Girls Heart Christmas

by Jo Cotterill

  “What shall we do with these?” I asked. “The bin?”

  “No! They could still talk to us from there, couldn’t they?”

  I nodded. “The rubbish collection’s not till after New Year. Mum’s been moaning about it.”

  “I might visit again before that.”

  I hoped so. “It’s too risky,” I agreed. “I know...”

  “Yes, how about...”

  We both had the idea at exactly the same time.

  “The freezer!” we chorused.

  We found a space for them both right at the back, hidden behind a bag of oven chips. They couldn’t cause any more trouble there.

  At least, unless anyone ever defrosted them.

  Red Sauce and Brown Sauce

  by Jo Cotterill

  “She gets you to do everything,” Kaydee says. “You’re not her slave.”

  I put the plates carefully in the dishwasher. “I don’t mind,” I say. “I like helping.”

  My sister Kaydee is sixteen. She doesn’t do any chores. She says she’s a Rebel. Mum says she’s a Pain.

  Kaydee has long brown hair. She is beautiful. I am not beautiful like her. My face is round and my eyes are a bit wobbly and sometimes my tongue pokes out of my mouth when I forget about it. It’s a Downs Syndrome thing; really annoying. Mum says, “Darby!” in that special voice, and Kaydee says, “Oh, leave her alone, she can’t help it.”

  I love my sister more than anything in the world. Even more than red sauce and brown sauce mixed together.

  Kaydee has her friend Lissa staying for Christmas. Lissa has very short hair which is dyed purple. Kaydee wants her hair like that too but I don’t think she’s brave enough. Lissa isn’t with her parents for Christmas because her dad’s in prison for stealing money, and her mum works all the time, even on Christmas Day. Lissa says she gets really lonely and bored at home, so she comes round here a lot.

  I like Lissa but not completely all-liking. Lissa once made fun of me and Kaydee got really angry. “She’s not stupid!” she yelled at Lissa. “She’s just different. Special. Don’t mock her, or we can’t be friends.”

  See? That’s why I love my sister.

  I do wish that Lissa wasn’t here on Christmas Day though. She stays over the night before, and in the morning she’s there when I open my stocking. It makes me feel a bit strange that she’s sharing our family moment. Kaydee decided two years ago that she was too old for a stocking. Now she helps Mum to get presents for mine, so I end up with much cooler stuff than when Mum did it by herself. I like to pretend that Father Christmas brought it still. I know he doesn’t, because how could one man get round all the children in the world on one night? So it’s OK that Mum and Kaydee do mine because it gives Father Christmas more time to go to the other children.

  “Oh wow, a new pencil case!” I feel the shiny silver sequins with my fingers. “It’s beautiful! And some new pens too.” Drawing and colouring are two of my favourite things to do. I spend hours colouring patterns.

  Mum smiles at me. She’s thirty-five, but she looks younger. She looks like Kaydee’s older sister. Sometimes men tell her that when we’re all out together. She smiles in a funny way at them and blinks a lot. She has long brown hair and beautiful big eyes like a Disney Princess. She’s teaching me how to do makeup on my eyes just like hers. “Almost like Father Christmas knows you,” she says, and then yawns, pushing her fingers into her hair. “Coffee. Where is coffee?” She goes off to the kitchen.

  “When do we get to open our presents?” asks Lissa, turning away from me and my little pile of shiny parcels. I think maybe she is bored.

  “Now!” says Kaydee. “Open mine, open mine!” She hands over a big square box.

  I try to feel excited about my own stocking presents, but I can’t help watching Kaydee as she watches Lissa. Her eyes are bright and excited, and she really REALLY wants Lissa to open her present, I can tell. Lissa pulls at the wrapping paper, ripping it. I wish she wouldn’t. I like to take off paper very carefully so I can use it to make collages.

  Inside the box is another box, wedged in with tissue paper. Inside that box is a smaller box. Lissa looks at Kaydee. “Is there going to be nothing by the time I get to the middle?” She says it with a smile but I’m not sure she’s happy. I think it’s really exciting, a box within a box within a box. Like pass the parcel, only you can open all the layers yourself.

