Cities and housing

Above the chip shop

When my parents told me we were moving into the flat above Mr Okafor's fish and chip shop on Dene Street, I thought it was the best news I had ever heard. I imagined free chips every Friday. What I hadn't imagined was the smell. The fryers are switched on at eleven in the morning and not turned off until ten at night, and for the first few weeks my school uniform smelled so strongly of vinegar that my friends started calling me 'Vinegar'. On Friday evenings the queue stretches past our front door, and people chat loudly under my bedroom window. Dad says that is exactly why Mr Okafor keeps the [1] ______ so low: a flat of the same size two streets away costs almost a third more each month. After a year I hardly notice the smell any more, and Mr Okafor has taught me to wrap a portion of chips faster than anyone in my class.