THE INVISIBLE ONE
‘They don’t fit!’ he cried. ‘But you’ll grow into them!’ retorted Mum before grabbing him with her pincer grip and sweeping him out into the hall. With a face like death she slammed the door and he was alone. Just turn left and they’ll be waiting for you. Just turn left, left with an L shape, left. Maybe Granny is down here, (maybe she’s smiling and laughing). The darkness swarmed around him, waves of night washing over him and little fragments of thought bouncing around his head like Tigger. Oh what monsters lay in the darkness? The darkness getting everywhere, tainting everything like the ink from his big boy pen and the cat hair on the sofa. In the distance a bright, yellow gleam shimmered back at him before it dissolved into nothing, swallowed by the murk. He rolled down the hall, dodging the paintings’ glances from the wall. Long men with long faces and fat women with fat heads were in silly clothes staring down at him, their icy eyes sharp and stingy. Green light on the horizon, bouncing off the wall and dust dancing in it like pixies. He ran, hopping and falling and skipping and sprinting his way to the light, tripping over his clown shoes that he’d grow into, towards the light with his horse-hair jumper scratching and biting on his skin.Granny gave him that. His jumpers were made from the bits of other jumpers no one wanted; those bits were just for him.That’s what the others said anyway, before giggling and running off. When he got to the kitchen, Imogene-not-Immy would make them sandwiches. And he would have his sandwich in the bright, clear light of
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