by Suzi Moore
After the swim, we stayed up really late and I laughed so much that my stomach kind of hurt, and in the end David had to come outside and tell us to be quiet. I don’t know which one of the girls was snoring, but it sounded a bit like a baby pig and I was having the best dream ever when a noise woke me up. It sounded like crunching or chomping and my heart almost stopped when a large black shadow passed by the tent. At first I didn’t move, hoping that the thing had been a dream, but the chomping noise started again and this time it woke Alice up. Just as she opened her eyes, the big black shadow moved past the other side of the tent.
‘Oh my God, Alice,’ I whispered, ‘what the hell is that?’
But Alice smiled. ‘Shh,’ she said, holding a finger to her lips and climbing carefully over Lexi’s feet to the end of the tent. ‘Don’t be scared.’
I felt my heartbeat get faster and faster as Alice slowly unzipped the tent.
‘Be very still and as quiet as quiet can be,’ she whispered into my ear. We inched closer to the gap and saw the moonlit garden as bright as before, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then we heard it again. Chomp, chomp, chomp. I looked back at Alice with worried eyes, but she edged closer to the gap, tugged on my T-shirt and pointed. I leaned closer and turned my head so that I was half in and half out of the tent. My eyes scanned the wall, the roses, and then it came into view.
‘Wow!’ I gasped. ‘Wow.’
Outside there was a baby deer! I watched the young stag lean into a rose bush and bite off one of the flowers.
‘They love roses,’ Alice whispered.
We watched it for ages, eating rose after rose, until it was as though it felt us watching and it slowly turned to face us. It tilted its head to one side and the moonlight lit up its antlers so that I could see they had a sort of fur that kind of sparked in the light on them. I looked back at Alice and smiled, and the stag walked right past us, so close I could almost reach out and touch its fur.
‘It’s called velvet,’ she said.
It made a little snuffling noise as it went past us and I watched in amazement as it leapt silently over the wall and disappeared.
The day George and I went up in his little plane it felt completely different, but it was like Dad was with me the whole time. The rain started in October and it didn’t really stop. The snow came in December and the roads were so icy that even Otter sort of skidded across the little stone bridge. When Mum and I are out all day, Pippa comes over to stroke his ears and give him some food. He’s already chewed my new guitar, but I don’t mind.
I know that I’ve only been at the new school for a little bit, but it’s kind of good and, even though I’ve made loads of new friends, I still can’t wait for the next holiday. I especially can’t wait for it to be summer. I can’t wait for us all to be together again. I can’t wait to go back to Culver Manor and the secret beach that lies beyond the garden door.
Epilogue
I was ten years old when I flew across the Irish Sea for the first time. I was twelve years old when I flew across the English Channel, landing safely and in time for dinner. I was thirteen years old when I was flown in a bigger plane across the Atlantic and the landing that time was pretty hairy, but I loved it anyway. I love each take-off. I love the feeling as I fly above the ocean. Each trip makes me feel closer to somewhere new and unexplored. It always feels like I’m the first person to see the shore, as though it’s me that has discovered a new land for the very first time. Each time I plan a new trip, it’s the beginning of an adventure. Each time I leave, it’s exciting. It’s both exciting and completely terrifying, but I love it.
I’m fifteen years old today and if I make it down safely I’ll be the youngest person to have ever circumnavigated the globe twice all by myself. If I make it before six pm, I may even break the record. I’ve had a lot of luck on this flight. The weather has been just perfect. On the cockpit there’s a good-luck charm that’s made of tiny pink and white shells. ‘Keep them close,’ she’d said to me and I had kept them close for three months straight. They’ve never left my sight.
In my pocket is an unopened letter that burns a hole in my chest. ‘Don’t open it until you land in Sydney. Don’t you dare read it until you get there in one piece,’ I’d been told. ‘Promise me you won’t read it until you’ve made it there safely?’ I had nodded and crossed my heart, tucking the small white envelope into my inside pocket.
