The Endsister

by Penni Russon

  Clancy and Pippa came up with a whole list of them as they walked around the portraits: there’s more than one way to skin a cat, you can’t get blood out of a stone, don’t get your knickers in a knot and Mama taught Pippa: I hope your chickens turn into emus and kick your dunny down.

  Worst of all of them, as far as Sibbi is concerned, is don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Oh, that poor, wet baby, tumbling out into the bin. She can’t bear it.

  Sibbi screams again and pummels her feet on the wall. She can’t even remember why she is angry, but the anger comes and comes in waves, building and building and never going away, like bees have built a nest in her chest and are buzzing angrily so she can’t hear or see her thoughts anymore, only bees, a black whirling rage of bees.

  Else bangs on the door. ‘Let me in or I’m going next door to get Mum and she’ll be furious.’

  ‘Sorry not sorry,’ Sibbi howls. ‘Sorry not sorry.’

  And she listens to the sound of Else’s footsteps, stomping down the stairs. She hears the front door open and slam shut. And she buries her face in her pillow and screams and screams and screams.

  CLANCY

  PIPPA HAS A huge map of the world hanging on the wall in her room. It is still strange to visualise myself in the top left corner, that where I stand is within that unfamiliar shape high up on the top of the world. The shape of Australia is so familiar to me, I could draw it freehand with my eyes closed.

  I look at England. France is so close you can go to Paris for the day in the fast train; Pippa told me that if you leave at breakfast you can be home for supper. Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany – they all look intimately close. Pippa goes abroad every summer with one of her parents. This year she’s going to Spain with her mum and stepfather. Dad says it’s cheaper to go to Europe from England than for Victorians to go on a Queensland holiday in Australia, but I suppose everything is expensive when you’re a family of seven.

  Pippa stands on her bed to reach England, and traces her finger all the way down to Australia.

  ‘I’d love to go to Australia,’ she says. ‘I want to see all the animals you told me about. The swamp wallabies, the sugar gliders . . . pobblebonks.’ I’ve told her all about the animals from home. ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘Not always. It comes and goes in flashes, but most of the time, I’m just . . . here and now. Living in the moment.’

  ‘I would miss it. I do miss it, even though I’ve never been there.’

  ‘Do you miss living with your mum?’

  ‘No. I mean, I love Mummy. I wish I could see her every day, and not just on Skype. But the school I went to when I lived at her house during the week was awful. Everybody was bullying everybody. Kids bullying kids. Teachers bullying kids. Teachers bullying teachers. Kids bullying teachers. It was a nightmare. With Daddy everything is calm. And Kingsley is too. There are lots of kids like me, kids who don’t fit in boxes.’

  Just then there was a bang at the door and voices downstairs.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘My family is not calm.’

  ‘Wait here,’ Pippa says. ‘I’ll snitch us some crumble and find out what’s going on.’

  She comes back without crumble and reports anxiously, ‘Else is here because Sibbi is throwing a massive tantrum in her room. Your mum is cross with Else for leaving Sibbi and the twins at home alone. And Dave and Daddy have drunk all the wine and they’re going over to Outhwaite House to open up the attic!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you think we should go over there? They might hurt themselves. Daddy can be a bit silly when he’s been drinking.’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I ask Pippa.

  Pippa thought. ‘Both my dad and my mum do, in different ways. But I’m a scientist. I need evidence. There’s a lot more dead people than alive ones – surely if ghosts existed we’d see them all the time. What about you? Do you believe in them?’

  ‘I believe in the creeps. There’s a sound evolutionary basis for the creeps. An instinct for danger. An internal early warning system. That door definitely gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Me too,’ Pippa admits.

  ‘Come on. I suppose in the interests of science we should be there when the door opens.’

  CLANCY

  PIPPA AND I CAN hear Sibbi howling in the bedroom. ‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?’ Pippa whispers.

  ‘Oh, this is normal,’ I say. ‘Pretty normal anyway.’

  Mum taps on the door. ‘Sibbi? Sibbi, love. Let Mama in.’

  ‘I know what an endsister is,’ Sibbi howls.

  ‘What is an endsister?’ Pippa whispers.

  ‘According to Sibbi, it’s a kind of ghost.’

  ‘Interesting,’ says Pippa.

  In contrast with Sibbi, the dads are in a very silly mood. Dad tries every key in the lock.

