In a patch of sunlight Verla sits on a wooden folding chair and waits. When the door opens she holds her breath. It is another girl who comes into the room. They lock eyes for an instant, then look away to the floor, the walls. The girl moves stiffly in her weird costume, taking only a few steps into the room. The door has closed behind her. The only spare chair is beside Verla’s, so Verla gets up and moves to the window. It is too much, that she be put so close to a stranger. She stands at the window, looking out through a fly-spotted pane at nothing. There is bright sunlight coming into the room, but only reflected off the white weatherboards of another building just metres away. She presses her face to the glass but can see no windows anywhere along the length of that building. She can feel the other girl behind her in the room, staring at her peculiar clothes. The stiff long green canvas smock, the coarse calico blouse beneath, the hard brown leather boots and long woollen socks. The ancient underwear.…