Lottie
After spending a million hours unpacking, it became clear that we all had a lot of stuff and not enough places to put it. This was especially relevant in Mo’s case because he had mountains of full cardboard boxes that he mysteriously referred to as ‘his collection’.
‘We’re going to have to store some of it in the garage,’ Dad said. ‘Would that be OK with you, Mo? I know your collection is important to you.’
I didn’t like the way Dad was being all careful around Mo, but apparently he’s a hashtag ‘sensitive boy’ and we had to be hashtag ‘extra considerate’. If it had been mine or Sadie’s belongings that were overflowing out of the house, we would have just been told they were getting dumped in the garage, no arguments.
Mo looked panicky.
‘We just can’t fit everything in, Mo-Bear,’ Emma said, kneeling down and holding his hand. ‘It’ll be safe in the garage.’
‘We could all do with a bit of stream-lining,’ said Dad, ‘Especially with our non-essential items. How about we all get one box each that we can fill and keep in our rooms, and everything else goes into the garage?’
‘Well that sounds very fair, doesn’t it, Mo?’ Emma said, smiling at my dad like he was some kind of brilliant and wondrous genius. ‘I have lots of things I don’t really need in the house, so I’ll do it too.’
‘My box needs to be private,’ said Mo. ‘No-one’s allowed to go in it.’
‘We’ll all have a secret box – out of bounds to everyone else. How does that sound?’ Emma said, giving Mo a Curly Wurly.
‘Great,’ Dad said.
‘Mrow,’ Sadie said, which meant she agreed.
‘Huff,’ Mo said.
‘I promise never to look in anyone’s box,’ I said, crossing my fingers in my head, rather than behind my back, in case anyone saw.
Mo
How could this house be so much bigger, but feel so much smaller than our old home?
The thing about me is that I collect junk. No, wait – that’s not quite right: I collect items that other people might mistakenly call junk. Things that have been dropped or forgotten: the bits of paper that fall out of pockets; the random shoe from the middle of the road; the half-bald teddy lying next to the swings. It isn’t that I want the things for myself – I’m not weird or anything. It’s just that I can’t stand to see things left behind.
I know what the other kids say about me. They think because I don’t say anything back that I can’t hear them laughing when I stash a soggy mitten in my bag. I do hear them, but I don’t care. I can’t just leave it there, drowning in a puddle, when to somebody somewhere it could be the most important mitten in the world.
Nobody and nothing is junk. Every item has a story, and a home, and probably someone missing it.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve collected stuff and kept it all in labelled boxes that I stored in the house. But, apparently, now that I had sisters, I had to try harder to share. And that included my space.
I filled my box, leaving just enough space for the thing I found under the floorboard. As I put the lid on, Lottie walked into my room, without knocking, and sat on my bed. She sat on my bed.
Her hair was brown and curly and she’d worn it a different way every time I’d seen her. Like she actually spent her time thinking up a different hairstyle for each day of the week. That’s just mental. Her freckles and eyes were the colour of honey – full of sugar and sunshine. They were probably the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen. I didn’t like them one bit.
‘I don’t like you calling my mum “Emma”,’ I said. ‘It sounds weird.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘How about “Miss Appleby”?’
‘That’s absolutely ridiculous,’ Lottie said. ‘She isn’t my teacher. How about I call her “Mum”?’
It was the most horrible thing I’d ever heard. ‘“Emma” is fine.’
‘I’m glad we have that settled.’ She looked around my room, making a face. ‘But while we’re on the subject of names, you’ve been saying Sadie’s completely wrong and she’s finding it quite upsetting.’
‘How have I been saying it wrong?’
‘You pronounce it like “Say-dee”, not “Say-dee”.’
What the heck? ‘You just said it the exact same way twice!’
‘You obviously weren’t listening properly.’
‘Maybe you weren’t speaking properly,’ I said. I didn’t really know how to deal with someone so unhinged.
‘It must be all that…interesting hair blocking your ear-holes.’
‘What do you mean, “interesting hair”?’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. You know you could wear it a different way?’
‘A different way?’ What was she on about?
‘Yes, something less Victorian street urchin and more, you know, nice. I could style it for you, if you like?’ She stood up and started coming towards me.
‘Hell, no.’
‘There’s no need for the inappropriate language, Mo. I was only trying to help.’
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘Maybe you don’t, but your hair certainly does.’
‘Who even cares about hair? It doesn’t matter!’
Lottie gasped. ‘Take that back.’
‘Hair is stupid, hair is stupid, hair is stupid,’ I started chanting and marching around the room, waving my arms in the air.
Lottie
His hair was bright orange, which was fine. The problem was the way he wore it, like he’d never brushed it in his life. And he always had dirty fingers that he scratched his nose with, leaving black smudges on his face. He looked like he should be picking pockets or sweeping chimneys. It bothered me. And you know those dogs who have huge chocolatey-brown eyes, which always look sad? Well, Mo’s eyes were like that, but they were dark blue. Blue eyes are supposed to be twinkly, cheerful and always look like their owner has something up their sleeves. Sad blue eyes are not a thing. Unless your name is Mo Appleby, apparently. And the worst thing was that they were ever so endearing – they made me want to share my cookies with him. It was extremely irritating.
