Colour tattoo of a teal and grey raptor claw with black outlines and the words Clever Girl curved along its edge, on the outer thigh.

Raptor claw with Clever Girl script

Traditional · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A curved, claw-shaped form in teal and grey sits on the skin, with bold black outlines and hatched lines suggesting texture along its length. The words CLEVER GIRL are written in black capitals along a teal curved line that follows the lower edge of the claw. The image is a close, straight-on view with the tattoo filling most of the frame and a soft, even light.

Traditional Lettering Thigh Claw Dinosaur Script Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, The 17:40 has been cancelled again, so I'm writing this on the back of a timetable at the tea urn while the rain does its worst against the glass. You'll remember Gran's biscuit tin. I finally opened it on Sunday, sitting on the bench in the waiting room with the lost property man watching me over his glasses. Inside was a curved thing the length of my finger, grey-green and wicked at the point, wrapped in a page torn from an old Scarborough guidebook. Gran had written on the wrapper in pencil: 'Clever girl, Nell. Don't let them take it.'

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Nobody ever took anything from Gran except her temper and her teeth. She told us the claw came from the quarry behind the old signal box, where she dug as a girl with her brothers, and that a man from the council once came round wanting it for a museum. She sent him off with a flea in his ear. I used to think she was the clever one. Now I think she was stubborn and lonely, and she wanted someone to keep a thing for her.

Mr Pardoe at lost property says it's worth nothing, and he's probably right. Still, I've decided to take it back to the quarry on Saturday. I'll walk the last half mile along the cinder path where the trains used to run and put it back where she found it, under the hawthorn, with a flat stone on top so the rain can't wash it away.

The 17:40 has just been announced for platform two. Come up at the weekend if you can. Bring a torch. We've got some digging to do, and I'd rather not do it on my own.