  ‘Let me try,’ Jonty says. ‘I’m a professional.’

  He jiggles the keys in the locks too, but none of them work.

  The twins look on, Oscar with excitement, Finn with trepidation.

  ‘Kick the door down, Dad!’ Oscar says.

  Sibbi’s wails get louder.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Jonty asks us. ‘Endsister?’

  ‘It’s a kind of a ghost,’ Pippa tells him.

  ‘I know! I know!’ Sibbi howls. ‘I know what an endsister is.’

  ‘There are no ghosts in this house,’ says Dad. ‘It’s like a rule.’ And he and Jonty giggle.

  ‘Have you got a screwdriver?’ Jonty asks.

  Dad tells Oscar to get out. ‘There’ll be one in the toolshed.’

  ‘It’s dark out there!’ Finn says.

  ‘So?’ says Oscar. He scampers down the stairs, relishing the task of a good dig around the toolshed in the dark.

  ‘Are you really going to shut Sibbi in there?’ Finn asks.

  ‘It’s not a punishment,’ Dad says, while Jonty wiggles another key, pressing his ear against the door and listening. ‘This way, she’ll be closer to me and Mum. It’s time Else had a room of her own.’

  Oscar comes back with the screwdriver, Mum following him.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Mum asks Dad.

  ‘Oh, don’t ruin it, Mum,’ Oscar says. ‘This is brilliant.’

  ‘I’ll be gentle,’ promises Dad. ‘I’ll just try . . .’ He wiggles the screwdriver into the lock.

  And the lock clicks.

  ALMOST ANNIE AND HARDLY ALICE

  ‘WHAT IS IT?’ Almost Annie asks Hardly Alice. ‘What are we so afraid of? You’ve been here longer than me. Do you know what’s behind that door?’

  ‘It wants –’ Alice moans.

  ‘What does it want?’ Almost Annie begs.

  Alice steps towards the door and Almost Annie steps away. ‘I must check on the child,’ Annie quails, and she turns and flees down the stairs. But Alice can’t bear to look away.

  The door rattles. Rage. Disappointment. Despair. Sorrow. Sorrow. Dust. Dust. Dust.

  CLANCY

  DOWNSTAIRS SIBBI’S CRYING has quietened. Else has stopped banging on the nursery door. Sibbi must have finally unlocked it.

  The house is silent. Pippa steps closer to me. It feels like the whole house has stopped to take a breath, like someone gasping good sweet fresh air the moment before they the sink beneath the surface of a weedy, murky pond.

  ‘There,’ says Dad. ‘I’ve done it. I’m not quite sure how –it’s almost like it wasn’t locked after all. But we’re in.’

  The attic door swings open, revealing a narrow wooden staircase. All we can see at the top is deep, textured darkness. It seems, at first, to be moving. A swirling, breathing, living sort of dark, with intentions of its own.

  A trick of the light, I think. A trick of the dark.

  Jonty, Dad and Oscar peer up the stairs.

  I glance over at Pippa, whose eyes are wide with alarm. And to her left for a moment I see Else out of the corner of my eye. At least, I think it’s Else and that Else is
frightened, but when I blink, it’s not Else but some old-fashioned girl with a narrow face, the same sort of sad-angry face as Else’s. But then I look a third time and there’s no one there at all.

  Dad says, uncertainly, ‘See? Nothing to worry about.’

  One of Sibbi’s ghosts, I think. And then I feel silly.

  ‘Dad’s right,’ I say to Pippa. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ Dad says. ‘No such thing as ghosts?’

  ‘It’s okay, Pippa,’ Jonty says. ‘Nothing to be scared of here. See?’

  From downstairs Else screams, a head-splitting, ear-shattering, skull-cracking scream.

  ELSE

  ‘LOOK WHAT SHE’S done!’ I shriek, as Olly and Dave rush into the nursery. ‘Look what that monster has done!’

  A man I don’t know – Pippa’s dad, I suppose, since Pippa stands unhappily behind him – pops his head into the room and sees me, Sibbi in Dave’s arms, the good scissors, and the violin on the floor with every string cut, and says, with typical English unflappability, ‘We’ll be off then. Do pop round any time.’

  Toodle-pip, old chum.

  I try to kill him with a death stare, but he toodle-pips with no discernible harm, though Pippa appears to be suffering.

