My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece

by Annabel Pitcher

  I shuffled to the letterbox. Roger squirmed so I lowered him to the floor and he ran off down the hall. Jas and Mum started to sway, as if they were doing the last dance at a disco to a song I couldn’t hear. Cold air gushed through the gap when I opened the letterbox. I smelled smoke. Nigel’s pipe.

  I can’t believe you’re here Jas breathed. This is such a great surprise. There was a kissing noise and I imagined Mum putting her lips on Jas’s cheek. I squinted through the letterbox but all I could see was a person in a coat. I had to stop myself from sticking out my fingers and clutching the black material. I was scared Mum was going to disappear again. You can’t stay long Jas giggled. If Dad finds out I’m dead. There was another kissing noise. You have to go she said. I waited for the But first say hi to Jamie. It didn’t come. I leaned forward and listened harder, feeling cold all over. Jas was going to keep Mum a secret.

  Time to go Jas moaned and I suddenly stood up. Mum couldn’t leave without seeing my t-shirt. My blood was one of those marching bands, drumming its way through my heart and my head and that soft place on your neck that goes BOOM BOOM BOOM. Jas was pushed up against the porch door. Oh baby she said, which seemed a strange thing to call Mum, but I didn’t have time to worry about that ’cos my hand had shot out and was turning the handle.

  Jas fell back onto the hall carpet and I opened my mouth to say Traitor. But no words came out ’cos this time Mum wasn’t a farmer, or a milkman, or a neighbour coming home from work. She was a boy with green spiky hair, a pierced lip and a black leather jacket. I closed my mouth. Then I opened and closed it one more time and the boy said You look like a fish. And I replied Better than a green hedgehog, which is just about the funniest thing I’ve ever said. The boy laughed and the hahas smelled of smoke. I’m Leo he said, holding out his hand like I was important. I shook it and tried to look as if I knew what I was doing. Jamie I replied. I didn’t know when to let go but he dropped my hand and it swung to my side. I felt very aware of my fingers.

  Jas watched all this from the hall carpet. I grinned, happy that she wasn’t a traitor. You sneaky little bastard she said. Her eyes looked huge when they weren’t covered in black makeup. She kept glancing at the stairs, scared Dad would come down, even though we both knew he had passed out in bed.

  Leo pulled Jas to her feet. He was tall and strong and perfect. Jas’s head came up to his armpit and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Don’t tell she whispered, pushing her body close to his. I felt a bit awkward until Roger brushed against my leg. I picked him up and held him tight.

  They started kissing. I watched for about fifteen seconds but then I remembered Granny saying It is rude to stare. So I walked off as if it was no big deal to see my sister snogging in the hall at twelve minutes past midnight. The moon lit up the kitchen and there was no colour. It was like being inside Mrs Farmer’s eyes. I was angry that she’d accused me of being a thief. I’ve never stolen anything except grapes from the supermarket when I used to do a big shop with Mum. When she wasn’t looking, I’d pick one off the stalk and put it in my mouth and crush it with my tongue so Mum wouldn’t see me chewing and guess.

  Roger jumped out of my arms. I opened the back door and walked into the garden. The grass felt icy underneath my toes and the air tingled against my skin. Millions of stars twinkled like the jewels in Mum’s wedding ring. I bet she doesn’t wear it any more. I stared up at the sky and raised my middle finger, just in case God was watching. I don’t like being spied on.

  Roger’s fur glinted in the moonlight and he crawled off, probably to kill a mouse or something. I tried to block out the picture of the furry body he left on the doorstep. I walked to the pond and stared at the water but all I could see was that small grey animal, all cold and stiff and dead. I was glad that Rose had been blown into tiny pieces. I’d hate to think of her under the ground, especially on a cold night like this.

  There was a splash. I knelt down and bent over until my nose touched the black water. Somewhere among the floaty plants and swirling weeds, I knew there was a goldfish. Its silky skin is the exact same colour as my hair and I used the same orange pencil to draw us both in my sketchbook. All the times that I’ve looked in the pond, I’ve never seen any other creatures. The fish is alone. I know exactly how it feels.

  Dad actually got up for breakfast on Tuesday morning. He’d been in bed for sixteen hours and he smelled of sweat and alcohol. He didn’t eat anything but he made a pot of tea and I had a cup, even though I don’t like it much. Jas yawned four times as she checked her horoscope. Why are you so tired Dad asked and Jas shrugged at him but winked at me. I smiled into my Coco Pops and hoped Leo would come again soon.

