The argument started because of a growth spurt.

Linua had suddenly found that her shirts were too tight around the biceps and across the shoulders, and the buttons across her chest strained. The horrible navy pleated skirt that Grandmother had chosen for her to wear only reached to above her knees instead of below them, and when she fastened it around her waist she had to use the last buttonhole, which only just stretched.

“Your clothes are getting tight, lovey,” Helged said, as she bustled around the kitchen, preparing Linua’s breakfast and loading up Grandmother’s tray. “I’ll let Madame know.”

Linua looked down at the strained buttons on her front.

“Yeah,” she said, although she wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about her project at the Observatory. She would be able to do a bit more of that tonight, and then there would be a meeting of the Astronomy Club tomorrow night. Eret would be there.

Helged took the tray up to Grandmother, then came huffing back down a few minutes later, ready to clear the table. Linua swung her Keng Boh Kids backpack over her shoulder. It wasn’t just a backpack—it could fold out into a mitani outfit with a hood and mask. She had got it from her cousin Sayo Hui last year, in the middle of when there had been all that trouble with a treasure hunter trying to get into the Observatory museum vault.

The Astronomy Club had sworn never ever to get mixed up in anything like that again, so the backpack had stayed a backpack all year, except for a few times when Linua had unfolded it into the mitani outfit and balanced precariously on the bath in the upstairs bathroom so she could admire herself wearing it in the mirror.

When Linua came back home for lunch after wushu training, she was still thinking about her project at the Observatory, and of the meeting with the Astronomy Club tomorrow. She said “mmm” and “yeah” every so often in answer to Grandmother’s measured discourse.

Grandmother had been just as embarrassing about the Astronomy Club as Linua had feared she would be, when Linua had first joined it. Linua had wanted to fit in with a new group of friends, but Grandmother had seized on it as an opportunity for Linua to display her scientific prowess.

There had been one excruciating occasion when Grandmother had insisted that Linua present a paper to the other members of the Club, so that that they could all admire her research abilities. The others had been remarkably understanding under the circumstances. It probably helped that Grandmother had set up an account with the Astronomy Club’s favourite café, so that each time they went there they could just put the meal on Grandmother’s tab.

Again, Linua felt uncomfortable about this. She wanted the Astronomy Club to like her for herself, not because of Grandmother’s money.

“And this afternoon I’ve made an appointment so that we can get you some new clothes,” Grandmother said. “It’s very unfortunate that I will have to cut short your session with Mdm Patoni, but it’s simply the only appointment I could get.”

“Okay,” Linua said.

She was briefly distracted from thoughts of her project at the Observatory, and of the Astronomy Club meeting tomorrow, by visions of new clothes. She had been aware for a year now how dowdy and school-girly her current clothes were compared to the kind that Anith wore. Anith was only a year older than Linua, but she wore casual but pretty clothes in pastel blues and pinks. It was about time that Linua’s wardrobe was upgraded.

“Can I have some jeans?” Linua asked.

“Certainly not.” Grandmother ran her eye over Linua’s current outfit. “I’ll order replacements for what you’re wearing now. It’s smart, hard-wearing and practical, and appropriate for a girl of your age.”

Grandmother hadn’t always had lots of money. When she had been young she had been very poor, and sometimes that attitude showed. Linua realised she had better say something or suffer horrible clothes for another year. Grandmother had never shown any propensity to listen to Linua before, but her ideas on clothing were deeply unreasonable and unfashionable. Linua was going to have to explain that to her somehow.

Linua started with, “I’m fifteen. I don’t know anyone my age who wears this kind of stuff.”

Grandmother sniffed.

“Yes, I’ve seen what young people wear nowadays. I won’t have you dressed like that.” She rose from the table with ponderous implacability just as Helged came in to clear the dishes, and Grandmother immediately started giving out orders about grocery deliveries or something.

It happened so quickly that Linua had lost her chance to change Grandmother’s mind. She would have to try again after the tutoring session with Mdm Patoni. Mdm Patoni taught maths, physics and astronomy, the subjects which Grandmother had chosen for Linua to learn. This time, Linua spent the session glumly imagining what it would be like to turn up to another year of Astronomy Club meetings wearing navy pleated skirts, v-necked sleeveless jumpers and shirts that looked like they had been fashionable forty years ago. She mentally planned what she would say to Grandmother, who could surely be persuaded to see reason. Everyone wore jeans!

“Linua!” Mdm Patoni said in protest.

“Yeah, sorry.” Linua focused on the problem in front of her.

But a few minutes later, her mind skittered away and focused on the clothing issue again. She knew that when Grandmother’s mind got stuck on a course of action it tended to stay there, no matter what anyone else thought, and she didn’t like it when things changed.

Why did Linua always have to do what other people wanted and never what she wanted? The only time she had ever got her way about anything was when she’d refused to eat the food at Castle Yi, where her father’s family lived, and where she got sent every morning for wushu training. That time, Linua’s will had overrode the collective will of a whole castle full of adults and that of Grandmother, which was why she ate lunch with Grandmother every day, instead of at Castle Yi. She had done that simply by refusing to eat.

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Could she do the same thing again now, except with clothes instead of food? It wasn’t like anyone could force her to wear clothes she didn’t like. Of course, she didn’t have a single item of clothing—aside from the mitani outfit—which she did like. Maybe she could threaten to wear only the mitani outfit with some leggings until Grandmother gave in.

“Linua, what is happening with you today?” Mdm Patoni asked sharply, in her slight accent. “You are very not paying attention!”

“Sorry,” Linua said again.

Things did not improve once the tutoring session was over.

“Mdm Patoni tells me your mind has been wandering,” Grandmother said disapprovingly. “I am very disappointed, Linua. Your future depends on the work you do today.”

