Perlen gotischer Baukunst (7)
Let me get this right, I say. He pushed –
It was slippy, she says.
She covers her face. She’s smiling under her hands, still sitting at the table with the cold coffee in front of her, swinging her leg underneath the table just above the bar of it. I realise I don’t know whether she’s smiling because a boy pushed her down a hill, because a girl picked her up at the bottom of it or because an art teacher I know she’s got a crush on asked her to take off her clothes.
Then I realise it’s because of all three. I remember my hands in the warm pockets of the adult coat.
It moves me. She can see this in my face and she gets annoyed again. Her smile disappears. She scowls.Ali Smith: The First Person and Other Stories (2008), S. 164