  Kaydee smiles back at her, and her eyes go big and soft. “Wait and see,” she says.

  Inside the seventh box (I am counting), there is a necklace. It’s silver, with a heart pendant hanging from it. On the heart is a tiny word. It says “Love”.

  I think it’s beautiful.

  Lissa doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Don’t you like it?” I ask anxiously. I will feel so very bad for Kaydee if Lissa doesn’t like her present. It’s an awful feeling when you give someone something they don’t want.

  Then Lissa’s eyes go shiny and I know she wants to cry, and that confuses me because are they happy tears or sad ones? “I love it,” she whispers, and I smile. Kaydee helps her put the necklace on, and they have a very long hug. I want to join in because I love hugs, but I don’t think this is the kind of hug you can add to. It’s a two-person hug.

  Mum comes back in with her coffee. “You haven’t got very far,” she says. “Only one present opened?”

  “The best one,” says Lissa, and Kaydee gives a funny kind of laugh and her face goes red.

  “Where are my presents then?” demands Mum, though I know she means it in a friendly way because she smiles when she says it.

  After twenty minutes, we’ve opened everything. It doesn’t take long when your family isn’t all that big. Dad has sent me a ten pound note, and Kaydee’s dad has sent a really pretty notebook with roses on. She doesn’t like it though, so she gives it to me.

  “What’s on the TV?” asks Mum, grabbing the remote.

  “Can I have chocolate for breakfast?” I ask her, looking at the big chocolate Santa that Kaydee bought me.

  She laughs. “Go on then. Just this once. But don’t make yourself sick.”

  “We’re going up to my room,” announces Kaydee, and she and Lissa vanish. I feel disappointed that they’ve gone. I miss Kaydee when she’s not in the same room as me. But Lissa is her friend, and I know I have to share her. So I sit next to Mum on the sofa and eat my chocolate Santa while we watch Aladdin.

  After a while, I realise that Mum is snoring. And I also realise that I do feel a little bit sick from all the chocolate. I get up very quietly from the sofa and go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. That helps, and I think maybe it’s time to get out of my pyjamas and put some proper clothes on. I want to wear my best dress that I’m only allowed on special days.

  As I go upstairs, I hear whispering and giggling from Kaydee’s room. They sound like they’re having fun. I feel sad and left out. I go to my room and get changed, but I don’t feel excited about wearing my special dress any more. Instead, I wish it could be the way Christmas has always been before. Just Kaydee, mum and me. With cartoons and hugs and hot chocolate.

  But maybe I’m just being silly? Sometimes I find it hard to join in, and Kaydee always tells me I need more confidence. “Just go ahead,” she says. “You have to change people’s minds. You’re a good person. You can show everyone they’re wrong to judge a person by what’s on the outside. If you want to have fun with people, you have to go to them. Ask them if you can join in. Don’t just sit around waiting to be asked.”

  Right, I think. This is one of those times. I straighten my dress and brush my hair. I look at myself in the mirror and make sure my tongue isn’t sticking out. Then I go to Kaydee’s room.

  The door is shut, so I turn the handle and push it open. “Hello,” I say, but then I stop.

  It’s so quick that for a moment I don’t think I’ve seen it properly. Sometimes I imagine things. I wonder if I’ve imagined this too. Kaydee and Lissa had their heads together and it loo
ked like – for that short second – they were kissing. But that’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t kiss any of my friends at school. And Lissa’s not a boy, so why would Kaydee kiss her on the mouth?

  “Darby,” says Kaydee in a sharp voice, and I blink. “You can’t just come in without knocking.”

  Lissa looks very cross. Her eyes have narrowed and her face is red. “Get out!” she says to me.

  I did the joining-in wrong, though I’m not sure how. My throat hurts and my eyes feel watery. I close the door quickly and go back to my room.

  I sit on my bed and hold my own hands tightly. After a few minutes, Kaydee comes in. She sits next to me. “Darby,” she says in a normal voice, “I’m sorry we upset you. You gave us a shock.”

