Disney princess temporary tattoo designs

You will not believe what Mr Pargeter had in the window of the stationer's on Tuesday. A card of nine transfers, each one a little square of princesses in frocks the colour of sherbet, with pink blossom curling round them and hearts in the corners as if someone had stuck them on with glue. Ruth Honeysett said they came from America, which I doubt, but they were a shilling and I had two shillings saved from the bottle money, so I bought them before anyone could argue.

Ruth and I agreed the one with the heart was the best, though it was a hard choice because the girl in the long yellow dress looked like someone who would never be cross. We licked the backs and pressed them onto our wrists, counted to thirty under the tap, and peeled them off to find the colours had bled into the lines. Ruth said that meant they were magic. I said it meant they were cheap. We argued all the way along the front and didn't stop until the ice cream man shut his hatch.

On Friday it rained so hard the lane ran like a gutter, and the card in my satchel went soft as bread. Ruth's dad had got a post at the Bristol docks, and their van left at nine on Saturday with the kitchen chairs tied on top. She stood at the gate with her hands in her coat pockets and didn't cry, so I didn't either.

I gave her the two transfers still holding together, the heart and the girl with the dark hair by the water. She said she would keep them in her prayer book until they flaked to nothing. I walked back past the harbour wall with the empty card, and the sea was the same pale blue as the paper it came on, so I could not tell where one stopped and the other began. Your loving granddaughter, Margaret.