The perspective of a five-year-old child—a child with agency, who has been thrown into the foreign world of Menton, France—is captured so amazingly well in this story, which is a nod to Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Doves’ Nest’. The casual way Grimshaw slips into the heads of other characters at various moments is dazzlingly well executed. The unfamiliar world glows with colour, the family buzzes with life.

First published in Second Violins: New Stories Inspired By Katherine Mansfield, Vintage New Zealand, 2008, and available on its own as a Kindle edition