It was like the nightmare that she had of checks increasing and gradually covering the earth. She would be shoved off or consumed by the checkerpattern that had grown and extended unchecked.
“Alice, What’s wrong!”
Alice had to run from the science test. She was trying to think of molecules and elements but the checks had invaded her thoughts. The checks multiplied and spread like cells out of control. The other children thought that she did not know the answers.
It was a dirty trick thought Alice. She had to make her own gingham apron. All girls had to cross-stitch into the fabric their hopes for the future. (Alice’s hopes shrank in the wash). The apron covered their breasts but drew attention to them at the same time. And then there were the pockets!
Later in life the apron still sat preserved in a cupboard, too laboured on to wear, encased in a thick starch of pancaked home ec. Teachers, the boy who wanted to do more than hold her hand, the dirty girls doing things at the bottom of the oval, the crushes, the girl who swore she’d “bash ‘er”.
Pockets were things you could put things in. “Purses are the same” said The Duchess, quite agitated. “They don’t always snap shut! Not nearly fast enough. Thieves are always about.
Where will you put things if you don’t have pockets, thought Alice. In a jam jar? Things were always safer in pockets.
Soap money fairness
salt buttons rice
safety pins a hankey
Thieves are often lanky
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