That would only happen if she were to become an astronomer, Linua thought resentfully. She really ought to explain to Grandmother that she had entirely different plans, but she had been avoiding the conversation because she knew it would cause a monumental upheaval when it happened, rather like being stuck in the middle of a volcanic eruption.

Grandmother went on; “It is also very rude of you not to pay attention properly to Mdm Patoni, who has worked so hard as your tutor.” She gestured to Mdm Patoni, who was standing next to her. “You must apologise at once.”

It was true that Linua had been very distracted. It wasn’t Mdm Patoni’s fault, but it would have been nice if Mdm Patoni could have been a little bit understanding about it. Linua might have felt genuinely apologetic if Mdm Patoni hadn’t run straight to Grandmother to complain. Linua mumbled an apology.

“Tomorrow you must do better,” Grandmother declared. She went off to show Mdm Patoni out. Linua heard their voices from the hallway.

“Sometimes teenagers, they do get like this,” Mdm Patoni was trying to explain, but Grandmother was having none of it.

“There is no reason for Linua to behave like any other teenager. It’s no excuse! Thank you for your excellent tuition today, my dear, as always. I will see you tomorrow.”

Linua’s stomach was roiling with frustration, resentment and trepidation. She steeled herself as Grandmother came back into the library.

“What on earth is wrong with you today, Linua? I don’t know what’s got into you.” Grandmother glanced at the library clock. “Never mind, we don’t have time for that now. The car will be here any moment to take us to the appointment with the dressmaker.”

The dressmaker sounded like it would be a fancy establishment, but in fact it mostly sold school uniforms. Linua needed to say something about the clothes, now, before it was too late. She needed to explain to Grandmother that she was old enough to wear real clothes, not stuff that was for tiny kids.

She opened her mouth, and what came out was: “The reason I’ve been distracted all afternoon is because you won’t buy me a pair of jeans!”

That hadn’t been what she had intended to say at all. She had had any number of civilised and reasoned arguments to present, but the frustrations of the afternoon, and the resentment of being made to apologise to Mdm Patoni when Linua was the one who was upset, had just come bubbling out.

Linua immediately knew that she had ruined her chance of persuading Grandmother, and the conversation went downhill from there.

“I’m not buying you clothes that make you look like you’re one of those awful layabouts who hang around on street corners!” Grandmother stated with finality.

She wasn’t even living in the same century! Linua tried to dredge up some of the polite, logical arguments she had thought up during her tutoring session.

“The Astronomy Club all wear jeans! They’re nice! They don’t hang about on street corners!”

“They are ordinary children, Linua. You are not ordinary! You are special and different from them!”

Why was being special the same as being old-fashioned? If that was the case, Linua didn’t want to be special. She knew better than to say that, however.

“Being special doesn’t mean you have to dress in clothes that are ugly, and dowdy and horrible!”

Grandmother actually put a hand on her chest at this point.

“Linua! I find that very hurtful! I—”

“Well, I find it hurtful that you want me to dress like an ugly school child. I don’t even go to school!”

“You don’t go to school because you need advanced tuition that you won’t get in a school full of ordinary children. You have a gift!”

Why did Grandmother keep making this about how gifted Linua was, which had absolutely nothing to do with clothes? It was so frustrating! Linua wanted to scream. She also realised that she had run out of options—she was going to have to put her foot down. She folded her arms.

“I’m not going to the dress shop and you can’t make me.”

One of the things Linua had realised during the tutoring session was that, aside from the Astronomy Club, there were no true rewards in her life. It was a lack she had only truly understood after making friends with other members of the club. They regularly got to go to each other’s houses, or hang out at the park or the beach, or go on trips to museums. If their parents wanted to discipline them, all they needed to do was withhold one of these treats.

Literally the only privileges Grandmother could withhold from Linua would be to stop her going to the Observatory and to the Astronomy Club, both of which were activities Grandmother had either arranged herself, or approved of wholeheartedly. Linua thought that, if it came down to it, Grandmother would shrink from that step.

Grandmother clearly hadn’t thought all this through in the same way that Linua had.

“I think you will find I can, young lady,” Grandmother said angrily.

“Really? How?”

Grandmother had not expected to be challenged. She opened closed her mouth, visibly floundering. Linua waited, with a strange sense of power building up insider her.

Finally, Grandmother snapped, “If you don’t behave and do as you are told, you can’t go to Café Tasta.”

This was the café opposite the Herkow museum where the Astronomy Club sometimes held their meetings. But that just meant they would have to hold all the Astronomy Club meetings at the Observatory, which they mostly did anyway.

“Fine! I’ll tell the Astronomy Club I can’t go there anymore!”

The other members of the club would miss being able to hold the occasional meeting in the café. But Linua was the only person in the Club who hadn’t been grounded or had privileges rescinded by an annoyed parent. Once she told the others what had happened, it would be another one more way in which she was just like them. She could already imagine how much they would sympathise.

Next, Linua played her trump card. “Are you going to forbid me to go to the Observatory as well?”

That was a bluff. Linua loved spending the time at the Observatory—it was where the Astronomy Club normally met, it was where she was pursuing her own project in the museum vault, and the rest of the time she could hang out with Alnan the janitor, who was interesting and funny.

But Grandmother didn’t realise that.

She suddenly seemed old and quavery, while her eyes blinked rapidly, trying to process the sudden change that had taken place without her even knowing it. A few minutes earlier she had been secure in her customary serene dignity, a woman in control of the world around her. Now she looked like an elderly person, all shaky and confused. Linua felt a guilty lump burgeoning, but hardened her heart.

“What on earth has come over you? I don’t understand! Why are you suddenly behaving like this? This is not like you, Linua.”

“It’s because I’m not a little girl anymore, Grandmother! And I don’t want to dress like one!”