Form Photo. SCENE: KIZZY’S KITCHEN — 2028
Location: Cumbrian farmhouse. Late afternoon light. The kettle has just clicked off. March 2028
Imogen Makesy, sixties, was leaning in the doorway.
“He was tricking her,” she said, lifting an eyebrow. “Spinning some charming nonsense. You’ve told me about Close Encounters, Manwatching, Tarot cards…”
She stepped further into the kitchen, stocking feet sliding across the tiles, and picked up a black-and-white Form Photo from the table — faded, pocked with pinholes, creased from too much handling. Seventeen young women in school uniform, and one slightly bewildered teacher in the middle.
“I can picture it,” Momo went on. “Him reading her palm, spinning that line he always used — ‘You were the one I was waiting for.’ And then under the porch light, soft and sweet. The kind of kiss that makes you think it’s the start of something. Or was it more of a snog? There’s a distinction, don’t you think?”
Kizzy rose to it. She always did. Dr Katherine Foster, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS
“A kiss, for a teenager, is like a poke in the ribs,” she said, calmly, stirring her tea. “It’s hope. It’s permission. It says: Maybe?”
“Snogging’s an activity. Still just a moment—but stretched. Like waiting for the kettle to boil. One says How about it? The other says I want more.”
“And Robbie?” Momo asked, folding into a kitchen chair. “What was he saying?”
There was a beat. Kizzy poured the tea, passed one mug across the table, then answered.
“That he didn’t know yet. That he wanted to mean it — but wasn’t sure if he did. And Fen? She heard that too. That’s why she let him go. After they’d circled for a bit longer. Toyed with each other until they realised it was going nowhere. For either of them.”
Momo tilted her head. “You give him a lot of credit.”
“I was there,” Kizzy replied, more softly now. “He came home after that first rugby club disco dazed, not triumphant. Like he’d meant to be nice and only trodden on a lot of toes.”
Momo smirked. “So you handed him a dart?”
“I handed him a game plan.”
“A funny-looking one.” Momo turned the photo over, then back again, looking at the holes in the photographic paper. You two always did prefer action over theory”.
At that, the lights of memory flickered.
Cut to: A sound. The unmistakable thwack of a dart hitting wood.
Impact: the glossy centre of Cece Noble’s feline nose.
SCENE: KIZZY’S BEDROOM — TUESDAY 28 MARCH 1978
A different house. A different decade. Posters peeling, desk lamp buzzing, the scent of Impulse and ambition in the air.
“Pick one,” Kizzy said.
Robbie stared at the photo she’d just pinned to her wardrobe — seventeen girls in green blazered formation, eyes half-closed against the early autumn sun.
“What for?”
“Don’t think. Just pick.”
He squinted. “I’m not that good an aim. What if I hit your teacher? Robobottom.”
“Rowbotham,” Kizzy corrected. “You won’t. And if you do — she doesn’t count. Nor me. Nor Momo.”
“That’s prescriptive.”
“You wouldn’t kiss Momo in a game of Murder in the Dark,” she replied, sharp as vinegar. “You’ve known her since tricycles. She’s as much a sister to you as I am.”
He frowned. “So this is a game?”
“It’s a trial run,” she said. “A social hypothesis. You’re the constant. The rest? Variables.”
She handed him a dart — brass-tipped, professional. The kind their older brother Richard used on Sunday nights in the garage, with a bottle of Newki Brown and “Radar Love” – Golden Earring on the cassette player.
Robbie weighed it in his hand.
“You’re aiming. That’s not random.”
Kizzy smirked. “You want random? Use your non-dominant hand.”
They stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, mirrors in mischief. A dart each.
“One to three,” Kizzy said.
They threw.
Robbie’s dart hit Cece.
Kizzy’s missed entirely and embedded itself in her O’Levels revision schedule.
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