The Hem

Ages 12-15

Tziri hems her own skirt, and she makes it a finger too short.

She did it on Sunday night at the sewing table. She turned up the edge, and pinned it, and set the pins back in the pincushion, and sewed it by hand with small stitches. She hung it on the back of her door.

On Monday morning she puts it on, and looks down. It is above where it should be. She holds the hem against her knee, and there is the gap.

There is no other skirt in the same color. It is Monday, and the bell is in twenty minutes.

She takes it off. She finds the seam ripper in the sewing box. She slides the point under the first stitch, and cuts it, and pulls the thread. It comes out in a long dotted line, with the tiny holes left behind.

She lets the hem down. The fold has made a crease, and it shows, a pale line across the dark cloth.

She plugs in the iron, and waits for the light. She lays the skirt on the board with the wrong side up. She presses the crease, slowly, from one side to the other.

She holds the skirt up to the window. The line is fainter, but it is there.

She puts it on. She walks to school with her coat open, and her hand not touching the hem.