  “Were you kissing?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “Lissa is a special friend. I don’t expect you to understand.” Then she stops talking again.

  I’m not sure what to say. Everything seems very confusing. “Don’t you want to be my special friend any more?” I ask in a very small voice.

  Kaydee’s face changes. “Of course I do!” She puts an arm around me. “Darby, you’re my sister, and I love you more than anything. You’ll always be special to me. Always.”

  I feel a bit better.

  “But people can love lots of people in different ways,” Kaydee goes on. “I love you one way, and I love Mum another way, and I love Lissa too, in a different way again.”

  “In a boyfriend way?” I ask.

  “In a girlfriend way,” says Kaydee, and then she giggles.

  “Isn’t that weird?” I ask, puzzled.

  “No, not for me.” Then Kaydee looks right at me and her eyes have gone kind of creased and worried. “Are you OK about it?”

  I’m not sure what to say. Because I still think it’s odd, but Kaydee is my sister, and if it’s not weird for her, then I can make it not weird for me too. “Are you happy?” I ask, thinking it’s a grown-up kind of question.

  She nods. “Very.”

  “That’s OK then. And you love me?” I am still a bit worried about this part.

  She gives me a proper hug this time, and kisses me on the cheek. “I do love you, Darby. Lots and lots and to the moon and back.”

  That makes me smile. “I love you too, Kaydee. Is Lissa angry with me?”

  “No,” comes a voice from the doorway. Lissa is standing there. She looks kind of sad and happy at the same time. “I’m not angry with you.” She pauses for a moment, and then she says, “I wish I had a family like yours.”

  I say, “We are very lucky.”

  “Yeah. And Kaydee is pretty awesome.”

  Kaydee says, “Oh no, I’m not really,” but she looks pleased.

  “Yes you are,” I say. “Lissa and I think the same on that.” I look at Lissa and smile, and she smiles back.

  Then my tummy gives a BIG gurgle, and Kaydee and Lissa laugh. “Are you hungry?” asks Kaydee.

  “Actually, I feel a bit sick,” I say. “I ate too much chocolate.”

  Kaydee jumps away from me. “Darby! You are gross! Well, I’m totally going downstairs to make bacon sandwiches.”

  All of a sudden, I don’t feel sick any more. “Can I have one? With red sauce and brown sauce?”

  “Yes. As long as you don’t puke.”

  “I won’t puke.”

  “Red sauce and brown sauce?” asks Lissa. “Together? Is that nice?”

  I nod. “I invented it. It’s the best.”

  “I’ll have to try it then.”

  Maybe Christmas with extra people isn’t too bad after all. If they’re people who love us and we love them back.

  I stand up, straighten my dress and brush my hair again. Then I look in the mirror to check my tongue isn’t sticking out.

  “You look great, Darby,” says Kaydee, and she holds out a hand to me and a hand to Lissa.

  Then all three of us go downstairs.

  Out of the Shadows

  by Joan Lennon

  I’m Kerry Om, Apprentice Weather Witch. What’s a weather witch? Well, about a gazillion years ago, on Terra 1, there were these women who could look at the sky and guess whether it was going to rain or snow or be just fine. People liked knowing this stuff – but didn’t always like the women. People got confused between predicting the weather and making the weather. So if it rained when they didn’t want it to, they got mad at the women. They said they had the evil eye.

  (Which is a bit weird, because modern weather witches actually do make the weather and we have special – not evil, just special! – eye implants. They let us see light in a different way. And, without trying to sound all boast-y, if it weren’t for us and our special eyes, there’d be no successful terra-forming anywhere in the galaxy and a whole lot of colonists wouldn’t have anywhere to live!)

  Anyway, I'm Kerry and that day I was heading off on my very first job. Not just helping my mum this time. Me - Apprentice Weather Witch Kerry Om - with a Sure-I-can-do-that! look stuck on my face and a voice yelling Help! in my head!

  The Director on Terra 326 had been really insistent.