  Sibbi writhes and flails in Dave’s arms. She tries to hit his face. He holds down her hands and looks at Olly in shock. Sibbi squirms, screaming, ‘I hate her! I hate having a sister. I never asked to have a sister.’

  ‘I never asked for you to be born,’ I hurl back at Sibbi as Dave pulls her from the room. ‘I was here first.’

  ‘Else, stop shouting at Sibbi and look at me,’ Olly says, with irritating calm. ‘Whose violin is this? Where did it come from?’

  ‘It’s mine. It’s not mine. I . . . I borrowed it.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Lev Starman.’

  Olly blinks. ‘What’s a Star Man?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand! She’s wrecked it and I’m the one who’ll get into trouble. She gets away with everything. She’s such a spoiled little brat.’

  ‘I’m trying to understand what you’re telling me.’

  ‘He’s a violin-maker. Oh, it’s too hard to explain. Mum, you have to take it back to him for me. I’ll . . . I’ll pay for any damage. But I can’t go back there.’

  Olly sits down on Sibbi’s bed. ‘When you say you borrowed it . . . Else, tell me the truth. Did you steal this violin?’

  ‘No!’ I say and I sort of believe myself. ‘Of course I didn’t. I’m not a thief. I’m not.’

  ‘So this Star Man, he knows you have his violin?’

  I press my hands against my eyes, unable to look at Olly. ‘Not exactly. But he did say no one would notice a violin missing from his workshop. And then he showed me this particular violin. Maybe he wanted . . . I mean, he could have been saying . . . He did say I could play one.’

  ‘Else,’ Olly says gently. ‘I’m going to ask you again. Did you steal this violin?’

  I nod, releasing a long, shuddering sob. ‘I never even got the chance to play it.’

  Olly puts her arms around me while I weep.

  ‘Why?’ Olly asks. ‘Why are you so unhappy? Do you really hate it here that much?’

  But I can’t blame London. I was unhappy in Hong Kong, and in Melbourne. I was unhappy before Aunty May got sick, before Dorothy Outhwaite died. It was the Mozart. Was it the just the Mozart?

  ‘What if –?’ My voice falters. I can’t say it. What if I’m not good enough to play professionally? What if I’m ordinary? I look at the broken violin and at the good scissors. What if the music inside me is broken like the violin and nothing will ever fix it?

  ‘Why did you leave your violin behind in Australia, Else?’

  ‘I – I wanted to know who I am without it.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  I say nothing, but I’ve known the whole time, ever since Hong Kong anyway. I recognised myself at the bird market, looking at that bird in the cage. I’m a song trapped in a chest in a cage in a city. That’s who I am without my violin.

  SIBBI

  DADDY SITS HALFWAY up the stairs, holding Sibbi in his arms until she sobs herself out. She looks up at Daddy as if she has just remembered him.

  ‘You open the door?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daddy says. ‘I opened the door.’

  ‘Nothing to be scared of?’ Sibbi asks.

  ‘You don’t have to go up there,’ Finn says, peering down. ‘You can sleep in our room.’

  Oscar appears beside him at the top of the stairs. ‘She cannot!’

  ‘Up we go,’ says Daddy, standing with Sibbi still in his arms. ‘Up we go and look. Nothing to be scared of, I promise.’

  Daddy carries Sibbi up to the attic. Oscar scurries ahead, clambering up the steep staircase on all fours.

  ‘You’ll need to climb up yourself, Sibbi,’ says Daddy. ‘I can’t carry you up those stairs. You go first and I’ll come up behind.’

  The pitched roof in the middle of the attic is high enough for Daddy to stand up, but low at the east and west walls. Still, it’s high enough for Sibbi to stand up in any spot in the room. Surprisingly, there is very little up here, a few paintings stacked against the wall, some furniture draped in sheets. It’s very dark, only lit by the light coming up from the landing and some borrowed light from the street lamps outside (the city never gets dark). There are windows to the north and south, Daddy points out, so the room would be bright in the daytime, and an electrician could easily run wires up here, it wouldn’t be a big job. In fact, with a lick of paint and the right furniture, it would be a perfect child’s bedroom, lofty and spacious, yet cosy and playful.

  ‘If Sibbi doesn’t want this room, can I have it?’ Oscar says.

  ‘It’s Sibbi’s room,’ Daddy says. ‘This room will be for Sibbi.’

  ‘Sibbi’s room,’ says Sibbi.

