Max was fascinated by the sight of the three tourists' faces as they first caught a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour. Like puppets they reacted in perfect unison. Their expressions of polite interest, then their faces went blank as they tried to understand what they were seeing, then their eyes widening, jaws dropping then a valiant attempt to pull themselves together.

Andrew swallowed visibly. "Evening."

Dave looked as white as a sheet. "Hey."

Nigel reached up and aligned his sunglasses to gaze over them at Sophie. "Well, hullo," he purred.

It was fair to say that the three Australians hadn't seen someone like Sophie Kuczynksi before. For a start, she was big - not fat, though her tight silver-green dress was perhaps slightly too small for her Rubenesque curves, but seemed out of proportion with everything else. The doorway, the clothes, the building, it was like Gandalf in the Shire. None of the trio were tall enough to look Sophie in the eye without craning their necks, but while Dave and Andrew at least tried, Nigel gazed lustfully at the pillow-sized cleavage on display.

"Hey, Soph," said Max. "This is Andrew, Dave and Nigel, some Australians in town for the night."

"And you wanted a big sex party?" said Sophie, licking her golden lips.

"No, actually, we're press-ganging these fools into helping us at the shop."

"By bribing them with a big sex party?"

"Actually," said Dave, "we're just trying to be helpful."

"But if an orgy is on the offer," Nigel began, waggling his dyed eyebrows suggestively.

"Then we'd have to decline," Andrew cut across. "We're here for some giant cupcake outfits."

"And not for sex," Dave added. "Miss."

"Oh, please! Call me Sophie, little boy," she replied with a grin that was partly-reassuring but mainly predatory. "You know," she went on, stepping aside so they could enter the apartment, "it's good that you all came here tonight because they're still clean. I'm not sure that would be the truth tomorrow night. Some of the stains are getting too strong to be scrubbed away."

"Like the ones on my soul," Max agreed, entering the room.

"Nice swing," said Andrew politely, noticing a romantic-looking lilly-framed porch swing dominated the middle of the room.

"Thanks!" said Sophie brightly as she emerged from a bedroom carrying two warped and grubby bean-bag like shapes, one brown and the other off-white. "Here you go, boys. They're pretty dry and the fumes from the disinifectant aren't too toxic, but if you start finding streetlights singing to you, you might need a breather. I'll find the hats."

"There are hats, too?" Dave picked up one of the outfits and sniffed at it, but his nose refused to identify the smell as anything other than 'deeply, deeply wrong' and his head snapped back from an invisible blow. "Great. I like hats."

"Seriously," Max said, shaking her head, "were you Hitler in a past-life? Coz, you shouldn't need to be so desperate to make amends otherwise. You don't have to wear this."

Dave held the outfit up to the light, trying to work out how to put it on. "I made a promise," he shrugged. "It's one of the few things I can big up about myself is that I keep promises. Besides, I spent the first day of my life half-blind, covered in slime, screaming and crapping myself. This is way more dignified. Best go out on a high."

Max frowned. "How so?"

Dave glanced at her. "Just a figure of speech. Um, how do you put this on?" he asked bashfully.

-x-x-x-

By the swing, Andrew was puzzling over the darker outfit he'd been left to work with. "Looks like a bamboo framework with foam layers," he mused. "There must be some velcro strip or something..."

Nigel lazily draped himself on the swing. "Andrew, pop quiz - give me some tips on Poland."

"Poland?" Andrew repeated.

"Sensual Slavic Sophie over there," Nigel murmured. "I need an 'in'."

"She's probably got the usual access points, Nige, judging by that ridiculously tight skirt."

"Just give me the basics."

"Basics? I don't know anything about Poland!"

"You know all sorts of useless crap," Nigel protested, not without cause. "What about that stuff with Oleg the cook?"

"The Ukraine is interesting!" Andrew retorted. "It interests me. Why would I be interested in Poland?"

"I don't know!" Nigel snapped, trying to keep his voice level. "You must know something!"

"Polish people come from Poland and are often Jewish. The Nazis invaded it and started World War II."

Nigel couldn't believe it. "Is that it?" he demanded.

"It's all I've got," Andrew said, tugging the edge of the foam cupcake to expand the neck hole wide enough to step inside. "I mean, the national stereotype is them being damn smart and mysterious, except for the ones that end up working in restaurants and building sites. And while Germany invaded them in the 1940s, they kicked Germany's butt as well as Russia plenty more times."

"...anything else?" Nigel asked hopefully.

"They like saurkraut?"

"What's saurkraut?"

"Kind of like a kransky, only not." Andrew stepped into the cupcake and heaved it up onto his shoulders. "Oh, and the flag is like Japan's but without the circle. White over red. So, you got that in common with her."

"You are beyond useless, you know that?" Nigel retorted.

"Not according to the staff of Max's Homemade Cupcakes," Andrew retorted, wriggling his arms through the slots in the outfit. "The ones that despise you on sight?"

Andrew turned to cross to Dave, who had shed his coat and was now being helped into the cupcake by Max. "Pretty sure there's lead lined into these things," she was saying, "so you'll be safe as long as they don't aim for your face."

