something valuable where she could not reach it had begun to feel like another small version of moving out.

The trolley took her coin and refused to release itself.

She pulled the handle, pushed it back and tried again. The chain rattled. A woman waiting behind her changed rows without speaking, which was somehow more humiliating than being told she was doing it wrong.

“It's the one behind,” a voice said.

Leila turned.

The boy from the bus window stood beside a long line of trolleys. Up close, he looked about her age. His supermarket jacket was too large in the body and too short at the wrists. A name badge hung sideways from the zip.

“The wheel's caught,” he said. “Push that one back a bit, then try yours.”

She did. The trolley came free so abruptly that it struck her shin.

“Excellent,” she said through her teeth.

He made a sympathetic face that did not quite hide amusement.

“They like to be remembered.”

“Do they all do that?”

“Only the ones with a personal grievance.”

He moved the line of trolleys further into the shelter. She counted them without meaning to. Sixteen, all determined to follow slightly different routes.

“Is that allowed?” she asked.

“What?”

“That many.”

He looked back along the line.

“I was trying to collect the smaller group. The others got involved.”

She smiled despite her shin.

He reached for the stray chain and hooked it away from the wheel. His hands were marked with small scratches, the sort that came from doing things rather than arranging how they looked. There was a pale crescent of soil beneath one thumbnail.

Leila looked away before noticing could become staring.

Inside, she took the basket from the trolley and then realised that this defeated the point of having freed it. She put the basket back. Her folder occupied half the trolley, leaving a narrow space for the groceries.

She began with the things she understood. Bread. Bananas that would survive more than a day. Milk small enough to fit in the communal fridge space Mo had shown Mum, labelled with their room number. Then she stood in front of the ready meals and tried to calculate meals per pound without turning it into a school exercise she could fail.

At home, a bag of rice would have been useful. Here it required a pan, a hob and a kitchen that existed. She put it in the trolley out of habit, stared at it for a moment, then put it back.

A woman beside her was comparing two packets of the same food in different sizes. Leila wanted to ask whether one was better value and did not. She could work it out. She should be able to work it out.

By the time she reached the fruit, she had added, removed and replaced enough things to lose track of the total.

Her phone rang. Toby.

“Can you get cereal?”

“There's cereal.”

“Different cereal.”

“No.”

“The one we've got gets soft too fast.”

“Eat faster.”

“Leila.”

She closed her eyes.

“I'll look.”

“Also glue.”

“For eating?”

“For the house.”

She thought of his cardboard walls held together with narrow strips of tape.

“I'll see.”

At the stationery aisle, the cheapest glue was sold in a packet with two sticks he did not need and a pair of scissors too small for her hand. She stood looking at it until a shop worker asked whether she wanted help.

It was the boy from the trolleys, now carrying a box of paper towels.

“Just glue,” she said.

He pointed to the top shelf.

“Single bottle. Less cheerful packaging.”

She reached for it. He waited without taking it down for her, which she appreciated because she was perfectly tall enough.

“Art?” he asked, nodding towards the folder.

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Mostly drawing.”

He nodded as though that was an ordinary thing to be good at.

“My gran draws plans for her garden,” he said. “Then ignores them because she finds another plant.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“You do gardens?”

“No. Ignoring plans.”

He smiled.

His badge had turned the right way. MICAH.

Leila glanced at it, then at his face.

He noticed.

“It's pronounced how it looks,” he said. “Most of the time.”

“Leila.”

“Without a badge?”

“I manage.”

Someone called him from the next aisle. He lifted the box of paper towels.

“Good luck with the glue.”

“It isn't a difficult purchase.”

“You've been considering it for a while.”

She felt her face warm. He was already walking away, not looking for the effect of the remark.

At the checkout, the total came to more than the money Mum had left. Not much more. Enough.

Leila had coins in the small pocket of her bag, saved for the bus in case the card machine failed. She could use them and tell Mum later. She could take out the cereal Toby did not need. She could take out the glue.

The cashier waited while she searched the pocket. The people behind her did not seem interested. That did not stop her feeling as though the whole line could see exactly what she was calculating.

She took out the second cereal box.

“Not that one, sorry.”

The cashier removed it without comment.

Outside, the trolley coin stuck again when she tried to return it. This time she knew which wheel to move. It made no difference.

Micah appeared at the other end of the shelter with a high-visibility vest over his jacket.

“Personal grievance?” he asked.

“Long-standing.”

He pushed the neighbouring trolley back, freed the chain and stepped away while she took the coin.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She shifted the shopping bag onto her wrist and tried to carry the folder under the same arm. The milk tipped. A banana stem caught in the fold of the list.

“Do you need a second bag?” he asked.

“No. I'm fine.”

He looked at the arrangement, then at her face.

“All right.”

She walked towards the hotel with the folder slipping every few steps. At the crossing, the bag handle stretched thin against her fingers. She wished she had accepted the second bag and was annoyed with him for having been sensible enough to offer it.

Back in Room 214, Toby unpacked the shopping with the concentration of a person looking for evidence.

“No cereal?”

“There is cereal. The cereal we already have.”

He found the glue.

“Oh.”

She sat on the bed and rubbed the red line the bag had left across her fingers.

He brought the cardboard house over and held up a wall.

“Can you do this corner?”

She took the glue, made a thin line along the edge and pressed the pieces together. Toby watched carefully, learning without admitting that was what he was doing.

After a while he said, “The old cereal's okay if you don't talk while you eat.”

Leila looked at him.

“Then you might have a problem.”

He grinned and took the wall back.

That evening, she drew the trolley shelter from memory. The lines were not straight, but they had movement. Sixteen nested shapes, all trying to go somewhere.

She did not draw the boy.

Not yet.