Talking of ridiculous, this short short story pushes it even further, imagining a world where every biologist has given up lab work and is instead studying a schoolgirl called Grace. “One biologist sits at the breakfast table and says he’s an uncle visiting from Norway. One kidnaps the bus driver and studies Grace in the rearview mirror.” I love fiction inspired in any way by science, I do quite a lot of this in my own writing, and this is one of my favourites because of the humour, but underneath, as students in my workshops point out, there are serious questions. Where are Grace’s real parents? Isn’t it creepy that all these people are following a child? What is science for exactly?

First published in Paper Darts and available to read online here