Poor old Madge thought there would be a great flood of people banging on the door and marching in at 9 o’clock this morning. She kept saying “Right girls, let’s make sure we’re ready.†Ready for what? Being trampled underfoot, or for waiting for ages for something to happen. Eventually a couple of people wandered in, mainly to nose about I think, but Imogen and I managed to scare them out with your enthusiasm to serve them and offer them 5 per cent off. Madge didn’t know whether to praise us for our good working ethic or tell us off for scaring the only customers. She told us to “be a bit more subtleâ€. As they day wore on more people did come in and even bought stuff, Madge relaxed and it didn’t seem too long before it was twelve and Lisa came in, she still looked bored. Even thought the day went well I started to feel a bit odd, I couldn’t get over the thought that we’d lost some freedom, Imogen and I. We thought we’d have the whole summer holidays stretched out to do exactly what we wanted, but now we were chained to the shop, just like we had been chained to school. Not only that, but it made me feel old – as if things would never be the same again and I’d got onto the work treadmill. It made me think of my Mum going in to work every day at the same time and coming back at the same time, she’s been doing it for years, the same thing every day.