Getting Rid of Holly

"Tralalala," my dad sang at me this morning, parading into my room in his stripy, multicoloured 'Joseph' dressing gown and enthusiastically offering me a cup of 'that green rubbish you brought back with you'. "My Getting Holly Back Out Of the Country Plan starts today."
"Don't," my mum muttered weepily from under the duvet where she had crawled in next to me while I was still too asleep to put up enough of a protest (I've spent the majority of time in England waking up to find a shadowy figure sitting on the edge of my bed, stroking my hair and whispering 'it's just me, darling. Just checking. Go back to sleep.').
"What shirt do you think I should wear to get rid of my daughter?" dad asked nobody in particular, disappearing out of the room and coming back in with a blue stripy shirt and a pink one. "I think the pink one is more cheerful, and therefore more appropriate given the circumstances."
"Mark," my mum said even more weepily. "Stop it. I'm trying to pretend that she's not leaving."
"Oh, but she is leaving," dad said even more jubilantly. "Definitely leaving. I've seen the flight confirmation. So what do you think: pink or blue?"
"My baby," mum said in a choked voice, nuzzling my shoulder. Dad took one look around my bedroom, and grinned even harder.
"Eight months it took us, to get this room looking like a boutique hotel. New floors, new furniture, fluffy rug, priceless art. It's taken you eight days to make it look like a bedsit again." His smile widened. "And now you're leaving again. And we can clean it all up again."
"I'd rather have my baby back with all her mess than all the tidy bedrooms in the world," my mum whispered huskily from the other side of my bed.
"I bloody wouldn't," my dad said. "Do you know how hard it was to sand into those corners?"
"It will be nice to know where all the household cutlery is at any one time," mum admitted, picking two spoons and a fork up from the top of my fireplace and peering at them in confusion.
I peered over my green tea, not convinced by any of it in the slightest. Dad's just excited that he can visit me in August in Miyazaki and learn to surf.
"You'll miss me," I said complacently. "I know you will."
Dad looked at me thoughtfully for a couple of seconds, and then smiled.
"Pink," he said. "I think pink. The Getting Rid of Holly plan deserves a pink shirt."

As much as I am going to miss my family, I'm prone to agree with him. I'm pretty excited about my next adventure, now. Maybe I should be wearing a pink shirt too.