"Is that likely to happen?" asked Andrew.

Max shrugged. "Well, when you're accosted by giant confectionary at two in the morning, there's always a chance you might think it's just the shrooms talking or else you pull out your gun and blow them away."

"Do you have a gun?" asked Andrew sternly.

"No," Max said. "I'm packing enough heat in my underwear, I don't need any colt 45 that isn't in a bottle. Why? Don't you have guns in Australia?"

"Yeah," Dave said, muffled within the foam cupcake. "But mainly just farmers and police. There was thing called the Port Arthur Massacre and guns haven't been cool ever since."

"Wow," said Max with mild surprise. "Up here, we'd call that a Tuesday. Still, you got all those poisonous spiders and snakes to keep your numbers down, so nature finds a way."

"Have you ever been shot?" Andrew challenged her.

"As a matter of fact, no," Max replied with a shrug. "But a guy did try to hold up the diner once."

"What happened?" asked Nigel, joining them.

"Turned out he didn't have a gun. It was just his hand in his pocket." Max sighed. "Oh, the number of guys I could say that about that. Anyway, Caroline used me as a human shield."

"Wow," said Dave. "I thought you'd have done that for her."

"I would've," Max grumbled. "She didn't give me a chance. Still, karma got her - she still hasn't quite lived down wetting her pants in horror at the time."

"Ooh!" said Sophie excitedly, emerging from the bathroom. "Are we making more pee-jokes about Caroline again?"

"It's a survival characteristic," mused Andrew. "Marks the territory, decreases the body-weight and disgusts the attacker."

"It made her yellow in more ways than one, too!" Sophie cackled.

"All right," Nigel said, shaking his head. "Stop taking the piss out of Caroline. Oh no - too late!" he gasped and everyone laughed.

"Oh, Nige," Andrew sighed. "Has anyone ever told you how funny you are?"

"Many times."

"Then they were lying," said Max with a sweet smile. "Repeatedly."

"Me thinketh the lady doth protethteth too mucheth," Nigel retorted.

Sophie frowned and peered down at him. "What's wrong with you? You have a stroke or something?" she asked, puzzled.

"Ooh, Nigel with permanent brain damage," Dave enthused. "A turn for the better."

"Shut up," snapped Nigel, more startled than offended.

"Put those on," said Max, handing over the hats to Andrew and Dave. They were hats in the shape of a bright red cherry and a glob of chocolate with hundreds and thousands. "Otherwise there's nothing to distract people from your faces and this whole witness protection thing will be a waste of time."

Dave considered his headgear and sighed. "If you say so, Max."

"Dude, seriously," said Max. "I feel like someone didn't get the memo from Abraham Lincoln, because you're not a slave."

"Whereas I am," crooned Nigel.

Max stared at him expressionlessly. "Seriously?"

"Well, to my lusts."

"And never a truer word spoken," said Andrew brightly. "Don't we have cupcakes to sell?"

"Yeah, Nige," agreed Dave from beneath his top-heavy hat. "Just assume women in America will find you as sexually unsatisfying as all the ones in Australia. It'll save time."

"Ooh, someone got pawned!" laughed Max and held up her hand to Dave.

He gave her a high-five and a smile. "The Black girl told me to stand up for civil rights," he said, and then began the complicated shuffle after Andrew through the doorway of Sophie's apartment.

Nigel glared murderously at Dave's back and then turned to Max. "I apologize for his uncouth behaviour," he said. "It's a shameful envy on his part down to his complete lack of success in all parts of life, his tiny genitalia and the fact he's still a virgin." He shrugged. "OK, this lesbian I know slept with him once out of morbid pity, but I prefer to think of that as daterape as he was paralytic throughout it all."

Max arched an eyebrow. "Wow, he converted a lesbian?" she asked. "That's seven years good luck. And while stupid drunk too. Thanks, Nige. Had no idea Dave was so awesome."

Nigel arched an eyebrow. "Does Caroline know how easily-pleased you are?"

"Would I have settled for her otherwise?" Max retorted and frowned. "Hang on, are we going into the whole 'Max and Caroline girl on girl action' again? Cause, if we do, we'll be here all night." She turned to Sophie. "See you at the shop, Sophie."

"Okay, Max," said Sophie, rummaging through her spice rack. "Bring back the costumes when you're ready, but if you're having sex all over the place, the white one is drip dry."

"Oh no," Max replied. "I still remember what happened to the Amish boys. But," she added thoughtfully, "if there's a convenient doorway, I know a way to cheer Dave up..."

"Slitting his wrists?" Nigel suggested cheerfully.

"Or slitting yours," she retorted. "Come on, Verkoff. You're a kitchen hand now, and if you thought your lusts were slave-drivers, you ain't been in a bakery."

Nigel grumbled to himself as he followed Max out of the flat. "Fantastic. I meet the only woman in Brooklyn emotionally-damaged enough to think Dave Restal is a more worthy shag than I am. Is there no justice in the world?"

Sophie looked up from her spice rack. "You still here?" she demanded round a mouth-full of brightly coloured pills.

Nigel glared at her, flicked his blond locks dismissively, and strode off.