‘Something is not necessarily better just because it’s easier.’

‘Nor is it necessarily worse. What’s the virtue of putting women through pain?’

Eva shook her head.

‘Well? The pouch has eradicated the pain of childbirth.’

‘Instead of fearing the pain of childbirth,’ Eva said, ‘perhaps we should be celebrating the strength of women.’

Arriving home from school, sweat pricking through her grey jumper and her woollen tights falling down, Eva dropped her bag inside the porch and pushed through the door to the living room. She saw her mum, deep red hair pulled up into a high ponytail and falling down around her shoulders, laughing with a group of friends who sat on the bright mismatched cushions strewn around the floor. But Eva didn’t sit down. She walked into the middle of the room – always her mum’s domain, Eva hated being in front of a crowd – and made her announcement.

‘My teacher says you’re wrong.’

Her mum had smiled as though she were delighted, and the soft laughter that rippled around the room made Eva want to hide, to disappear with the embarrassment, but she stood her ground. She expected a telling-off, but it didn’t come. Instead, her mum put her arm around her and said Eva was ready to join the group. So Eva sat on one of the cushions and for the first time felt like she was a grown-up, with her questions and her ability to disagree. Not everyone should be the same, they said. Equality comes from respecting differences, not eliminating them. As Eva questioned, they listened, and they responded, and she began to love the process of arguing so much she didn’t notice that her opinions were changing as they talked.

‘Next time you have that teacher, are you going to ask about propaganda?’ her mum said, and Eva blushed as she realised the look in her mum’s eyes was pride.

‘Can I dye my hair purple?’ she said. ‘We’re not supposed to.’

‘You can dye your hair any colour that you want.’

Although, today, Eva’s hair was dyed red, a beautiful deep red, just like her mum’s had been, and Holly’s hair was silver grey and Eva was glad, for a second, that neither of them were being anything but themselves.

‘We have bypassed nature,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Holly. ‘We cannot bypass nature. We are a part of nature.’

‘The things we invent are not natural.’

‘Yes they are. Everything we build, everything we create.’