It's December and the
high street is lavishly decorated with festive lights and Christmas
trees. The shop window displays feature Santa outfits, snowflakes,
reindeer, elves, candy canes and gift boxes and all sorts of festive
décor. Mark is shopping with his mother who frequently comments on
the outfits in the shop windows. “I wish they had things like that
when you were little.” she said, admiring a display of Santa's
Little Helper outfits on some boy mannequins in the window of
Debenhams. Mark said they did but they were for girls. “Not
many girls wore dresses when you were little.” she reminded him. “I
wonder if they do them for older boys.” she mused.
“I'm not going to
dress like Santa's Little Helper mum!” Mark whined. “I'm
fifteen.” he reminded her. The mannequins, depicting boys aged
about eight or nine wore an elf themed red and green frocks with red &
green stripy tights and a stupid looking hat with bells. Another wore
a pair of green dungaree shorts with a red blouse and lace collar, with the
same stripy tights, and the third wore a bright red Santa dress with
fur around its hems and plain white tights. They're OK for little
kids, Mark thinks, but teenagers don't do fancy dress if they can
help it.
Inside one of the
stores, his mother points out a sweatshirt with 'Just a Boy'
embroidered in a graffiti style font on the front. His mother says
it's nice. “It's horrible.” Mark whined. The sweatshirt is white
but the design is in purple and lilac and the 'o' of boy is a heart
shape. His mother says it's 'sweet' and Mark reminds her that he's
fifteen and far too old for clothes like that. His mother points out
a padded down jacket. “That looks nice and warm.” she said. It
might look warm, Mark thought, but that shade of pastel purple is far
too nice, and the fake fur around it's hood is the palest pink. Mark
doesn't like it.
His mother picked up a
hat, gloves and scarf set. Pink, lilac and baby blue stripes
shouldn't belong in the teen boys department but they do.“This is
cute.” his mother smiled. That's exactly what's so bad about it,
Mark thought. Too many boys clothes these days are cute and strolling
the boys department with his mother is always embarrassing,
especially when she insists on just looking at the limited selection
of skirts and frocks that seem to have been commonplace for a few
years now. Thankfully there's still plenty of traditional boys
clothes and Mark's mother knows what he prefers, but she always
describes them as plain and boring when buying him something that he
likes. “We may as well get you some undies whilst we're here.”
she said.
“OK.” Mark
apathetically replied. “Just don't get me any more nice ones...
I’ve got loads already.”
