"My A-Level could not prepare me for colloquial French in a Dordogne accent..."

Kerri thought she was going on a 4 month ski holiday in the Alps passed off as an educational experience, but her time as a chambermaid at the age of 18 taught her much more than she'd expected. A wonderful coming-of-age story. 

Kerri Smith is a science journalist with Nature magazine, where she commissions, edits and writes features on all aspects of science, from brains to bacteria. She occasionally - and just for fun - writes fiction. This little story is about one of her first experiences of independence as a teen.