And I don’t even know where to start with his clothes. They should have been mismatched and holey, but instead they were cool and really brought out the forlornness in his face. I suspected his mum chose them for him.
‘What have you put in your box?’ I asked.
‘That’s private,’ he said, putting his hand on the lid like I was going to try to look inside. As if I’d be stupid enough to attempt it right in front of his face. ‘What have you put in yours?’
‘A hair from the tail of a unicorn. He gave it to me to thank me for saving his life.’
‘Right,’ Mo said.
Sadie walked in carrying a fat, orange cat under her arm like a handbag.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Mo said, looking outraged. ‘And what are you doing with Schrodinger?’
‘Perow meow prew,’ Sadie said.
Mo just looked at her.
‘Preowt.’
‘What is she doing in here? What is she doing with my cat? And why does she talk in that way?’ Mo turned to me, bright red in his plump cheeks.
‘She came to see what you put in your box, obviously,’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Also, Schrodinger is a stupid name. Let’s call him Tiger instead, and get him a stripey jacket.’
‘Let’s not,’ he said.
‘And Sadie was just starting to talk when Mum left. Meow was her first word. She’s saving all her other words until Mum comes back for us.’
‘She’s on a top-secret archeological dig. As a matter of fact, she’s discovered the fossil of a dinosaur that nobody’s ever found before. She’s calling it the LottieSadieSaurus. She’ll come for us when her work is done.’
‘Why didn’t she take you with her?’ Mo asked. (I discovered early on that he is not very tactful.)
‘No schools in the Sahara,’ I said.
‘Right,’ said Mo.
Mo
I had two strange girls in my bedroom.
One of them was throwing stuff out of my drawers while cuddling my cat like he was a teddy bear. He seemed to like it, too, which was so annoying. The other girl was asking rude questions and telling me stories about her mum that I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure were true. What had my life become?
‘We always wanted a brother,’ Lottie said. ‘You’re not quite what we imagined, but you’ll have to do.’
‘What did you imagine?’
‘Less short, less ginger.’ Lottie put her hands on her hips.
‘Eroww,’ Sadie said.
‘Sadie, you shouldn’t call people chubby,’ Lottie said.
‘Rowwr.’
‘Yes, even if they are. And that hat doesn’t suit Tiger – try the green one.’
How offensive! ‘Really? Well, I never wanted one sister, never mind two. And stop putting hats on my cat!’
‘That’s OK. I’m sure you were much too busy putting things in alphabetical order to think about the joy of sisters. We must be a fabulous surprise for you. And how dare you try to take Tiger’s hat from him when it makes him look like a white-hot fashionista?’
My room was in a state. They were out of control, like a whirlwind. They were a girlwind. Just then the doorbell rang and they ran off, leaving me to wonder what a white-hot fashionista was.
Lottie
Our new front door has some of that cloudy glass in it, so you can see a deformed reflection of whoever is on the other side.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I could see the outline of a small woman with long, bouncy hair. For a second I thought it was Mum – that she’d come back for us at last. But as I pulled open the door, it wasn’t Mum’s face I saw.
There was a stranger there. At first I thought she was young and extraordinarily beautiful, but when I looked again, I changed my mind. She had masses of shiny blonde hair that went all the way down her back. I’d never have thought it was possible to have too much hair, but somehow she managed it. And there was something off about the colour – it didn’t go with her skin or her eyes. Her face wasn’t right either. It looked like her skin was stretched almost too tight over her cheeks, and her neck looked a bit crinkly. My nana has a crinkly neck, and it looks lovely, but on this woman, with her tight face, it was all wrong.
‘Oh,’ I said, feeling like I might cry.
‘Good afternoon, sweet girls,’ the lady smiled, looking over my shoulder and down the hallway behind me. ‘Have you just moved in? Could I perhaps have a little chat with your mother and father?’
‘Prow,’ Sadie said and walked off into the living room.
‘Did the removal truck and boxes give it away?’ I said, annoyed that I could have thought for a second that this woman was my mum.
‘What a cherub you are!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Just delightful! Now, angel, – your mother and father?’
‘Mother! Father!’ I called. ‘There’s someone at the door for you.’
‘I’ll just step inside, shall I?’ the woman said, peering into the boxes in the hall as Emma and Dad came out of the kitchen. ‘Ah! There you are, at last. I came to introduce myself – I’m your new neighbour, Lorelai. I’m sure we’re going to be great friends.’
‘Hello,’ said Emma. ‘Lovely to meet you. I’d offer you a coffee but we’ve not unpacked the kettle yet.’ Emma and Dad laughed, but Lorelai just stared at them.
‘I’ve just moved in myself across the road,’ Lorelai said. ‘And I don’t even have a kettle, so I’m happy to wait while you look for yours.’
‘Oh, right, of course,’ Emma said, while Dad gave her a look. ‘You’d better come in.’
‘While you’re looking, you couldn’t be a doll and loan me some sugar, could you?’ Lorelai walked past Emma, towards the kitchen.
Emma raised an eyebrow at Dad who shook his head.
‘No problem,’ Emma said. ‘Please make yourself at home.’
‘I think she already has,’ Dad whispered to me as he followed them into the kitchen.
Rather than listening to whatever boring conversation they’d be having, I went to find Sadie.
