My sister, Nic, keeps secrets. Big secrets.

Like the talent show.

We should have figured something was up when Nic started bashing away on her drums again. She never used to practise, then suddenly she was at it day and night. But, like everything with Nic, it took us a while to work it out. Dad only solved the puzzle when he saw a list of performers in Nic’s school newsletter.

As soon as my driver, Sam, drops me home after school, Mum and Dad bundle me into the car. My heart’s thumping on the way there – half-excited, half-worried. Nic’s going to spew when she sees us. There’s a reason she’s kept this a secret.

We stop on the way to get a large strawberry milkshake – to keep me quiet while we watch – and when we get there, my parents hold me by my elbows to steer me through the crowd. We find seats in the front row, where Mum and Dad perch on chairs either side of me, their faces glued to the stage. They’re so excited to see Nic perform it’s like they have Team Nic signs in their eyes.

Behind us, the hall is jammed with restless high schoolers, grumbling and elbowing each other while they wait. But they turn their attention to the stage when someone steps out from behind the red curtain.

My big sister, Nic.

Despite the death stare she throws us, she looks great in her new sparkly sneakers. I want to cheer for her as she settles in behind the drum kit. If she and Mel win today, they’ll make the interschools for sure. Which could lead to the nationals, and Nic’s first time on a plane.

Dad holds the straw of my strawberry milkshake while I take a soothing sip. I squeeze my hands together.

Clench, squeeze, clasp.

The crowd hushes. Someone’s bracelets jingle behind us, and a crow caws outside.

Mel, Nic’s best friend, walks onto the stage, her guitar slung around her neck. She smiles a wobbly smile and we’re close enough to see her top lip sticking to her braces.

Clap, clasp, clench.

Mel stops in front of the drums, and after a quick glance back at Nic, she places her fingers in position on the neck of her guitar.

Good luck, guys. You’ll nail it.

Nic pretends not to see us as she begins to count: ‘Five, six, seven, eight …’

Mel starts singing. Nic’s sticks fly over the drums. I almost forget to breathe. One verse down, now the chorus. Nic reaches for the snare drum. I know exactly how she plays it. I could be up there, playing along. Two beats on the bass drum, then smash on the cymbal—

The crowd starts clapping along.

My clenching hands grow clammy.

Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream.

I try to focus on the takeaway cup full of strawberry-flavoured milk, cool against my side. Dad’s wedged it between his hip and mine, and my clasping hands means my elbow keeps brushing against the straw.

The second verse is perfect. Another chorus. Mel takes a step to the left, one to the right, then does a small wiggle of her hips. The guitar wails as she belts out the final chorus. The whole crowd is on their feet, clapping and stomping and dancing along.

My chest heaves. Too loud. TOO LOUD.

Before I can stop it, my hand jerks out and whacks the milkshake.

CRASH!

The music stops. Pink milk slides down Mel’s cheeks. She’s staggering back, almost tripping over her guitar lead, her mouth open with shock.

But that’s not the worst of it. My heart plunges as a piercing scream echoes through the hall. Kids cover their ears. Teachers squint to the rafters, looking for the world’s biggest cockatoo.

But it isn’t a cockatoo.

It’s me, Ava.

Nic’s biggest secret.

‘Nicole, you know Ava didn’t do it on purpose,’ says Dad later that evening. ‘It was a milkshake, not the end of the world.’

We’re in the bathroom, where Mum’s loading my toothbrush with toothpaste and Dad’s helping to hold me up. Nic stands in the doorway, her eyes red and blotchy. Nic never cries. To her, this is the end of the world.

‘Come on, love. Ava just got spooked, that’s all. No-one will even remember.’

They talk like I’m not in the room. Or like I’m deaf. Which is one thing I’m not. I can’t talk, and sometimes I can’t swallow, but Rett syndrome hasn’t affected my hearing.

You know I didn’t mean it, Nic.

Rett might have twisted my body, my hands and my fingers, but it hasn’t twisted my brain.

Please, Nic. You understand. Right?

But Nic doesn’t say a word. She stares at her phone, like I hardly exist.

Dad’s wide smile usually makes everyone around him feel happy, but he’s not smiling now. His lips are straight and his eyes are sad, like he knows he can’t fix this. His forehead crinkles as he tries to mend the impossible. ‘Nicole, honey,’ he soothes, supporting my weight so Mum can tuck the toothbrush into my mouth. ‘People can see Ava is different. The kids at school will make allowances for …’

Nic stares at Dad like he’s a squashed toad that’s been left in the sun. Mum sees and slide her lips to the left and squeezes them together. Nic calls this Mum’s chook-bum face. Her lips grow more and more puckered the longer Dad tries to reason with Nic.

