“Barry! Barry! Over here, Barry! Barry!” The voices came from all around him. Everywhere he looked there was another flash. It blinded him – there were so many cameras.
“Come on, Barry, don’t look so surprised!” said Vlad Mitt. He tugged his arm – already round Barry’s shoulder – tighter, pressing them together.
“One of you and the missus with Barry, Vlad?” shouted someone.
“Certainly. Come on, Morrissina…”
Morrissina, Vlad’s wife, came over and put her arm round Barry too, so that he was standing between them. She put her other hand on her hip and, for some reason, stuck out her leg so that her bare knee showed through her dress.
“Mitts and teeth!” she said. That was her catchphrase, which meant the three of them – the Mitts and Barry – should smile. He felt Morrissina and Vlad turn together and he felt them, or at least it seemed as though he felt them, smile. He couldn’t help joining in; it was, after all, really, really exciting being at this film premiere, in the centre of Youngdon, with the crowd shouting and all the photographers trying to get his picture. And so, as the cameras flashed again, he felt his lips spread wide apart and a great big smile fill his features.
On Barry’s second meeting at the Parent Agency, the Head had been very apologetic about the Rader-Wellorffs.
“So sorry,” he said. “It’s odd, because we’ve placed quite a few children with them very successfully in the past.”
“I know,” said Barry. “Well, I know there’s quite a few children there. I don’t know how successful it is.”
The Head raised his eyebrow; a big raise, leaving only a small amount of eyebrow hair visible below his fringe. He glanced over at The Secretary Entity, who shook their heads and looked at Barry as if he’d said something really inappropriate.
“Hmm. Well, if you say so. We haven’t had any complaints before. Anyway, let’s move on.” He grabbed the second 24-Hourglass, the orange one, and turned it over. The sand began its slow trickle down, from top to bottom. “We have four days left before…”
“Before what?” said Barry. The Head had stopped speaking and started to look troubled.
“Before the end of your Five-Parent Package!” interjected Secretary One, much to – or at least it looked like this to Barry – the Head’s relief.
“Yes! Exactly! So… Barry,” said the Head. “What sort of parents would you like for your second day?” The Secretary Entity raised their pencils above their pads. Barry took the list out of his pocket again.
“What is that bit of paper you keep on looking at?” said Secretary One.
“Oh, it’s just some thoughts I had written down. About the kind of parents I… don’t want, I guess. So that I can make sure I don’t choose them.”
“Shouldn’t we keep it in our files?” said Secretary Two.
“No thanks,” said Barry, who suddenly felt very protective of his list. He didn’t quite know why. He scanned it. He’d covered Number 9 – ‘Being poor’ – with the Rader-Wellorffs. Number 1 was ‘Being boring’. Interesting parents would be good… but then he remembered that he could kill two birds with one stone by going for Number 8: ‘Not being glamorous or famous’.
Or, rather, the opposite of Number 8.
“Famous. I’d like to have famous parents.”
“Great. No problem!” said the Head. “Famous parents always want loads of children, don’t they?”
The Secretary Entity nodded earnestly as if the Head had said something very wise.
“Yes. But I’d like to have famous parents who don’t already have any other children, please,” said Barry. “It didn’t really work out with… me and the other kids last time.”
“Oh,” said the Head. “Hmm. Let’s see…” He took out the gold laptop and starting flicking through profiles. “No… no… hmm… not this couple, they’ve already got one from every country in the world… Oh, there’s that famous singer and his partner, but they have two and they will insist on dressing them in gold lamé suits, so…” He looked up at Barry. “…probably not for you.”
Secretary One raised her hand. “Head, sir?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“What about Vlassorina?”
The Head slapped his forehead, and said: “I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that!”
“I wrote it down earlier,” said TSE One, showing the words VLASSORINA on her pad.
“So did I,” said TSE Two. Although she was scribbling away furiously as she said it.