The Worst Thing About My Sister Read online

  Ali and Nina and Amaleena all tittered uncomfortably.

  I barked a triumphant hyena laugh. ‘There! Who’s a baby now?’ I said, twirling Baba around.

  Then Baba suddenly became a whole lot lighter. Most of her dropped onto the carpet and sprawled there. I was left holding one of her old withered legs.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, stricken. ‘Oh, Melissa, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break her.’

  We all stared at Melissa. For a moment it looked as if she was going to cry. I could see her chin wobbling. But then she laughed shakily. She nudged the remains of Baba with her toe.

  ‘As if I care about that old thing,’ she said, and she kicked her under the bunk amongst my dirty socks.

  ‘Hey, have you seen my Justin Bieber photo?’ she went on, grabbing it and thrusting it at them.

  Ali and Nina and Amaleena all squealed excitedly, distracted. I gave them the forgotten tray of smoothies and biscuits and crept away.

  Mum found me hunched up on the stairs. ‘Oh dear. You look a poor lost soul. Well, you can’t play with Dad because he’s still seeing his client. I think she’s a total time-waster. I bet she just takes an armful of brochures away and never comes back. How about you coming and fixing the supper with me, Martina? I’m making a trifle. You can lick out the bowl.’

  Mum was trying to be so nice to me, and somehow it made me feel much worse. After Dad’s client had gone at last, he read me a story. Doing different funny voices. I huddled up beside him and tried to laugh in all the right places. Dad was being even nicer than Mum, and that made me feel worse of all. The moment Ali and Nina and Amaleena went home I was sure Melissa would tell on me – and then I’d be for it.

  I was right.

  When they were all gone, Mum turned to Melissa and gave her a big hug. ‘Did you have a lovely time with your friends, darling? I bet they loved your new bedroom!’ she said.

  Melissa glared at me.

  ‘Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell!’ I mouthed at her.

  But Melissa always told.

  ‘No, I didn’t have a lovely time! Marty totally humiliated me. She deliberately made a huge mess and threw all her stupid animals about, and wrote that I had a big bottom in lipstick! I just about died,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  I tried to make Mum understand, but I couldn’t get the words out properly. I appealed to Dad, but he seemed horrified too.

  ‘I just can’t believe you could be so mean and spiteful, Martina,’ he said. ‘Especially when Melissa tried so hard to make your friend Jaydene welcome. I’m thoroughly ashamed of you.’

  I was sent up to bed early in disgrace. Mum and Dad barely said goodnight to me when Melissa came up to bed. Melissa wasn’t speaking to me either.

  ‘I’m sorry I amputated Baba,’ I whispered into the darkness.

  Melissa didn’t answer. She waited for a few minutes after Mum and Dad had switched off the light and gone downstairs. Then she got out of her bunk bed and crept over to the bedroom door.

  ‘Where are you going, Melissa?’ I whispered.

  She took no notice. She stole out. I lay there miserably, wrapped tight in Wilma, wondering if she was going downstairs to tell about Baba too – but after a minute she came tiptoeing back. She’d been in the sewing room. I heard her get back into bed and saw the glow of her torch. I hung down over the edge of my top bunk, bumping my head on the ladder, and saw that Melissa was sitting up in bed, sewing Baba’s leg back on.

  ‘Oh, Melissa, is she OK again now? I said I’m really sorry,’ I said.

  ‘You will be sorry. Very, very, very sorry,’ Melissa said ominously.

  She didn’t say anything else at all, even though I begged her to talk to me. When Baba had two legs again, she snapped off her torch and lay down. After a few minutes I heard her breathing heavily, fast asleep.

  I couldn’t get to sleep for ages.

  The next morning I was so tired I couldn’t wake up properly. I was dimly aware of Melissa rustling around the room very early, long before Mum and Dad were up, and I wondered what she was doing – but then I fell asleep again. Later on I heard Mum calling me to get up, but I turned over and buried my head under my pillow. I lay there, hearing the clank and clatter of the recycling lorry as it chugged its way slowly along the road, and as the great roar faded away, I dozed again.

  ‘Marty! Mum says you’ve got to come down for breakfast now,’ said Melissa, putting her head round our bedroom door. There was something odd about her voice.

  I sat up in bed. ‘What is it? What’s up?’ My heart started thudding. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Melissa ominously, and sauntered off to the bathroom.

  I clambered down my bunk-bed ladder and looked around the room. My shelf was empty. No Jumper or Basil or Polly or Half-Percy. Even Patches and Gee-Up and Sugarlump and Merrylegs and Dandelion and Starlight were missing. I ran to my cupboard and pulled it open. It was empty! I tried Melissa’s cupboard but that was just neatly stacked with her own stuff. I looked in the wardrobe, in Melissa’s dressing-table drawers – I even looked in her jewellery box. I looked everywhere.

  My animals were missing.

  You’ll be very, very, very sorry!

  Melissa had stolen my poor dear pets! What had she done with them? Had she dumped them in the rubbish bin as she’d often threatened?

  I ran downstairs in my pyjamas, hurtled across the hall and out of the front door. I charged over to the wheelie bin in my bare feet, pulled up the lid – and saw it was empty. The recycling lorry had already been. I thought of my poor animals caught up in the gigantic steel maw of that great recycling monster. I knew what would happen next. I’d seen the end of Toy Story 3.

  I started running down our garden path, yelling, though the recycling lorry wasn’t even in sight now.

  ‘Martina! What on earth are you playing at? You are so going to drive me crazy! Get back into the house this instant!’ Mum shouted, running after me and grabbing me.

  ‘But, Mum, you don’t understand! My animals!’ I screamed.

  The nosy old lady next door opened her window and leaned out. ‘My goodness, what’s all that noise? What’s the matter with Martina?’

  ‘Nothing! She’s perfectly fine!’ Mum called, in a high strangled voice. She pulled me closer and hissed in my face, ‘Get back in the house right this second and stop shaming me!’ She dragged me back indoors, struggling and kicking.

  ‘What are you playing at now, Marty?’ Dad called from the kitchen. ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘I’ll give her something to cry about in a minute!’ said Mum. ‘Now go upstairs and get washed and dressed immediately. And what’s that smell? Oh no, it’s the toast burning.’

  Mum and Dad went into the kitchen, bickering about the burned toast. I looked up the stairs – and there was Melissa hanging over the banisters, grinning down at me.

  ‘Oh dear, have the dustbin men come already?’ she said.

  I shot up the stairs like a rocket, my fists clenched. Melissa flew into our bedroom and tried to slam the door shut on me, but I hurled myself against it and forced it open.

  ‘You pig, you hateful wicked pig, you’ve stolen all my animals!’ I yelled, pummelling her.

  She ducked away from me, laughing. ‘I told you you’d be very, very, sorry,’ she said, insufferably smug. ‘You brought it all on yourself, making all that mess and then pulling Baba to bits.’

  Baba! I ran to Melissa’s bunk, felt under her pillow and pulled Baba out. Right! If I’d lost all my dear precious animals, then Melissa was going to lose her stupid baby.

  ‘Give me Baba!’ she said, suddenly worried.

  I was much too quick for her. I ran up my bunk-bed ladder like a monkey and flopped down on my top bunk, tearing at Baba with my bare hands. Her newly sewn leg came off at once, and the other one, and – grisly triumph – her whole head came off with one gigantic tug.

  ‘Baba!’ Melissa screamed, and started climbing the