I don’t utter a sound. Instead, my hands squish together. My twisted hands aren’t much use for anything – they can’t press buttons or hold a pen. The only thing Rett fingers can do are curl around each other, pulling palms in close, creating the perfect space to make squishy, farty sounds that fill the room.

Squish, clap, squish.

Not a talent I’m proud of.

Nic lifts her head from her phone and glares at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My mouth’s full of foam. A sliver of toothpastey drool hangs from my lips.

Nic’s nostril’s flare. ‘Ava,’ she hisses, ‘stop it.’

Mum and Dad take a collective breath. I wish I could say sorry, but instead my hands just keep squishing and clasping together.

I was a healthy baby when I was born, but when I turned two and didn’t talk and could hardly walk, the doctors said maybe I was developmentally delayed or on the spectrum. But that didn’t explain my wobbly legs and clasping hands. Until, after years of specialist appointments and frustrating dead ends, my GP ordered a blood test for a genetic mutation called Rett syndrome. Rett girls are mostly crooked and small for our age. Our muscles don’t work properly and we ache when we sit for too long. But that’s not the hardest part.

Rett girls like me can’t talk.

It’s the worst. Not talking makes my head pound. It makes my hands clasp. My face sweat. Not talking is like being trapped underwater. You’re screaming for someone, anyone, but no-one can hear a sound.

When scientists in America bred mice with Rett syndrome, they cut up their brains and found the only part that worked normally was the part that controlled the eyeballs.

So now I focus all my energy into my eyes and try to say something like, ‘I’m sorry, Nic. I’m sorry I screamed at your talent show.’

But my eyes can’t communicate that. By the look on Nic’s face, they’ve said something more like, ‘Eat your brussels sprouts.’

I stare down at the bathroom taps. The tag on my pyjamas itches the back of my neck. The bathroom light hums, and outside a bored dog yaps.

‘Ava would love to talk,’ says Mum – more to Dad than to Nic. ‘She’d …’

Too late. Nic has stormed down the hallway and slammed her bedroom door, which sounds like a train hitting bricks.

Then everything’s quiet again.

Dad pats my back. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll come good; she always does.’

Mum wipes my chin clean of toothpaste and holds a glass of water to my lips.

Squish, clasp, squish.

Will she, though? Will Nic ever forgive me? My shoulders droop. The sharp, minty smell of toothpaste makes me feel sick.

‘Come on, you,’ says Mum. ‘Don’t give it another thought.’

Mum and Dad help me into bed, where I lie down. My pillowcase fabric is soft and it’s good to take the weight off my aching back. But my iPod speakers buzz and my stomach clenches.

Next time I’ll do better, Nic. I promise.

I lie in bed, listening to Nic on her phone in the hallway. ‘Yeah, exactly,’ she says. ‘I literally could have, like … What? Yeah. Mel, I know. Tell me about it.’

Mel and Nic talk about boys and music and movies and everything else that matters when you’re nearly fourteen.

Imagine what we could talk about, Nic!

There’s silence for a moment. I look at the animal pictures Mum’s stuck up for me on the walls, listening to Nic’s uggies scuff against the floorboards as she heads down the hall. Then she’s in the kitchen; I can hear her clicking the pens by the fruit bowl. ‘Want to come over this weekend? Yeah, awesome. And Bella? Yeah, good, okay. Pizza? Movies …?’ The pens click again. There’s a sigh, then, ‘Huh? No, of course not. I’ll get Mum to take her out.’

That’s me she’s talking about. Me, who lives here too.

Can’t I stay home and watch movies with you, Nic?

I already know what they’ll choose: anything with singing or dancing. I like musicals too, but Mum and Dad still choose Finding Nemo and Surf’s Up for me, even though I’m almost twelve.

‘Okay, cool. I’ll text the others. Bring your straightener?’

Nic’s curls jump out of her head like springs from a mattress. Luckily Mel is the champion of hairstyles, and whenever she comes over Nic’s bedroom ends up looking like a beauty salon. Nic’s hair goes from crimped to flipped-out to beachy, the styles changing as often as the costumes in their favourite movies. Sometimes Mel offers to do my hair, too, but Nic tells her, ‘No, Ava doesn’t like people playing with her hair.’

I sigh. It’s not Nic’s fault she can’t understand me, but that doesn’t make it better.

Maybe one day, Nic, we’ll hang out like other sisters do.