I was looking in the window of Sainsbury’s, thinking about it. I wasn’t worried what they thought. Both of them had weaselly faces and I thought of saying to the vegetable man, ‘You look like a rat!’ But it was my face I was looking at ghosted in the window. I pressed my nose up against it. People were passing behind me. I wasn’t like them, but it didn’t matter I was small, I was big enough to see my head in the window. I saw my mum go by and turned, ‘Mum, my treat?’ but she swerved into the shop and I followed her in because she was gonna get me a cream cake or a custard tart. The sawdust was trampled in with wet feet, and there were gaps where you could see the black and white marble pattern on the floor. ‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘What you get me!’ I said, because that was what was gonna get the most, and she laughed. ‘All right, wait here,’ and off she went.

I was standing on my own in the middle of the shop. It was a big hall, and the people serving had long white aprons on. I looked in the mirrors and saw crowds of people going round the counters, with me keeping still and holding heavy bags of shopping in both hands. Everyone was going round me and not looking, and the smell of the sawdust was rising off the floor, and the noise was bouncing off the walls and ceilings. I looked round and could see myself from lots of different angles in the glass, but no one else could because they didn’t see what I saw. I was growing up and my paint wasn’t flaking. I was staying still because everything was moving. I was invisible but I could see everyone. And what I saw in between the mirrors was a boy with brown bushy hair and blinding eyes being watched by the best mum in the world.

Susan