  It was pouring down outside. Jas asked if we could have a lift. Dad agreed and drove us to school in his slippers. I was scared he would see Sunya but all the children were hidden beneath hoods or umbrellas so you couldn’t tell who was who. As I jumped out of the car, Jas handed me a waterproof coat and told me to keep dry. She said You’ll catch a cold if you have to sit in a wet t-shirt all day.

  I walked into the classroom and for once I wasn’t late. Mrs Farmer wasn’t even there yet. Sunya was at our table, drawing a picture. She had ink all over her left hand and on the tip of her nose. I wanted to talk to her but Dad had given me a lift and had said Have a good day. It seemed mean to talk to a Muslim when he was trying to be nice.

  It started off as a whisper. But then more people joined in, saying it over and over, getting louder and louder, banging their hands on the tables. Thief. Thief. Thief thief thief. Daniel was standing in the middle of the group, conducting all the chanters. I looked at Sunya, willing her to come to my rescue. A red felt-tip pen went back and forwards, back and forwards. She didn’t even look up.

  Mrs Farmer walked into the classroom. Even though the chanting stopped straightaway, she must have heard it down the corridor. I waited for her to tell them off but she just looked at me like I deserved it. She asked for a volunteer to fetch the register and Daniel’s hand was first in the air. She smiled at him and his face swelled. Daniel’s angel hopped onto cloud six.

  At playtime the rain was so bad we had to stay inside. I wasted five minutes sitting on the toilet, three minutes looking at the art displays in the corridor and four minutes pretending to have a headache. The school nurse sent me away with a wet paper towel on my forehead. I was only in the classroom for two minutes before Mrs Farmer came back from the staffroom. Long enough for the chanting to start, too short for it to get really bad.

  The windows stopped rattling halfway through History. Rain turned to drizzle. I tried to concentrate on The Victorians but it was hard and I didn’t do my best writing like Mrs Farmer said. I described the life of a chimney sweep but I only wrote three sentences ’cos I was worried that if we were sent outside at lunchtime, I would get my head kicked in.

  The fat dinner lady with the whistle came into our classroom at the end of the lesson. She said You’re allowed in the playground and everyone cheered apart from me.

  It started as soon as I got outside. They ran at full speed and swarmed around me and I suddenly knew why Granny says circles can be vicious. Every time I tried to push my way out, a pair of hands shoved me back in. They stamped their feet. They clapped their hands. The chant was louder than ever before. I looked around for the dinner lady. She was at the other side of the playground, shouting at some boys for going on the wet grass. I looked around for Sunya and saw a white scarf bounce up the stairs. It disappeared through a door near our classroom. She had gone.

  My fingers found my ears. I screwed up my eyes. The t-shirt felt dead big and the sleeves flapped around my arms. I wasn’t brave. And I wasn’t Spider-Man. I was glad Mum couldn’t see me.

  Ryan lost interest first. He kicked my shin and said See you later, loser. He walked off and everyone followed and ten seconds later only Daniel was left. Everyone hates you he said and I stared at the ground. He stamped on my foot and spat in my face, hissing Get out of our school and go back t
o London. I wished I could. I wished I could leave at that very moment and trust that Mum would be pleased to see me. Go back to London he said again, as if it was easy. Like I’d be welcome there.

  A girl with pigtails tapped Daniel on the shoulder. Mrs Farmer wants to see you in the classroom she said, sucking a pink lollipop. Why he asked. Didn’t say was the reply. He shrugged and walked off. I wiped the spit off my face. It was over. I sat on a bench and tried to stop shaking. Daniel asked the fat dinner lady if he could go inside. She nodded. I watched him climb up the stairs and disappear through the door.

  After lunch Mrs Farmer made us sit on the carpet. My body ached but I tried not to show it in my face. Sunya sat down last and her eyes were even brighter than usual. Even though I was right at the back, she climbed over the legs of everybody else and plonked herself next to me. She grinned but I didn’t know why. Four hairs had come loose from her headscarf and she twisted them around her red, inky fingers.

