Write about a time you were in trouble with your parents, a school principal or teacher, or the law, but write it from the point of view of the person in authority.*

This is meant to be a quality establishment, for the cream of society. The best, the richest, the most fashionable – people of taste, discernment, and judgement.

Not any more. Now it’s a tourist attraction for the riffraff. Day trippers from The North, or, worse, kids on school trips to the ‘Big City’ – let out of their classrooms for “enriching activities” or some such nonsense.

I should be able to take pride in my work. I help the most glamorous of brides to find the perfect gown for the most important day of their lives, evoking jealousy in the hearts of all who behold them. Only the elite can afford these dresses, so, in my view, only the elite should be allowed to look at them.

Instead, I have to put up with a bunch of silly kids cooing over my dresses, dresses they (or their parents) coulee never in a million years afford, pawing at them with their sticky hands. Disgusting.

So I decided to scare a few today. They were taking photos – the cheek of it! So I told them I would be calling the police – after all, for all I knew they were trying to steal our designs (and who wouldn’t want to steal them?!)

Well, they looked suitably chastised, and I suppose they didn’t really mean any harm, so, begrudgingly, I let them go.

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When I was 14 I thought I was going to be arrested for taking a photo of a wedding dress in a famous London department store. This is from the store assistant’s perspective. This was written as part of my lent creative writing challenge.

*This writing prompt is from 642 Tiny Things to Write About (2014) by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto