My Sister Rosa

by Justine Larbalestier

  Did I set a password?

  I have a vague memory of setting something easy so I won’t forget. I punch in 0000. The locker clicks open. Wow. Even for jetlagged me that is pretty bad. I’m amazed all my stuff is still there.

  At least the password panic has broken through the fuzz in my head. I cram my sweaty gear into my bag, put it back in the locker with the same code – why confuse myself further? – and head for the shower, grabbing a clean towel on the way. I turn it on without checking the temperature. Ice-cold water hits my head.

  It helps. Nothing like cold water pounding into your head.

  As I dress my phone buzzes.

  —Happy birthday! You awake?

  It’s Nazeem.

  I sit down to reply. I don’t trust myself to text and walk.

  —Thanks. It’s only afternoon here.

  —Right. But you’re jetlagged. Thought you might be napping.

  —I wish I was. Why you awake?

  —Couldn’t sleep. Gotta tell you something. It’s bugging me.

  —What?

  —Don’t get shitted.

  I wonder how I could get mad at him when I haven’t seen him in ages.

  —Why would I?

  —It’s not like I meant it to happen. But, you know, you’ve been away.

  Anger spills out of my fingers.

  —Yes. I do fucking know I’ve been away. Not like I wanted to leave.

  —Right. Yeah. Sorry. It’s Georgie.

  —What about her?

  —We’re, you know, together.

  I pause, bewildered. Why does Nazeem think that would upset me? My two favourite people going out with each other. Why would I be shitted?

  I realise I’m shitted. Why?

  —It wasn’t on purpose. You still there? Don’t be pissed. I know you used to like her.

  —When I was ten. She’s awesome; you’re not too foul. Just don’t convert her. Atheism rules!

  —Funny. You’re really okay with it?

  I’m not okay with it. All this stuff happening to them while I’m not there. I’m blindsided. Jason was probably telling them to get a room weeks ago. I didn’t get to tease them. Because I don’t know anything about their lives except what they remember to tell me. It fucking hurts.

  —I thought you might still like her.

  —As if.

  —Fucking fickle.

  —Well, see, now there are these hot NYC women.

  —Thought you didn’t want to be there. You said NYC’s a shithole.

  He’s mocking me all the way from Australia. Nazeem would never call anything a shithole sight unseen. He takes his time. Like with Georgie. He probably liked her for years before he let her know.

  —I was right too. It sucks here. But I haven’t gone blind. Anyways youse’ll probably be broken up by the time I get home.

  —You’re lucky I’m not there. I’d punch you.

  —I’m rolling my eyes. You? Punch me? I’m also laughing.

  Nazeem does not box. His thing is cricket.

  Nazeem texts a gif of a garish face sticking its tongue out at me. —Gotta go. Later.

  —Later.

  I feel like he’s punched me. I feel like they both did. Jason on the verge of a career I don’t want as a fighter, and Nazeem going out with Georgie, who I don’t want to go out with. I love the three of them. I’m happy for them. But I feel gutted.

  I don’t make any sense.

  But that’s how I feel. Forgotten in a city I didn’t want to move to with no friends and no support. Just me and my demonic younger sister and parents who have no idea what she is.

  Happy birthday, Che.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I get home wet through. The doorman has to let me into the building. David opens the door to our apartment and hands me a set of keys.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ he says.

  It’s still my birthday. The parentals haven’t given me a present unless these new keys are it. I try not to care.

  ‘You’re wet.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. You’re so observant. ‘Could you get me a towel?’

  I bend to get my wet shoes off.

  ‘Right,’ he says, disappearing into the downstairs bathroom, returning with a towel. ‘How was the gym?’

  ‘Excellent.’

  The crate has been opened. Its contents are disgorged across the living room.

  ‘Where’s Rosa?’

  ‘In her room. Sally’s setting up the office. I’ve finished getting the wifi up. Usual login. Much drama was involved. You’re welcome.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s great, David.’

