Girl blowing bubbles in space on a back

The last service went through without stopping again, so I had nothing to do but watch the platform lamps from the box. That was when I saw the bubbles. They came up off the far end of the platform, drifting past the signal arm one after another, each one catching the red of the lamp and holding it like a coin in a pond.

There was a tin bubble pipe on the bench by the waiting room, the kind with a green handle, and a note under it in a child's capitals saying PLEASE DON'T LOSE THIS, ORANGE. Nobody was there to claim it. I had the rule book open on the desk and was reading it for the third time when the bubbles reached the track and kept going, higher than the gantry, until they were only specks against a violet smear of cloud that the lamps had made in the sky. One was bigger than the rest. It had a ring around its middle, thin and gold, like the planet in the poster my mother kept in the scullery, and it wobbled over the points without ever touching them.

I took the pipe down and walked to the end of the platform, blowing a bubble of my own out of nothing but cold breath. It was a poor thing and popped on my sleeve, leaving a little stain of colour that wouldn't wash out. I stood there longer than I should have, which is the sort of thing you would tease me for.

So I've decided to keep the pipe in the box, on the shelf above the levers, and I'll hand it in with the morning paperwork. If you're home at Easter, come and see the line before they electrify it. Bring a tin of something sweet and we'll sit in the box and watch for a bubble large enough to carry a lamp.

Your sister, Ruth