When we arrive at the airport check-in desk the clerk looks horrified. She has never seen anyone, she says, with such a variety of beat-up cases, and all badly tied with coloured string. The computer system is down and she has to organise a group of passengers to form an intricate cat’s cradle so she can calculate the excess weight. It’s a surprising success and several of the participants congratulate her afterwards. (The clerk has since gone on to a career creating transient sculptures with the help of acrobats.) So excited are some of the children they begin to gyrate, one child after another catching the contagion, spinning round and round, faster and faster until they faint with dizziness. There are so many casualties the multi-faith prayer room has to be converted into a makeshift sick bay where the children can rest
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Simon Collings
Picture Nick Victor
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