Stolen by Lesley Pearse

the colour pink in her mind’s eye, just as she could name the purple flowers in the vase on the window sill as tulips. Her parents had brought those in with them; her mother said they were from their garden. But perhaps she’d also said they were called tulips.
    No one had shown her pink, though, she just knew what the colour was. She reached out for one of the magazines and kept flicking over the pages until she saw a pink dress, pink lipstick and a picture of a room with pink walls.
    She continued to turn the pages, and halted suddenly at a picture of a child on a beach. She had a bucket and spade and she was wearing a bikini. Suddenly Lotte remembered.
    A pink bikini, pink and white spots with frills across the back of the pants. Her sister had one exactly the same. She even knew it was the summer when she was five and Fleur was nine. They had gone to Camber Sands for the day. Her mother said ‘pink to make the boys wink’, and Fleur asked why would they want to make boys wink.
    As the memory unfurled it was like watching a video. Lotte could see them all getting out of the car in the morning, and her mother piling the picnic and beach stuff into her father’s arms so he was almost hidden.
    Lotte was given only the buckets and spades to carry. Fleur had the picnic blanket which was rolled up and tied like a big sausage. Mum and Dad carried everything else up over the sand dunes and down on to the beach.
    It was her first time on a sandy beach. She loved the way the sand squidged up, warm between her toes, and it was exciting climbing up the big dunes not knowing what was on the other side. But it was even better once they got to the top because they could just slide down the other side to miles of smooth golden sand in both directions. The tide was going out, and it had left small pools of water that were just right for paddling.
    Dad hit his hand with the mallet when he was trying to put up the striped canvas windbreak, and Mum laughed at him. He chased her with the mallet, and as Mum ran up on to the dunes to get away from him, he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her down, laughing at her.
    They were like that all day, teasing each other and making jokes. When they went paddling they splashed each other, even though they both had their clothes on. Lotte remembered it was a very long way down to the sea when the tide went right out, and they could see tiny holes in the sand that Dad said were made by winkles.
    Fleur sang Madonna’s new record, ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, using one of the spades as a microphone as she danced about on the beach. Dad said he wished he’d brought the new cine camera with him, but he’d been afraid of getting sand in it. He said Fleur would have to do it again for them when they got home so he could film it.
    Lotte didn’t need a cine film to remind her of anything. She could see Fleur, her face flushed with the sun, blonde curly hair caught up in two bunches on either side of her head, like pom-poms. She urged Lotte to jump right across the pools of water left when the tide went out because there might be a human-eating octopus in one.
    Down at the sea they held hands and jumped over the waves. Fleur could swim and she tried to teach Lotte by holding her under the tummy while ordering her to move her legs like a frog. She let go several times and Lotte got a mouthful of sea water, but she didn’t mind, she was brave when she was with her big sister.
    Later that day Fleur tried to teach her how to do a cartwheel. She could do a dozen, one after the other, right down the beach. She could walk on her hands and do back flips, and Lotte wanted to be just like her.
    The memory faded sharply, just like a film that was suddenly cut in half. One moment watching Fleur doing back flips, the next nothing. She didn’t remember going home, or anything after that.
    She didn’t mind too much. After all, it was a start, something good to tell the doctor in the morning. Funny though that the