The real estate agent made straight for the kitchen at the back of the house, and set up shop there with a big stack of application forms and catalogues of other rental properties to give out to anyone who was interested. The people who were there to look at the house, meanwhile, dispersed throughout the building - to each bedroom, into the bathroom and the kitchen and the sitting-room (All modern! All fully-functioning!), even into the hallway, staking out each space as if it was the house's greatest asset and they alone had found it.

Miranda and Rona started their inspection of the house in the second bedroom. Miranda pushed at a loose skirting-board with the toe of her show. "How much are they asking for this place?" she muttered to Rona rhetorically.

There wasn't much to look at in the room: a fireplace (fully non-functioning), a power-point, a light, four walls and a window. Rona wished she had one of those laser-pointers she'd seen on T.V. to measure the distance from wall to wall, if only because she'd always wanted to play with one and now would be the perfect opportunity.

The room started to fill up with people, and Miranda started drifting towards the door: shift-change, Rona thought, and she followed Miranda into the first bedroom, which was now relatively empty of people.

"Bit bigger than the other one" Miranda observed. But other than that it was much the same, except that its window faced in a different direction. "Nice room" Miranda declared, and Rona could see her flicking her eyes around the corners, imagining her furniture in there.

The last bedroom was noticeably smaller than the other two. "They're like Babushka dolls" Miranda said. "You could fit one inside the other inside the other." Rona was suddenly struck by the image of somebody packing up the house, just so, and moving it elsewhere, and she laughed and then immediately stifled the laugh, putting her hand to her mouth as if she could force the laughter back in, while the other people in the room - small as it was - turned and stared at her, and then resumed their inspections as if embarrassed on Rona's behalf.

"Hatch into the roof-space" Miranda said, craning her neck to stare up at the ceiling. "Have to be careful of rats." Rona couldn't tell if she was trying to put off the other people, or was just saying anything that came into her head, but she hoped the agent didn't hear.
The bathroom and the sitting-room and the kitchen were all fairly non-descript. This house, Rona realised, was exactly like every other single-storey terrace house in Melbourne that she'd ever been in. They seemed to stretch out forever, in all directions: outwards and outwards and outwards they went, all tiny variations on the same basic design. Suddenly she found it indescribably dismaying.

"Shall we put our applications in?" Miranda said, looking at Rona and nodding towards the agent, who was holding out the folder of applications forms expectantly.

"Yeah, may as well" Rona said.