Room to Write

Management was first to sign the birthday card.

It lay open on the packing table.

We wrote BEST WISHES in large letters and signed underneath.

The tail of our signature curled onto the other page.

Mae came over with a pen.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

She wrote beside the fold.

Two more people came. We held the card flat for them.

A man from the workshop looked at the space below our name.

“There’s room in that loop,” we said.

He began a word inside it.

The last letter went over the line.

He stopped.

“Keep going,” we said.

At lunch, Ruth opened the card.

She read the little writing beside the fold and laughed.

“You remembered the bus,” she said.

Mae put her cup down and began to tell us.

Ruth turned the card so that we could read it too.

We followed the writing round our name.