The last day of summer scheme

I sit up and look out my bedroom window. Coloured bikes coast along the kerbs as children play. I catch a smile and a large shadow in the reflection. I’m nearly fourteen, it’s summer, and my perm is awake before nine.

I rap at the door of the bathroom, a hollow wood door marked by the fist prints of four children thumping.

‘Hurry on! I need in!’
‘Make me!’ comes a boy’s voice.
Another thump and a twist of the handle.
‘Get away you big pig!’ says the boy.
‘Hurry up you wee dope,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna be late for summer scheme.’
​
My plastic rake moves through the bramble bush facing the mirror on the landing. It tugs and toils and emerges all peach and unscathed from the undergrowth as my hair fluffs into round drupelets. A large foamy dollop of white, foamy mousse. A scrunch with sticky hands. A mass of beautifully ripe curls. Gorgeous, I think as I pat my perm, settle down the cow’s lick on the right side and hurl my voice through the hollow wood door one more time.

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