  Finn stands on the stairs, sticking his head up into the attic to look around. ‘Why is the furniture wearing sheets?’

  ‘To catch the dust,’ says Daddy.

  ‘Then why are they so clean?’ asks Finn.

  ‘Huh,’ says Daddy. The sheets are bright and luminous, catching the light.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ says Oscar. ‘Why does Sibbi get a room of her own? Why do Finn and I have to share? Just because we’re twins.’

  ‘I like sharing,’ says Finn.

  ‘I don’t,’ says Oscar. ‘I hate it.’

  ‘This room,’ says Sibbi, ‘is for Sibbi.’ She is pale in the attic, and very, very small.

  ELSE

  ‘I CAN’T TAKE the violin back for you,’ Olly says. ‘You have to do it yourself.’

  ‘What? Why? That’s not fair!’

  ‘But you see, it is fair, Else. Fair is exactly what it is,’ Olly insists. ‘I can come with you, if you want. But I won’t be doing you any favours if I step in for you.’

  ‘What about Sibbi? Are you going to punish her?’ A darkness passes through the room and enters my heart. The darkness is invisible, but it’s real, as cold as the blades of the good scissors. It hurts my chest. Olly puts her hand on my arm, but I stiffen at her touch.

  ‘I’m tired now,’ I say, coldly, turning away from her.

  ‘We can take the violin back tomorrow. You and me and Sibbi. And Sibbi can apologise for what she’s done. After we go to Harrods for the uniforms. Sweetheart, it won’t be so bad. Better to face it head on.’

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to face it.

  ‘Else,’ says Olly. ‘Are you sure you want to go to this school? Lady Emily Hartington? Is that part of what’s making you miserable? It’s not too late to change your mind.’

  It hurts, this tight gasping pain in my chest. Everything hurts. This is my punishment, but is anyone going to punish Sibbi?

  ‘Can you get out of my room now?’

  Downstairs there’s an enormous crash. ‘What now?’ sighs Olly.

  But I don’t care. It’s not
hing to do with me.

  CLANCY

  I MEET DAD, Mum and the twins downstairs in the kitchen. A shelf has come loose from the wall and slid downwards, and all the contents have fallen to the floor.

  ‘This night is turning out awesome,’ Oscar yelps.

  ‘The Royal Doulton serving plate!’ gasps Mum. ‘And the Wedgewood coffee service.’ Her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘What happened?’ Dad asks.

  ‘I don’t know. It just fell.’

  ‘At least none of the kids were in here.’

  ‘Oh, Dave. All these beautiful things.’

  ‘What a mess.’

  ‘Oh, poor Dorothy. Poor, poor Dorothy. How long have those things been there, safe in her keeping? And now they’re gone. Just like that.’

  ‘It’s not our fault,’ Oscar says. ‘We didn’t do it.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ says Mum.

  ‘Come on kids, it’s time for bed,’ Dad says. ‘Where’s Sibbi? It’s getting late. It’s time for bed.’

  ‘I don’t think we can put Sibbi in with Else tonight,’ Mum says. ‘She’s still so angry.’

  ‘Sibbi’s going to sleep in the attic,’ says Oscar. ‘It’s totally spooky up there!’

  ‘Oh, Dave. No.’

  ‘Well, not tonight, obviously,’ Dad says, shooting Oscar a look. ‘Sib can sleep in our room tonight. Come on, I think we could all use some sleep. We’ll sort out this mess in the morning.’

  ‘You go ahead,’ Mum says. ‘I won’t sleep until I’ve cleaned this up.’

  THE ATTIC DOOR, having finally opened, will not properly close, so it swings slightly ajar.

  Carried by a bitter wind straight out of the attic, bad dreams float through Outhwaite House like black balloons.

  Sibbi is in the kitchen of the little house on the hill back home in Australia. There’s a shadow hanging over the valley. There’s a new baby crying, and everyone is rushing around, grabbing things for the baby. Hardly Alice and Almost Annie are in the dream too. Hardly Alice says to Sibbi, ‘See, I told you it would be like this.’ Almost Annie shakes her head. ‘It’s all your fault, Sibbi. You were so naughty they had to have another baby.’ Sibbi looks down to Aunty May’s house. Aunty May stands at the road, waving at cars driving past with both arms. She has several suitcases all around her, like she is going on a long journey.