Tiger Moth (22 page)

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.

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.

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.

I wriggled my nose and smiled.

Rory was still laughing.

But Mum just cried and cried.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I felt my skin prickle and my heart beat a little faster; this time I knew I had not imagined it.

The voice went quiet. Perhaps I had been dreaming. Stupid me, I thought. Now I’m hearing voices.