Mirrorsucker, they say to her, the small girl with dark hair, alone in the cool shadows of the playground. I know they say she presses her lips against mirrors, sucking on her own reflection, because no one else will have her. She and I are not friends, really—she barely speaks to anyone—but I really hate them, the ones who call her mirrorsucker. I don’t know if it’s true, the story about sucking mirrors, but I don’t know any better—they say it happens in the girls’ bathroom. But the evil I see in their eyes when they say “mirrorsucker”—that is true, all right.
It is hot today, far too hot in our classrooms. So hot that I cannot sleep in the night. Mum and Dad are asleep, but I find myself at the front door, still too much heat in me, drawn by the smell of the cooling evening. I walk aimlessly, to the shops, not far. It is a small town, it is late—the streets are empty.
Except, in front of the shoe shop, I see the girl. She doesn’t see me. Her face, her lips, are pressed to the mirrored shopfront, to her reflection. The more I look, the more it looks like it is the black glass that is doing the sucking, drawing her in. It seems like the other thing clearly visible in the glass, and only there, sharp-angled and clutching, needs the girl, just as much as she needs it.