I don't want anything else bad to happen,— she whispered, her voice choked with tears. "I'm so sick to death of bad things happening, of seeing bad things that happened in the past! And I'm guilty of so many things. I'm sorry that I killed Mrs. Matthias and wrecked her stupid greenhouse back in the Eighties and I'm sorry I left you here alone while I went around the world.""I wasn't alone though, I knew you were doing what you wanted to do and that you were still alive, so I wasn't really alone, I knew you were still there somewhere," Alecto told her. His damaged smile and downcast, sorrowful eyes were draped in the shadow of the night, saving Mandy the trouble of seeing.

Well, let's argue this out, Mr Blank. You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month. That's my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in the uptake, uncertain, slightly damaged in the fray, there's no denying it. So you have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month, to lodge me in a small, dark room, to clothe me shabbily, to harass me with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings till you get me to the point when I blush at a look, cry at a word. We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were. Isn't it so, Mr Blank? There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours. Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh the more heartily.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

Everybody's damaged by something.