A wide, happy grin creeps across my lips as I dance for the cheering crowd. My face has been made-up with thick stage make-up, making me look a lot older than my thirteen and a half years. My shoulder-length blonde hair has been tied into a bun, and a white, feathered headdress has been pinned to my hair- but none of this compares to my costume.

“Is there any point in having a birthday party if the actual birthday girl herself isn’t going to be here?” Becca moans as she paces back and forth, nearly deafening everyone with the rustling of her petticoats underneath her knee-length pink dress.

“Oh, just give her time,” Adeola says. “She’ll get here eventually. It’s not her fault her family lives an hour and a half away and she’s their only child.”

A Quick Fix

A short written in the posting window

By Melanie E.

"Uncle Joshua!?" Jonathan asked, his voice filled with panic. "Uncle Joshua! Get up! Please, please get up..."

"Oh my god," Viks gasped as she crouched down beside Joshua. "Steph, call 999! Now!"

"Uh, okay," Stephanie said, fumbling in her bag for her phone as Viks rolled Joshua onto his back and checked his neck.

"He's got a pulse but it's very weak," Viks said.

"What- what do we do?" Jonathan asked, unable to contain his sense of panic.

“Stephanie…” Beverly whispered. “Even if I wrote you a prescription, it’d still only be dated from today. I can’t backdate them for the time you were supposed to have been taking hormones.”

“It’s still better than nothing,” Stephanie insisted. “Please, if I have to get down on my knees and beg, I will.”

“Stephanie,” Beverly sighed. “We’ve been over this time and time again, you know that oestrogen isn’t a magical cure to all your problems-“

“Not all of them, but this one, it is-“ Stephanie interrupted.