  ‘I’ll get started on dinner soon. I’m aiming for seven.’

  I nod. Seven is two hours away. I’m hungry now. I take an apple and a handful of nuts.

  Rosa sits cross-legged on her bed reading a book on maths. Rosa loves numbers. She’s kind of a maths genius. She gets that from David. They can talk numbers and computers for hours.

  I’m not any kind of genius.

  Her computer is set up and her science and maths books are on the shelves. The US history books and novels the parentals decided we need to read in preparation for going to school here are in a stack behind the computer. Rosa will read cribs online for when the parentals quiz us on them.

  ‘What are you doing, Rosa?’ I ask, leaning against the doorway, popping the nuts into my mouth.

  ‘Reading. What are you doing, Che?’

  ‘Chewing, asking you what you’re doing. What are you reading about?’

  ‘Prime numbers.’

  Rosa can recite the first thousand primes, which is how I know the thousandth prime is 7919.

  ‘Sally and David are fighting.’

  ‘What about?’ I ask sarcastically. Rosa frequently makes that claim. I’ve rarely seen them fight.

  ‘About the McBrunights. David says we have to be nice to them.’

  ‘We should be nice to everyone.’

  ‘Yes, but everyone doesn’t pay for our plane flights and fancy apartment. David wants us to be super nice to them. Sally says they shouldn’t try too hard. That the McBrunights are their best friends. Do you ever wonder why we haven’t met them before?’

  I haven’t. The parentals have holidayed with them, but never with us kids. I figured it was because our school years were different.

  ‘I can’t wait to meet them,’ Rosa says. ‘I want to see what rich people look like.’

  ‘I’m sure they look pretty much the same as us.’

  ‘I’m going to study them. I want to be rich too.’

  ‘You study everyone,’ I say. The thought of a rich Rosa is horrifying.

  ‘I’ve never met any twins.’

  The McBrunights have three kids: Leilani, who’s about my age, and the twins, Maya and Seimone, who are a bit older than Rosa. ‘I’m sure they’re also pretty much like everyone else.’

  Rosa shakes her head. ‘I read that some twins have their own made-up language and they can read each others’ minds. If one twin is hurt and far away the other twin will know. Twins are always best friends.’

  ‘Sounds likely,’ I say, meaning the opposite.

  Rosa nods. She’s not good at sarcasm. ‘I wish I had telepathy. I wonder if they use it to mess with Leilani? I’ll ask them.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll tell you all about their twin superpowers.’

  ‘People always tell me interesting things.’

  This is true. Rosa likes to know more about other people than they know about her. Whenever she’s in a group of kids her age she becomes the leader. At first because other kids want her approval, want her to love them, because she’s dazzlingly pretty, because it’s such an impossible desire. But that love morphs into fear. She collects their stories, the things they don’t want anyone to know, then she lets those stories slip when they least want her to.

  Rosa has way too much charisma.

  Not everyone’s fooled. There’s always one or two kids who think there’s something off abou
t Rosa. But those kids are never popular.

  She starts at her new dance school soon. I try not to worry about it too much, because there’s little I can do.

  Papa pays for her dance lessons because Rosa complained it was unfair that I got to box. Why couldn’t she box? Papa said, Girls don’t box. Pick something else. She chose tap dance, which Papa approved. He likes girls to do things he deems to be girlie.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Che?’

  ‘The devil.’

  Rosa giggles. ‘There’s no such thing.’

  From the age of roughly two to three, Rosa was a monster.

  When her temper tantrums escalated to unbearable levels the parentals took her to the doctor, who referred her to an early childhood development specialist, which was when the tantrums stopped.

  I saw her become angry when thwarted. Often. But after those sessions there were no tantrums. Rosa learned they didn’t work. Instead of the parentals capitulating and giving her what she wanted they took her to doctors. Rosa did not like that kind of attention.

  After seeing the specialist a monstrous, rageful expression would pass over her face, but briefly. I would tense, waiting for her screams, but they wouldn’t come.

