Aged six, the only gift I could give was primroses. I picked them from the back garden with small hands and big concentration. I loved how delicate they were. It took an age to pretty them up with a red ribbon — they wriggled away like tickled babies. I stored them overnight with their stems wrapped in wet tissue, sneaking downstairs in the dark to make sure they hadn't dried up. I couldn't wait to give them to my teacher, and lay awake all night practicing how her smile would look.

The next morning it rained. The clouds looked extra grey and heavy next to my golden flowers. I wanted to carry them but Denise, my new foster mother, made me put them in a wicker basket with a pansy on the front, for safe keeping. I didn't like the pansy or the spiky basket. I was certain it would pierce the stems and make the glorious petals wilt. The journey to school was fretful. The skies blackened and the wind forced the rain horizontally across the car window. No matter how much I tugged, the wicker basket gaped open like a wound.

As I jumped out of the car the wind grew stronger. It blew jealous and greedy. I rescued the primroses from the open basket and clung on tight. Denise complained at my insolence and grabbed my hand, pulling me across the road more quickly than I wanted. I concentrated so hard on my grip that I didn't see the kerb and stumbled up it with a jolt. One by one, the primroses blew out of my hand and along the street. They danced into drains and under the wheels of cars, squashed flat and tainted with mud and oil. I tried to break free to save them, but this just helped more to escape. Denise only let go once we got to the school gate, and I tumbled into a puddle. She was angry and said it served me right.

I was the only kid in the class who didn't bring a gift for the last day of term. Sodden and shivering, I changed into the school's ill-fitting spare clothes in the toilets while my classmates piled up their boxes of chocolates and neatly wrapped surprises. I told my teacher about the primroses and awaited her smile. She narrowed her eyes. Her eyelashes downturned, she crumpled her brows into that look. It was the look she'd used when she'd asked me if I'd stolen the tube of glitter the day before. I'd said no, while fingering the beautiful shiny specks in my pocket. It was the same look I could feel on my own face when Denise said they wouldn't send me away anytime soon.

Elizabeth Rose Murray's is poetry can be found in The Ranfurly Review, Open Wide Magazine, DeComposed, The Beat, Word Riot and Dogmatika, her fiction on 3am Magazine and Savage Manners. She writes book reviews for Bookmunch and is the official blogger for the 2009 Dublin Writers festival. She lives in Dublin and is a poker writer.