“Oh but I can young man, and I have,” she said as she looked him up and down. “Now you can either carry on as you are, sulking like a little girl, or follow Alice’s example and act like a pleasant, well-behaved young lady… what’s it going to be?”
Billy didn’t reply but he did screw up his nose in defiance. Both he and Alice are shepherded back onto the busy main street where they follow Mrs Postlethwaite as she visits the butchers and bakers, greengrocers, haberdashers, and hardware shops. For Billy it’s an awful experience being paraded around the town wearing Alice’s dress and a bright yellow ribbon in his hair… dressed as a girl but still clearly a boy, he’s certainly turning some heads.