  No one else noticed those micro-expressions. She dropped tantrums from her armoury, and instead she lied and lied and lied.

  One time we were out for breakfast. Rosa was two and a half, sitting in a high chair, drinking a babyccino. David was charming the wait staff while Sally was buried in the weekend paper.

  I saw Rosa pinch her own forearm hard and reached across to stop her. She screamed and cried. ‘Che hurt Rosa,’ she blurted.

  My hand was on her arm, next to the large red mark.

  Sally pulled Rosa into her arms. She cried even louder.

  ‘What did you do, Che?’ David asked, as Sally gave me her most disapproving glare.

  ‘I didn’t do anything. She pinched herself.’

  Their looks of disbelief were echoed by the people at the table next to us.

  ‘Why would I pinch her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ David said. ‘Why did you pinch your baby sister?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  They didn’t believe me. But the parentals changed their minds a week later when Rosa told a woman on the street that she didn’t want to sleep in the kennel anymore. We didn’t even own a dog.

  She only did it when we were out in public. When there were witnesses who wouldn’t believe that the little blonde curly-haired angel could be lying. She did it to embarrass us. She did it because it made her laugh.

  Back to the early childhood development specialist.

  The diagnosis was that she might have ADHD. Or that it could just be the attention-seeking behaviour of a young child. The specialist explained that’s what toddlers are: monsters who think the world revolves around them. The odds were, the specialist said, that she’d grow out of it.

  In the meantime, more weekly sessions.

  Rosa behaved perfectly with the specialist; monstrously with us. It went on for months and months. She wore the parentals down. Me as well. Whenever we went out she would tell lies, make scenes.

  The specialist said that perhaps it was time to try medication. The parentals prevaricated; she was so young. Then they decided, yes, that was what they needed to do.

  Rosa would not take the medicine. She screamed and fought and spat it out.

  The parentals were exhausted. But the next time they took her out in public Rosa didn’t make a scene. Nor the time after that.

  It was a phase after all. The parentals were so relieved she’d stopped, that they didn’t have to drug their child, that we went away on a holiday. Sun and sand and Rosa, the perfect little child.

  She kept on lying, though. She just got more sly.

  She lied to everyone, hid who she was from everyone.

  Everyone but me.

  Me, she used for triangulation. Me, she watched to see if I frowned at her laughter or joined in. Me, she confided in.

  ‘I pinched that baby,’ she told me. ‘I liked pinching it.’

  Me, she exalted to about her trickery. The old man she’d lied to. The medal she’d stolen.

  Me, she trusted. Me, I half hoped, she loved.

  But only me.

  The parentals thought the phase was over. She was their own sweet child forever. I knew better.

  ‘We’ve done an excellent job with our children, don’t you think?’ David says to Sally over my birthday dinner, giving her a quick hug.

  I groan.

  ‘I’m only ten, Che’s only seventeen. I don’t think you can decide how well you’ve raised us until we’re older.’

  They laugh, but Rosa isn’t joking.

  I wonder how proud they’d be of their parenting if they knew what happened to Apinya’s guinea pig. If they knew what happened to that man’s passport. If they knew so many things they don’t know. The thought makes me tired. Tireder.

  Finally they give me my birthday present, which is pretty cool: a vintage Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body. As I turn the pages, the smell of old paper wafts up, making me feel even more tired.

  I go to bed as soon as I can after dinner. It’s not quite eight-thirty.

  I text with Jason and Georgie and Nazeem, who want to know what I think of New York. I don’t think anything about it.

  —NYC sucks.

  —You can’t say that about the Big Apple! Georgie dreams of living here and being a fashion designer.

  —Swap you!

  —Yeh, me 2. Jason’s thinking about the fight scene here, which is much bigger than back home.

  —Bloody freezing and wet. Not glamorous. Not cool.

  Haven’t seen anything but the gym and a library and grey, wet streets.

  —Then how can you know it sucks? Georgie points out.