  Some number puzzles appeared on the interactive whiteboard. I stared at Daniel. He didn’t seem upset so he couldn’t have been in trouble with Mrs Farmer. When Maisie answered a difficult question, Mrs Farmer walked over to the display above her desk. Sunya’s fingers stopped moving. She seemed to be holding her breath. Excellent work, Maisie said Mrs Farmer, reaching for her angel. You are one step closer to— Mrs Farmer gasped. Everyone jumped. Her hand hovered in mid-air. Her mouth hung wide open. Her eyes were glued to something on the wall.

  There, stuck in the bottom left corner of the display, were four red letters: HELL. And, in Hell, was a picture of the devil, labelled carefully in neat handwriting. Mrs Farmer.

  Who did this she said, her voice no more than a whisper. She couldn’t take her eyes off the devil. Neither could I. It was brilliant. It had spiky horns and evil eyes and a long tail. It was bright red apart from a brown circle on its pointy chin that looked suspiciously like a mole.

  Nobody spoke as Mrs Farmer hurried out of the room. Less than two minutes later, she was back with the fat dinner lady and the Headmaster all smart in his black suit and shiny shoes and silk tie. It must have happened at lunchtime Mrs Farmer said, blowing her nose hard. Did anyone leave the playground the Headmaster asked the dinner lady, glancing in my direction. The dinner lady fiddled with her necklace and looked at all of our faces. Sunya’s arm trembled slightly. The dinner lady nodded. He did, Headmaster. She pointed directly at Daniel.

  Come with me, young man the Headmaster said, but Daniel didn’t move. Mrs Farmer asked to see me Daniel protested, going pale. That’s why I came inside. The Headmaster asked Mrs Farmer if it was true. She shook her head. Ask him Daniel exploded, flinging his hand in my direction. Jamie was there when it happened. It was only a tiny movement, a nudge of Sunya’s elbow, but I understood at once. Daniel’s voice was pleading now. He was scared. Tell them, Jamie. Tell them what that girl with the pigtails said. For the first time that day, I looked him straight in the eye. Sorry, Daniel. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Mrs Farmer was too upset to teach us so the fat dinner lady read us some stories instead. When it was time to go home, everyone raced out of the classroom, all except Sunya. I wanted to say something but I didn’t know where to begin. So I just opened my pencil case and made sure my pens were all facing the same way. When I had nothing left to do, I looked up to find Sunya watching me, licking a pink lollipop. It was identical to the one the girl had been sucking when she’d told Daniel to go inside. Bribery Sunya shrugged, as if her idea had been simple rather than the number one best plan in the entire world and probably the universe, which Mrs Farmer says goes on and on forever without stopping.

  I nodded and my head spun and I felt scared and giddy all at the same time, like you do when you’re about to get on a rollercoaster. Sunya reached into her pocket and pulled out two Blu-Tack rings. One of them had a brown stone stuck in the middle. The other had a white stone. Without speaking, she walked over to me, her sparkling eyes like spotlights on my face. Then she pushed the brown ring onto her middle finger and handed me the white one, her face all serious. I paused for about a millisecond, then shoved it on my finger.

  THE LEAVES IN the puddles look like dead goldfish. And all the green has turned brown and purple, as if the hills have got bruises. I like the world this way. Summer’s a bit too bright for me. A bit too happy. Flowers dancing and birds singing like nature’s having a big party. Autumn’s better. Everything’s a bit more droopy and you don’t feel left out of all the fun.

  It’s almost the end of October, which is just about my favourite time of year. Of all the festivals like Christmas and Easter, Halloween is my best. I love dressing up and I love getting sweets and I’m quite good at playing tricks. Mum didn’t let me buy any tricks when I was little so I had to invent my own. She said Everyone will give you a treat and no one will ask for a trick, which was the biggest lie she ever told apart from the one about Dad. On the third anniversary of Rose’s death, Dad got drunk and had a go at Mum. Same stuff as always about Trafalgar Square and pigeons and how if she’d been stricter then it might never have happened. Mum was painting in the kitchen but she couldn’t see the colours through the tears in her eyes. She’d painted a heart jet black by mistake. I pointed it out and I got a brush and went round the outline in brightest red. Are you and Dad breaking up I asked when I had finished. Mum sniffed. We’re already broken she muttered. I dropped my brush into the sink. Is that a no I said, just to be sure, and Mum paused then nodded. So that was the biggest lie, but the one about Halloween was almost as bad ’cos it meant I wasn’t prepared and it was embarrassing.

