Adrian’s pockets are always full of random things.

His jacket pockets tend to be full of chestnuts, above all. When I last emptied his winter jacket for washing, all the pockets together yielded about half a kilogram of chestnuts.

Trouser pockets and hoodie pockets tend to have smaller things. Screws. Pebbles. Bottle tops. Clumps of sticky putty.

This is his latest treasure: waste pieces of thick wire in various finishes, from the crafts room at school. (They’re doing wood and metal crafts this term.) Pocket-sized, shiny, endlessly fiddlable.