Feather and banner quote on upper arm

I know you said you would not come to the reunion, so I am writing instead to tell you what you missed. The hall smelled of Jeyes Fluid and sherry, and somebody had strung a painted banner above the stage reading Home is whenever I'm with you, the lettering gone wobbly where Mr Hadley ran out of gold paint. Nobody could say who chose the words. Mrs Okafor thought they came from the school song, and Gerald was certain they were off a biscuit tin.

Then Dot Brennan found the box of feathers in the costume cupboard, the ones from our Nativity, and she stood on a chair and tied them along the bottom edge with garden string. Teal, ochre, and that dirty yellow we used to call goose-mustard. They shivered every time someone opened the side door, and by ten o'clock half the room had cried into their paper plates.

I did not cry, though I came close when Dot showed me the old register and your name was still at the back under Leavers, with a question mark in biro that somebody had added years after we left.

I stayed until the caretaker started stacking chairs. Walking home, I kept thinking how the wrong words had outlasted everything else up there. Come home at Easter if the boat's in. One of the feathers is still in my coat pocket. You can have it back when you see it.

Love, Tess