  When the scary neighbour with the bulldog said Trick, I didn’t know what to do. He said Are you deaf and I shook my head and he said Do a trick then. So I asked him to close his eyes and I just pinched his arm. He said the f-word and the bulldog barked as I ran away. I didn’t dare go to any more houses that year in case the same thing happened again. But the year after that I didn’t want to miss out on all the sweets so I made up some tricks of my own.

  This Halloween’s going to be better than ever. Sunya’s got more imagination than the most imaginative person I can think of, which right now is Willy Wonka. I still can’t get over that trick with the devil. No one ever found out it was her and Daniel was suspended for three days. His angel was taken off the display and put in the recycling box.

  I didn’t know Muslims celebrated Halloween. I said to Sunya I thought it was a Christian thing. And she started to laugh and the thing about Sunya is, once she starts, she just can’t stop, and it makes you laugh too. So there we were, sitting on our bench in the playground, laughing our heads off, and I had no idea what was funny. She said Halloween is a British tradition and it has nothing to do with being a Christian. I almost said Why do you celebrate it then ’cos I always forget that she was born in England.

  We meet again, Spider-Man she said. And I replied How many people have you saved today, Girl M. She pretended to count on her fingers. Nine hundred and thirty-seven she shrugged. It’s been a quiet day. We started to giggle. How about you, Spider-Man. I scratched my head. Eight hundred and thirteen I said. But I started late and finished early. We exploded into laughter. We do the same joke every single day and it never ever gets boring.

  It felt strange seeing Sunya outside school at the weekend. She was sitting under a conker tree with a white blanket by her side and a plastic bag in her hands. Before I sat down next to her, I peered into the trees. They looked orange and shrivelled, like old men after too long in the sun. Dad had gone out to buy alcohol nowhere near the woods, but I was still nervous.

  I almost hadn’t come. It is one thing to be friends with a Muslim in school and another to meet up with one at the weekend. Sunya asked me to go trick-or-treating and I said yes without worrying about Dad. All I could think about was how many sweets we would get, and what tricks we could play, and how it’d be so much better than all the other Halloweens in London ’cos this time I wouldn’t be on my own. But t
his morning when I stole some bandages to dress up like a mummy, I felt guilty. We ate our cereal in front of the TV and a lady with the same skin colour as Sunya read out the news. Dad said Bloody Paki on the BBC like it was a bad thing. She might not be from Pakistan I replied, before I could stop myself. Jas’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her pink fringe. Dad switched channel. A cartoon came on. What did you say. His voice was calm but his knuckles went white as he squeezed the remote. I coughed. What did you say, James. Jas pulled a finger across her lips, telling me to shut up. Even though she wasn’t wearing her white make-up, her face had gone pale. Nothing I said. Dad nodded. Thought not he said and he gave the urn a little nod.

  It was a relief when Sunya put the blanket over her head. She’d cut holes for her eyes and a long sausage shape for her mouth and you couldn’t see any of her skin through the gaps. Cool costume I said and she replied You too. Mine was a bit weird as I’d run out of bandages and had to use pink toilet paper instead. I said I just hope it doesn’t rain and she giggled Or you’ll get flushed away.

  Three hours later, we’d done every single house we could find and had two bulging bags of sweets. We sat under the conker tree to eat our stuff. Everything looked black apart from the sky, which glittered with a million stars. They looked like tiny candles and for a millisecond I wondered if they’d all been lit for me and Sunya and our special Halloween picnic. My sides ached from laughing too much and it had probably been the best day of my life. I wanted to tell Sunya but I was scared she’d think I was soft so I just said That man and we collapsed all over again. He’d been the last person to say Trick and I’d pulled the water pistol out from behind my back. The man had ducked but of course nothing came out. This was what Sunya called the decoy, which means it distracted him while she did the real trick. She threw a stinkbomb into his house. The man didn’t see it ’cos his eyes were closed, waiting for the water. Then Sunya yelled Got ya and the man closed the door in our faces but we didn’t leave. We tiptoed to his lounge window and watched him sit on his sofa. One minute later, his nose wrinkled. Ten seconds after that, he tipped back his head and sniffed the air. Ten seconds after that, he looked at the bottom of his shoes as if he was worried he’d stepped in dog pooh. Sunya put her hand over my lips ’cos I was laughing too loud and, even though her fingers were freezing, my mouth seemed to burn.