Back to School
“But Mum,” wailed James, “everybody else has them.”
Kate let out a sigh. She’d tried to time it so this wouldn’t happen: arrive near the end of the day, grab a ticket from the machine and be called over almost immediately.
It always made her chuckle, that ticket machine. It was like the old-fashioned cheese counters back in her younger days. Only this wasn’t the fun of choosing which strong cheddar to have on her toast … this machine was for choosing school shoes.
Hope was being suspiciously quiet. Kate looked around for her, but in the sea of children and fraught-looking mums, it was hard to make out where she was.
“This was not supposed to happen,” she thought. “I can’t risk my two being here any longer than humanly possible.” Anything beyond humanly possible meant a high probability of them scooping up the most inappropriate shoes on the planet.
“But Mum,” James repeated, this time in a sing-song voice rather than a whine. “Everyone will pick on me if I don’t have a toy in my shoe.”
Nice one, James. Go right for the emotional mum guilt.
Just as she was gearing up for a slightly more edited version of “Oh, hell no,” she spotted her daughter parting the sea of mums and children and running full speed towards her.
Kate braced herself for impact.
“Oh. My. God,” Hope squealed in a mock American accent. “Look, Mum - these shoes LIGHT UP when you walk in them!”
Kate let out another sigh as she looked from Hope’s flashing feet to the tiny plastic toy wedged into the sole of James’s chosen shoe.
“NO,” she said firmly.
Forty-five minutes, two meltdowns and one overdramatic accusation of “ruining my entire life” later, Kate approached the till carrying two boxes.
One contained a pair of shoes with lights that flashed with every step. The other housed a toy that would almost certainly be lost before half-term.
Kate handed over her bank card and tried not to look at the total. There were some battles worth fighting.
Apparently, this wasn’t one of them.
Back home, the children raced upstairs to try on their new school uniforms, while Kate made herself a cup of tea and congratulated herself on just about surviving another year’s school-shoe shopping.
Her phone pinged.
NEW MESSAGE FROM SCHOOL
Just a reminder that light-up shoes, shoes containing toys and other novelty footwear are not permitted as part of the school uniform.
Kate stared at the message.
Then at the receipt.
Then at the two pairs of entirely unsuitable shoes strewn across her living-room floor, one of them still flashing merrily.
The children were going back to school.
Kate was going back to the shoe shop.