I was a Saturday Girl once. There was a small cafe in our small town, made popular by a long-running TV series. So many girls from school undertook their job-baptism of fire here, and the kitchen was a seething microcosm of alliances, hostilities and hormones, interspersed with coke floats and cheese and pickle sandwiches.

INSPIRED

They pushed me to the top of the stairs and handed me a torch.

“Go on,” said the girl called Suzanna, “They’re on the top shelf.”

I peered down. It was pitch black at the bottom. The light from the cafe filtered down, reducing with every step. I flicked the torch on and gritted my teeth.

This was clearly the beginning of some kind of war.

“Come on, new girl.”

An hour into the job and I was already losing.