Competition Seventeen Shortlisted: Lost Property by Elizabeth Taylor
You dropped your lanyard, Lucy Kingstone, the purple ribbon the Year Nines wear.
I lean against the school fence. On the acrylic card, black lettering displays your name in a sans serif font. There’s no picture, but you don’t need one. You have regal bearing, of course. A dark-skinned princess with imposing solidity, for all your absentmindedness.
My phone reads 15:07. I face the squat detention hall, my head between the fence’s bars. You’re in trouble, Lucy. Inside, twirling a pen between your slender fingers, your regulation skirt hitched above your non-regulation thighs, you stand out in the rows of pale troublemakers like a gleaming onyx.
I bring the lanyard to my nose and inhale a faint scent of lavender. Too much screen-time, too late into the night: endless messages vibrating with flashes like fireworks. Your exotic otherness captivates.
With utmost care, I loosen a strand of hair caught in the lanyard’s clasp. Like gossamer, it unravels in my fingers. It’s not yours. Yours is thick, dark and shines. You taste of spice and ocean spray. Not like this feeble ash-blonde wisp with an underlying hint of avocado. So, whose is it, Lucy Kingstone? A memento from a short-lived experiment?
It’s okay. What’s done is done. What matters is what comes next.
White riffraff disperse through the school gates. They pull out phones once they cross the threshold.
None notice me. Not like you, Lu. You know me.
But the street grows quiet as I wait. Where are you?
No black beauty emerges. So much for our romantic rendezvous.
A quick search brings up your social media accounts. That blonde bitch serves as your profile photo, but we’ll soon change that.
I send: You dropped your lanyard, Lucy – meet me at school gates tomorrow.
Your instant reply vibrates through me.
Elizabeth is a Northern writer of short fiction and novels for both adult and young adult audiences. Her work has been longlisted in the Frome Short Story Competition 2023. Prior to dedicating herself to writing fulltime, Elizabeth worked as a secondary-level English teacher, and she especially loved teaching Shakespeare. Every year, she pilgrimages to the Globe in London, and she hopes to one day see every play live.
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