(Author's note: Written for The_Weekend_Write-In prompt, #grateful. Word count 500)

"I don't want them, but thank you," I added hastily, as I caught my mother's frown.

"Don't be silly, Maisie," my mother scolded. She smiled nervously at my aunt, whose pinched face made her look as if she had a bad smell under her nose.

"Of course we'll take them, thank you so much for thinking of us, Dorothy." Mum stretched her hand toward the clothes my aunt was now holding tight to her chest.

"Oh well, if Maisie doesn't want them, I'm sure there will be others who'd be grateful to get something so pretty," said my aunt with a sniff.

"They are lovely," said Mum, though I didn't know how she could say that with a straight face. "Thank you so much Dorothy, Maisie is a lucky girl." By now Mum had a grip on the clothes and reluctantly it seemed to me, my aunt let them go.

"Have you got time for a coffee?" asked Mum, tucking the clothes firmly under one arm.

"I suppose I could... it's not instant, is it?"

Mum flushed.

We couldn't afford the expensive stuff my aunt liked.

My aunt looked at her watch. "Goodness, is that the time? No thanks, Mel, I better get going. I have a meeting in half an hour."

I could feel my face getting red with the effort of holding back all the rude things I wanted to say.

Mum escorted my aunt to the door, with a twitch of her shoulder to tell me I should follow. We stood side by side to wave her off, with smiles fixed to our faces, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one to feel relieved as her car drove off.

We returned to the kitchen and Mum turned on the electric jug.

"Now, let's have a proper look at what your aunt's given us," she murmured encouragingly. She shook out the woolen trousers and checked the seams. "There's a good bit of wear left in these, and I'm sure you will have grown into them by next winter. And this jumper is sweet." She held it up.

"But Mum, those pants are orange!"" I wailed. "And that jumper is PINK!"

I pulled a lock of hair forward, to highlight my point. Mum called my hair auburn. I called it ginger, but whichever it was, it did not suit either orange or pink.

"It's not really pink, more of a mauve," she said, persuasively.

"Whatever. It's awful, whatever it is! I don't really have to wear either of them, do I?"

A shadow crossed Mum's face. "Well, you know, things are a bit tight just at the moment... it's kind of Dot, I mean, Dorothy, to give them to us."

"Hmm, I suppose so," I grumbled, thinking it would have been kinder if she'd bought me something new which suited me instead of passing on some of Amy's cast offs. Amy was blond, pretty, and looked sweet in pink.

To be honest, I didn't feel grateful at all.