Matching balloon tattoos on two forearms

The summer the travelling fair came to Cobb's Field, there was a man selling balloons from a barrow by the gates. Tobias Crane, he called himself, though nobody believed the Crane part. He had four colours only: pink, lilac, a green like pond water, and a yellow that looked like butter in the sun. Lilian Hart and Pearl Dunmore had one penny between them, so they bought one balloon each and tied the strings together at the wrist, because Pearl said a single string was for babies.

By teatime the wind had got up off the Downs, and Pearl, who was forever daring the boys to do things, stood on the bottom rung of the swing and let go of the ground. Her feet left the grass. She rose a yard, then two, her skirt snapping like a flag, and Lilian, who had never once let go of anything she was given, caught her by the wrist and hung on. The string went taut. They both went up, just far enough to see the chapel roof and the gasworks chimney blinking in the low sun.

Tobias ran across the field with his hands in the air, shouting that they would be the death of him. They came down slowly, bumping along the grass, and Pearl was laughing so hard she couldn't stand. He never charged them for the second balloons. The rubber went brittle years later and the colours faded, but nobody in that field ever got that knot undone, and I'd wager it's still tied somewhere, holding on.