Me, Bash and Skye are all different colours, so we needed a shop that has make-up for all of us, but one where an eyeliner doesn’t cost more than our trainers. Skye reckoned that the big store near the station called Spruce would be good. Apart from the security guard, it seemed all right at first. A make-up girl was sitting on a stool in front of a table of mirrors. She didn’t have no customers. She smiled at us and told us to come and ask if we needed anything.

We tried out all the testers. It was fun. Especially when we tried each other’s. We were joking with each other because we’re pale, or dark, or midway brown. I could see the make-up girl looking confused. She was probably wondering if she should report us for being racist.

“Chaz! You gonna buy this?” Bash asked.

She showed me a bottle of foundation. No squeezy tube. This was proper glass with a screw lid. I couldn’t see “Tester” written on the side, so it was the real product. I took it and shook it. The colour inside was light. It wouldn’t even match the inside of my hand.

“Yeah,” I said. “Get me that green Crazy Hair Dye and that red lipstick there and I’ll cosplay the Joker.”

I didn’t mean it for real. It was jokes. I like Batman even less than I like dinosaurs. But Bash likes to push things. She grabbed a red lipstick from the tester slot. There was only a short nub of it left, like folks had been sneaking in to touch up their make-up for free.

“You better try it on then, Chaz!” Bash said.

She dived towards me. All l could think about was all the other mouths that lipstick must have touched. Stranger spit and germs all over it.

“Nuh!” I said, and moved to push Bash away. The posh foundation slipped from my hand. The smash as it hit the floor was so loud I was surprised people across the street didn’t throw themselves to the ground, thinking it was a bomb.

“Man!” Skye said, looking furious. “See what you done?”

Her new white trainers were splashed with make-up, but you could barely see the difference. That foundation was so damn pale. The floor was darker though. The foundation really showed up and it looked like there was more make-up on the floor than there ever was in the bottle.

“You need to pay for that.”

It was the security guard. He was smirking, like he’d been waiting for this to happen. The make-up girl was by his side. Her face said “Don’t worry”. Her mouth said nothing at all. I looked for Skye and Bash. They were gone.