May 8

Five year old Megan – blonde hair and pretty, plump face – asks me if it will hurt if she stamps on my shadow.

‘Yes it will,’ I say, for fun.

And then she stamps on it.

A lot.

For fun.

  *

One year later.

The teacher saw the wind swirling the blossom, blowing it about the playground in a dancing whirl of coloured specks.

He saw the smile appear on Elen’s face; a face that so rarely registered interest or delight. He heard Sara’s gasp; a girl that gasped at anything for attention. This was a different sort of gasp, a genuine gasp.

But, pressured by the Timetable and Lessons, the teacher had to hurry his class in and so cut away the magical moment of science and art and honesty.

The wind kept blowing the blossom.