She had been brought in by her well-fed and thus physically well-rounded sister who had been tired of babysitting. At her parents’ orders to do a load of her father’s underwear in the public machines (as to not pollute their home machines), she arrived at the Diesel House Orphanage and Laundromat in an expectedly crusty state. Her mood was not unreasonable for a person charged with carrying a clear plastic bag of their father’s soiled underwear in one arm and a screaming she-child in the other. The sister’s demeanour quickly changed, though, when she spotted a handsome young man washing the contents of his hockey bag. A laundromat romance was so inviting, and baby sister so consistently bothersome, that the decision to drop off the baby next door and pursue the young hockey stud was not long pondered. This decision proved to save the baby’s life. This particular hockey stud was a one-of-a-kind killer—one who slashes throats with hockey skates, then goes skating immediately after, swirling and swishing the victim’s blood deep into the ice. The hockey killer indeed murdered our fat sister and, subsequently on discovery of her savage murder, it was presumed that both sisters’ blood had been carved into the ice. And so, the baby was also left to her own rearing at Diesel House Orphanage and Laundromat, a nameless and parentless young girl who could be anyone she wanted to be and do anything she wanted to do, under the tight restraints and agendas of the Orphanage.

He and she were released 6,750 days after their drop-off date. (Diesel House Orphanites are encouraged to count the days until their release, much like a prison or a Wes Anderson movie marathon.) The rewards of release from the Orphanage on one’s (presumed) eighteenth birthday were this: sexual liberation, free laundry for a year, a green button that reads ‘Disneyland Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Me,’ and the honour of choosing one’s own legal name if not supplied with one at drop-off. Many of the Orphanites spent years contemplating and anticipating when they could one day shed their Diesel Orphanage 17-digit number names and pick something somewhat more eloquent. She chose Deborah Champski-Five. The hyphen made her sound married, or at least previously attached to some sort of family, and the Five, well, she had many 5s in her 17-digit number name and had grown quite attached to them. He chose Lawrence Fountaingale, the most distinguished name he could imagine.