“Why don’t you go and play in the garden Peter?” she suggested. I haven’t ‘played in the garden for years, and wasn’t about to start doing so any time soon. “The neighbours are away this weekend so nobody will see you… if that’s what you’re worried about,” she added.

Granny lived in a semi-detached house with a large garden surrounded by fields. The only people who could see into the back garden was the neighbours, but since they’re not around, I figured the garden would be more fun than watching TV and listening to two women chattering.

The first thing I noticed was the breeze on my legs. I walked slowly to the end of the garden and looked out over the fields. My skirt blew this way and that. I feared the breeze would get under it and lift it, but it didn’t. Thankfully it remained modest, not that anybody would see if it wasn’t. I sat on the old swing and wondered how it must feel to be a real girl. My hair would belong, I thought. But other than that, it’d be just the same I guess. Knickers, dress, dainty little shoes, being told you look pretty all the time… what else do girls do? I wondered as I gently swung back and forth.

I’d been outside for ten, maybe fifteen minutes when I first thought I heard something. Was it a cat hiding in the hedge maybe, or a distant lamb? After the third or fourth time I thought I heard a local noise, I went to investigate… then I realised that it wasn’t a cat or a lamb, but a girlie giggle with only one possible source… the two girls who live next door; they weren’t away after all… they emerged from either side of a neatly pruned rhododendron bush and stood right in front of me giggling. I wanted to run indoors but my feet wouldn’t move. The blood rushed to my head as they fired questions at me.