I’m circling the runway now. I can see the valley below and all I have to do is land her. ‘Straight down the middle,’ that’s what George says, and as I drop down lower I have the sensation of a victory. I’ve nearly done it. I feel myself get lighter and lighter as I steer her closer to the ground. Straight down the middle. I close my eyes with a smile as the wheels screech upon the tarmac. I feel my racing heartbeat begin to slow down as I turn the nose of the plane to face the towers. I’ve made it.
I turn the roaring engines off and I can see them all running out to greet me. Cameras are flashing, people are cheering, but I haven’t seen her face. As I wait for her to come into view, I reach into my pocket and pull out the small white envelope. I look down at the familiar handwriting and tear it open quickly. I hear the voices getting closer, they’re shouting out my name, and carefully I unfold the letter. I read the words not once, but twice and I understand. I trace my fingertip along the looping letters and I smile. I read the words once more, my throat tightens and a tear falls upon the paper. Just six words.
You tiger, me moth. Love Zack
And, as I step out of the plane into a wall of heat, I see her racing up the runway to greet me. I push away the crowds of shouting people and I open up my arms. There she is. There’s my little sister.
There’s Rebecca.
Acknowledgments
Super special thanks to my amazing friends Rebecca Winters, Nicola Kerry and Alexandra Hemming. You are acefabbrill times eleventy million.
Thanks to my first editor Emma Blackburn who started everything.
Thank you Alan for once again steering me in the right direction. Thank you Roisin Doherty for helping me chose some very important details for this story. Thank you Luke Aaron Moore for helping me with Zack and for being rather hilarious. Thank you Ellie Ryhmer for looking after my boy so I could write more werds.
Thank you Sophie and Jane for your bestest brilliantest help.
My sister died on March the first which was really annoying because it was my birthday.
It was our birthday. Laura was my identical twin.
It happened very quickly and the doctor said, ‘It didn’t hurt.’ I said, ‘At least she got to open all her presents first.’ Mum didn’t think that was funny. I told her that I wasn’t trying to be funny, but I thought that, if it had been me, if I had choked on a slice of birthday cake, if it had been my very last birthday ever, I would have at least liked to have opened my presents first.
But, that doesn’t really matter now, because I don’t like birthdays any more.
I don’t like Christmas any more either. We’ve had one Christmas without Laura and my mum was miserable. She cries a lot now. My parents argue a lot and my little brother, Rory, talks to the wallpaper.
Sometimes, I hear my parents shouting late at night and once I heard my mum say, ‘Emma [that’s me by the way] looks so like Laura that some days I find it hard to look at her. Sometimes, I think I’m looking at a ghost.’
The morning after that I went into the bathroom and, using the sharpest pair of scissors I could find, I cut off all my hair. All of it. But I couldn’t reach the back so I was left with two dark brown tufts. I thought they looked a bit like mouse ears, so with a black felt tip I drew a black nose and six whiskers on my face. I showed Rory and he laughed so loud that Mum came into the bathroom to see what we were doing.
MUM: Oh my God! What have you done?
I wriggled my nose and smiled.
ME: Squeak! Squeak!
Rory was still laughing.
RORY: I wanna be a mouse too, Mummy
! Can I? Can I? Please?
But Mum just cried and cried.
ME: What’s wrong? Do I still look like a ghost?
So this year I’m changing my birthday. I’ve decided that from now on I’ll have my birthday on a different day in a different month. This year I will have a happy birthday. Mum won’t cry and I’ll have a proper birthday cake, not another weird sorbet cake, like the one we had to have for Rory’s birthday. Apparently, you can’t choke on sorbet and pretending to choke on it is ‘not very funny at all’.
If I want to change my birthday the first thing I’ll have to do is ask my parents. No, I won’t ask them, I’ll just tell them.
At breakfast
ME: I’m changing my birthday from the first of March.
DAD: Oh really? Are you going to change your name as well?
ME: Yes. You can call me . . . Supreme Lord Ruler of the World.
DAD: So, Supreme Lord Ruler of the World, when do you want your birthday to be? November?
ME: No. Too close to Christmas.
DAD: August?
ME: Too hot and besides everyone is on holiday in August.
DAD: Everyone? And why does that matter anyway?
ME: Duh! A party is pretty dull if it’s just you and a balloon, Dad.
DAD: I see, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with the amount of presents, would it?
ME: Erm . . .
