By Sue Dawes
“Are you boys or girls?” the lady behind the sweet shop counter asked.
“Boys,” we said in unison, grins creeping across our faces like spiders.
We had cropped hair and skin recently coloured by the Fijian sun.
Mum said nothing.
We came to equate her stiff expression with a stick—and not the kind we’d used, until recently, half naked, to poke wildlife in tropical undergrowth.
Our hair grew out within a year; mine so thin it made a single coil; my sister’s, thick, was cut in a blunt bob.
Mum stitched us woollen dresses and we learnt to be girls.
Sublime. Thank you.
Really really good. Loved that last line.
that is super
Well done coming of age in a short space.
Nice writing. I feel this is also an introduction to a bigger story – one I’d want to read – for I want to know how the stick and wool dresses caused change in the girl and formed the woman. And – how did this newly formed woman move in the world?
Complete in itself. Every word a gem.
Necessary.