To Jubilee Crystal Simpson
Somewhere on earth
Hi Jubilee, I had breakfast with Mum this morning. Yeah, that was a surprise! It was kind of nice, actually.
I didn’t mean to say anything about Uncle Dylan. But the words came out before I could stop them.
‘Do you ever think that maybe Uncle Dylan didn’t do what Constable Hennessey said he did?’ Mum looked startled. ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’
‘No one. I just thought—’
‘Listen, Trace,’ said Mum, ‘Sorry – is it Amelie now? I can’t keep up. Anyway, I know you liked Dylan. He could be real charming when he put his mind to it. But you never saw the other side of him, and I’m glad of it. He’s a nasty piece of work.’
Maybe I should have told her about the Innocence Project. Maybe that would have changed her mind.
Except I couldn’t. Because I promised.
Anyway, this afternoon Mum picked me up from school and we went to the airport to get my stepdad Laurie. I wasn’t going to go, but Mum said he’d be disappointed if I wasn’t there.
So in the end I went, even though the twins were being even more annoying than usual. On the way home, they kept saying ‘duck duck duck’, so Mum told Laurie about Rita.
But I guess that was all right, because she said Rita was cute, and didn’t say anything about getting rid of her. And Laurie said he used to have a pet duck called Dolores, and he couldn’t wait to meet Rita.
But then something weird happened. We were driving past the police station when Olive and Constable Hennessey came out the door together. And Olive looked so happy.
Actually, they both looked happy.
And I was thinking about how, when we were little, I used to go to Olive’s place to play Barbies. Her mum was alive back then and made all these cute uniforms for them.
Only then Constable Hennessey arrested Uncle Dylan, and Dad said I wasn’t allowed to play with Olive anymore.
And then Mum and Dad split up.
And then you came, and Olive was horrible to us.
Only she wasn’t, was she? It was the other way round.
We were horrible to her.
And I can’t remember who started it, you or me.
Love from Marguerite