DAD: Friendships should be about more than what your friends can give you.
ME: But what about what you said last Saturday night? Mr Henderson brought you a bottle of wine and you said you wouldn’t clean the dog’s bowl with it.
DAD: I said that?!
ME: Very loudly, or so Greta says. Greta the Great. Thanks for that, what I really needed was to upset the popular girl at school’s dad.
DAD: But you didn’t say anything! It was me!
ME: Dad, in my world, what you do is what I do. If you’re mean about someone else’s Dad . . . well, I might as well have jumped on the lunch table in a tutu and told the entire school that I still play with Barbie.
DAD: Oh.
So, I’m having my birthday on a different day this year but I just haven’t decided when. I’m looking for a sign.
I’ve already ruled out November, December and August. I can’t have it in May because that’s my mum’s birthday month, June is Grandma’s, October is Rory’s, January is Grandpa’s, February is Aunt Shelly’s and my dad’s birthday is in September. Which, only leaves April and July. It’s the middle of February now, so I’ve got time to decide, and if I can’t decide by the end of March I’ll toss a coin instead.
At bedtime
MUM: I hear you’re changing your birthday.
ME: Old news.
MUM: Soon you’ll be telling me you want a new name too.
ME: No. But I know what I want for my birthday.
MUM: What?
ME: New parents.
I’ve made up my mind. My mum says that when I’ve made up my mind about something, nothing will ever make me change it again. Sometimes she’ll laugh and say, ‘You’re just like your father. You’re as stubborn as a mule.’ But I don’t mind. I like it when she says I’m like my dad, because even though you are not supposed to have favourites, I think my dad really is my favourite.
Anyway, I have made my mind up and my new birthday is going to be on July the fifth. Well, I only had two months to choose from. July the fifth it is.
In the car
DAD: Why the fifth?
ME: Er . . . because my name begins with E and E is the fifth letter in the alphabet.
DAD: Oh.
He looked very disappointed and said that it was ‘a very unimaginative explanation’.
I didn’t want to tell him that the number five was Laura’s lucky number.
I didn’t want to tell him that sometimes if we were sharing a bag of sweets, Laura would count them out and even if it meant I got more than her, she would always just count out five for herself. Five Skittles, five Maltesers, five Haribos.
Always five.
July the fifth it is. I’ve circled it on my calendar. Mum doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve changed the date on mine and Laura’s birth certificates too. I figured if I was having a new birthday then Laura would want one too.
Last night I couldn’t sleep. The bed felt lumpy and my eyes just wouldn’t stay shut. Maybe it was because Mum didn’t come in and say goodnight. She was in another mood. ‘Dark times’ my dad calls it. Well, I wish he’d switch the light on.
I lay there for a long time trying to decide if Greta was right about my haircut. She’d told me at school that even though some of it has grown back, I still look a bit like Shaggy from Scooby Doo and I told her that, if we were talking about cartoon characters, she looked a lot like Marge Simpson. I didn’t mean to make her cry but everyone said I was being nasty and it wasn’t her fault that the swimming pool had turned her hair a funny shade of blue.
I had to spend the rest of the lunch-break sitting on my own, pretending to read a book while Greta and her friends sat by the fire escape staring at me and laughing. The more they laughed and pointed, the more I pretended that the book was the most amazing thing I had ever read – which wouldn’t have been so bad had it been the right way up. So I sat there staring at the upside-down pages of my brother’s library book and in the end decided that Rocky Robin and The Rabbits was much more interesting the wrong way up.
Anyway, I was trying to go to sleep and had just turned on to my stomach when I heard a rustle followed by a very familiar sigh. Then a voice.
VOICE: July? Why July?
I lay there completely still. Perhaps it was the telly. Perhaps my mum was talking on the phone. After a while I decided that I had imagined it and I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a little cough.
VOICE: Er, hello? Why July?
I felt my skin prickle and my heart beat a little faster; this time I knew I had not imagined it.
ME: Laura?
VOICE: Yes – Laura, who else would it be?
ME: Is that really you?
The voice went quiet. Perhaps I had been dreaming. Stupid me, I thought. Now I’m hearing voices.
VOICE: Sort of.