The Beige Sisters

Fish Street and Back Road West was like the retreat from Moscow, not quite soldiers huddled inside dead horses for warmth, but a line of slow moving cars with emmet kids peering out of steamed up windows and defeated emmet dads staring at the car in front as the windscreen wipers flicked V signs in their going-home faces. The Gods of the Locals had even contrived to lay on a rainbow over the harbour in celebration (one or two emmets I noticed photographing their children standing in front of it, missing the symbolism entirely).

I got some chips and a Fanta from the Shrine of the Balancing Eel on the way home, dead stoked because I was thinking I was about to get my room back. But when I got home there was a hard wheeled suitcase exactly the size and shape of a small fridge outside the front door, and I was just in time to see the bottom half of my dad disappearing up the stairs, lugging another suitcase, followed by two old women in beige coats and beige tights and those sandals with fat straps (also in beige) that old women wear, already fussing about how steep the stairs were and encouraging each other by betting that the view would be worth it. Knowing that there's isn't a view from my room, unless you count the view of the house across the street, didn't make up for the fact that unless the Beige Sisters cut their stay short, I'm not going to get my room back for yet another week.