  —Sunny here. I can imagine Nazeem’s grin as he types that. Bastard.

  —Of course it is.

  —The end-of-season mangoes are delish.

  —Shut up! I don’t want to hear it.

  —But expensive, Nazeem objects.

  I don’t bother texting that the mangoes in Bangkok were as good as home and cheap. I’m not in Bangkok.

  —I hate it here. I can see how pathetic that looks. It’s not that I hate NYC. Anywhere we went would be as bad. Even somewhere sunny. I need home.

  —Suck it, Che!

  —You only just got there. Give it more than a few minutes.

  —I’ll try. I just wish I was there. Whatever. Gotta sleep.

  Late here.

  —Not even 9. Think we’re 2 stupid 2 figure out time?

  —I am, Nazeem texted. —Way too stupid. Bloody timezones.

  —I’m jetlagged and tired and sleepy and knackered.

  Me go now.

  —Wuss.

  —Night, Che!

  —Happy birthday!

  —Yeah, Che, we’re all seventeen now!

  —Thanks!

  I pull out the History of the Brain and try to read. It’s dense and hard to follow and usually puts me to sleep within minutes. This time I fail to take in a single word, yet I don’t fall asleep.

  I get out of bed and run through some katas, hoping to wear myself out.

  Finally I drift off, but am woken by the sound of sirens. In the end I manage maybe three hours of sleep.

  Happy birthday to me, I think, before realising that my birthday is finally over.

  Worst. Birthday. Ever.

  Well, almost. Sojourner noticed me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Today we meet the McBrunights.

  The rain has stopped. The sun is making the streets shine. Grey and drab have transformed into a million different colours: from a giant mural of a rat in brown and blacks and reds to neon-bright graffiti tags, to the elaborate window displays in shops and restaurants of robots and dinosaurs and clothes from decades ago, some of which are being worn out on the streets. I see top hats, and pouffy skirts, and hair
in every colour, but mostly pink.

  It’s hard not to smile, and easy to stay awake. We’re meeting the McBrunights for brunch at eleven so I know it’s morning, but my body isn’t convinced.

  I walk around the neighbourhood with Rosa and the parentals. There are puddles everywhere. Rosa tromps through them in her gumboots.

  We stroll through Tompkins Square Park. It takes up several square blocks. The trees aren’t all dead. Some are covered in tiny pink and white and purple buds, and on a few there are green leaves. Springtime. Squirrels run along their branches, noses twitching, trembling with anxiety not to be prey. Men play chess on stone tables with inlaid chessboards. Rosa is transfixed. The parentals stay with her while I wander. Chess bores me.

  ‘Keep your phone on,’ Sally says.

  There’s a dog run at the other end of the park. It’s overflowing with mutts in every size and colour – including two dyed-pink poodles – running back and forth, barking their heads off, jumping all over their owners. When Rosa sees the run she’ll renew her requests for a dog. She’s been asking for years now. She’s never getting one.

  A gorgeous girl in a black dress dotted with red flowers walks by. It’s fitted to show off her waist, and the skirt flares as she walks. She’s stunning, and there’s something about the sure, athletic way she moves that makes me stare. Then I realise it’s the girl from the gym.

  I chase after her. ‘Sojourner?’

  She turns. ‘Yes?’

  I can see she doesn’t recognise me.

  The flowers on her dress are tulips.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, feeling like an idiot. ‘We met at the boxing gym. Down on Houston St?’

  ‘How-sten,’ she says.

  I blush, which makes my acne sting. ‘That’s how you say it? I didn’t know. I thought it was like the city.’ I’m gibbering.

  Sojourner smiles. ‘You’re that new guy. With the jetlag. How’s that working for you? Still making you mess up?’

  I nod. ‘Well, I said the street wrong, didn’t I? I should be okay in a day or two.’

  Yesterday Sojourner’s hair was scraped back from her face; now it forms a halo. Her lips are painted the same colour as the tulips. She wasn’t wearing makeup in class. She looks pretty, but somehow not herself.