  “I don’t care how busy you are,” he’d blustered over the link. “If you don’t get a witch out to me double quick there’s no way we’re going to reach cascade.”

  Which didn’t make any sense. Cascade is when the rain system really takes off – first there’s the clouds we seed with special bacteria for the raindrops to form around – then the rain falls – then the rain collects on the ground as surface water that evaporates into the air to make more clouds – everybody in the galaxy knows the drill. Terra 326 had already been properly set up by a witch – vats built, bacteria culture started, shooters installed – what could possibly have gone wrong?

  “It’ll be something really simple,” my mum said. “Just the job for an apprentice.” And she winked at me.

  “You’re probably right,” our Department Head said. “And I haven’t got anybody fully qualified to spare. Don’t worry, Kerry, I’m sure you’ll have it sorted and be home again for Christmas!”

  "Home for Christmas," I agreed, and if my voice sounded a bit quavery, nobody seemed to notice.

  “Meantime," said my mum, "tell them to Keep Calm and Kerry Om!” My mum’s jokes are so bad sometimes you just have to laugh. Or groan.

  *

  The space port was attached to a living dome. Inside the dome, there was a humidifying system running at full blast. Outside, in the ferociously dry atmosphere of Terra 326, humans needed water-vapour masks just to be able to breathe.

  It was night when I arrived but the Director, a twitchy little man who didn’t seem all that pleased to see an apprentice instead of a fully-fledged witch, insisted we go out to the vats in the desert right away.

  “I’ll keep you safe, Kerry Om - don’t you worry.”

  Safe from what? I wondered. This was an uninhabited world with no dangerous animals – too dry for anything to live here, at least until we got the rain cycle up and running. Then why was he so jumpy?

  And why does people telling you not to worry make you worry more?

  The dome was just big enough to hold the colonists' living pods and not much else. A few people had put up some half-hearted Christmas decorations, but there was no getting around it - it was a cramped, dreary place.

  I put on my mask and followed the Director out into the desert night. It was dry all right. I could feel the sweat wicking off my forehead like the air was a sponge.

  The Director seemed pretty nervous for a guy on a world with no dangers. I was just about to ask him what his trouble was, when I got at least part of the answer.

  Something had gone badly pear-shaped with the vats. Even through the mask I could smell it. I switched on my optical implant. The light coming off the vats was all wrong. But before I had time to get a good look, the Director let out a yell that made me jump like a Martian kangaroo.

  There was a body lying on the sand.

  “Not again!” moaned
the Director.

  Again?!

  Just as I switched back to normal sight I thought I saw something moving in the shadows, out on the dunes, but there wasn’t time to worry about that. The guy on the ground was starting to come round.

  “What happened? Who hit you?” demanded the Director.

  “Are you all right?” I said, thinking this should have been the Director’s first question.

  The guy was okay, except for a bit of concussion that the docbot fixed up once we got him back inside the dome. He hadn’t seen anyone but …

  “I don’t know, Boss, but just before I got conked I thought I heard something, like something sighing or whispering, you know?”

  “Like a … like a ghost?” the Director said. A grown man!

  “Rest now,” intoned the docbot, so we left the guy in peace on the med bed.

  “Director, what’s all this about ghosts?” I asked. This planet was getting on my nerves big time.

  “What? Where?!” He spun round, and then gave me a sick grin. “Sorry, sorry. Of course it’s all just nonsense. It’s this place ... Ever since the witch before you left - the one who set the vats up - there have been the strangest things going on – weird whispering sounds – the sand moving even when there was no wind – there was this uncanny feeling that we were being watched, but no matter how quickly we turned around, there was no one to be seen. The colonists have got so spooked they’re afraid to leave the dome. Things started to go wrong for no reason at all. So I assigned guards – and now it’s not even safe for them! That’s the third this week who’s been attacked, not to mention the way the bacteria in the vats keeps spoiling.” He shook his head. “If I can’t get this blinking ghost to leave us alone, I’m going to have to resign and go back to Terra 1. Though of course there’s no such thing as ghosts …” He went Ha-ha, but it wasn't anything like a proper laugh.