“The first year it was fun. Maybe the second. But now… A little difference never harmed anyone. Can’t these ladies get out of their boxes?”
“A rabbit, look, a rabbit on the Tube!”
All around, gasps and exclamations and comments, but they don’t register, they simply merge with the clak-clak rhythm of the train, until it is all one long, jolting song. Lea is too tired to pick out the words. Happy tired. She leans against the window, pulls her hoodie over the garish sheep costume she wears underneath.
The train lurches and stops at King’s Cross, people spill out of the doors, stepping on each other’s toes, briefcases flying as they scatter in all directions. So many people, running, all running at 8:45 in the morning. Except them. Daddy never runs. Life should be played leisurely, he likes to say.
The line made her laugh when she first heard it — as if life was a game to be played.
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