TBaby/Jason/Mr Jenkins/Applying

The shop, when you found it, is in a rather dingy part of the mall, surrounded by charity shops and pound shops. There are all kinds of phones, tablets and game consoles on display in the window, most of them way out of date. Inside, an older grey-haired man is helping a couple of teenage girls to choose a phone and a couple of other people are mooching around looking at the racks of games and videos.

When the man is finished with his customers, you go over and tell him saw his advert. He asks you a couple of questions about phones, you can see he's not really interested in the answers. " How is it you were in the creche," he asks. You explain about your mother working there and that you live there in Godwin's Tower. "I guess you know quite a few of the women who live there," he says.

You shrug. "I guess so. I do babysitting some evenings," you reply. This seems more interesting to him than your knowledge, or lack of it, of mobile phones and ten minutes later you've got the job. You'd expected that the pay would be a pittance, but he says you can try out a couple of Saturday mornings at a pretty decent hourly rate.

• Third Thursday