Famous Five.

....the seaside.

Jan plays rugby ; she’s squat but not huge – her eyes blaze when she looks at you. It’s all too intense for someone so young but her grandmother has just died and there is a lot of Grandma in Jan.

Analysse is tall, too tall for the house and she has to bend as she enters. She plays volleyball but she plays it like a dancer which she is too tall to be.

Fanny suffers from acne, but her smile is so bright you don’t notice it. She doesn’t play piano but she will sing later when Innis does.

Innis is the smallest; her blood is Moroccan and her skin too.

She plays the piano better than any of us and we all start to sing.

Adele.

formerly published in The Archives.