Vernissage - Claire Anderson-Wheelers
Claire Anderson-Wheelers short story Vernissage is a story about an afternoon in a boy’s life. After school, Alex’s mother picks him up. At home she serves him a banana sandwich, and tells him to do his homework. Alex doesn’t want to do his homework, and therefore crawls under his parents’ bed to hide. Here he overhears a conversation between his parents.

The short story does not tell the age of Alex. Instead it tells about Alex as a young boy being in the spot of going through a transition process. He observes things he used to like in his everyday life as now being baby stuff. “(…) and took down his toothbrush. It was green, a crocodile, yellow eyes. This too, he decided, was a child’s thing. “(p. 11, l. 168) “Maybe he was getting too old for banana sandwiches. He thought about saying that he didn't want to eat them anymore. But he liked them …” (p. 8, l. 49). Alex has a hard time letting go of these childish things. He likes them, but at the same time he knows, he is a little too old for them. However, after listening to the conversation between his parents, he decides to quit the childish toothbrush and ask his mother for a regular one. “He would ask his mother for a new toothbrush, one that was a toothbrush and nothing more.” (p. 11, l. 170). He goes from being a small child into a sensitive boy, maybe on his way to being a teenager. After a day of observing and sensing everything around him – especially regarding his mother, her femininity and her relationship to his father, Alex decides to grow up.

The relationship between Alex’s mother and father does not seem well-functioning. Alex’s father is absent and does not seem to be interested in or focused on the things, Alex’s mother tells and shows him. “I told you I was going to buy a new dress; for tonight. Remember? – Oh, right. – Do you like it? – The dress? –