School's Out - by Adam Farrer

My daughter Effie and I were tidying the attic, shifting some boxes of my old things, when she came across a photo of my high school graduating year. It shows a dozen rows of sixteen year olds, each in varying states of readiness for the adult world.

Some of us deadpan. Some amused. Others cocky, stoned or arrogant. Some looking like children and others like airbrushed versions of their own parents. I looked exactly like what I was; a young man who had never kissed a girl but proudly owned a large collection of ‘choose your own adventure’ novels.

I’m smiling, although I know that I was not happy. Perhaps I was hysterical, having had a premonition that I would not lose my virginity for another 3 years.

Or maybe it was the knowledge that our family would soon be leaving the small Suffolk town that I had once adored and relocating to Yorkshire, where I was hopeful of starting again. Not realising that you can’t run away from yourself.

“Is that you?” Effie asked, pointing me out. I nodded. She smiled. “Really?” But her amusement turned to a wrinkle of concern and I saw the photo through her eyes. Transformed into a campaign poster highlighting the ravages of adolescence. My gawky features making her fearful about her future.

“Who’s that?” she said, changing tack. Picking out a girl sat in the second row, pouting beneath a teetering privet of back-combed hair.