Chapter 6
“Make sure you close the gate!” her mum called from the kitchen window as Eve rushed down the garden path.
“Okay!” she shouted back.
She half skipped, half bounced along, relishing the feel of her petticoats swishing around her legs.
It was too hot and sticky a day for such a dress, but Eve had picked it out herself the week before and she adored the purple polka dots and the way the skirts puffed out around her legs.
Her shoes were new too, glittery with shiny buckles.
Her black hair was tied up in two high pigtails and she’d never felt more like a princess.
She pulled open the gate to see the party banner her mum had attached to it. Large, looping letters spelled out:
Welcome to Eve’s 4th Birthday Party!
A single purple balloon was tied to the gatepost, bobbing in the breeze.
“This way people will know they’ve come to the right house,” Eve’s mum had told her. “We don’t want your friends accidentally going to someone else’s house, do we?”
Eve had never had a birthday party before, and as the week had gone on, her excitement had built so much that she’d started to think she might burst with it.
Now, at last, the day was finally here and the only thing spoiling it was Bella.
Eve hopped up and down on the spot a few times to make the lights in the soles of her shoes flash—staring at the gate, and the balloon, and the banner.
A few minutes later, she turned on her heel and ran back down the path to the house.
In the living room, she found Bella toddling around.
Her little sister had a new party dress too—blue gingham with a large appliquéd bunny rabbit on the skirt, delightfully fluffy and white, with a black splodge over its right eye.
Bella’s black curls were held back with blue clip-on bows.
She picked up a balloon with both arms, beaming in delight.
“No, Bella, put it back!” Eve said crossly. “Those are for my party!”
It was hard not to be annoyed with Bella sometimes.
It seemed as if she was forever messing up Eve’s things, or breaking her toys, or getting in the way, or throwing food on the floor, or crying, or taking up all their mother’s attention.
They couldn’t even go out for picnic lunches now, like they used to, because Bella needed to be back home for her midday nap.
But today was Eve’s day, not Bella’s. Her sister ran off with the balloon, disappearing out the door with a giggle.
Eve wanted to go after Bella and get the balloon back, put it where it belonged with the others, but Bella screamed if you took things from her, and then their mum would come out and start telling Eve off. It always seemed to be Eve who got into trouble, never Bella.
“She’s just a baby,” her mum would say.
There was an endless list of instructions when it came to Bella.
You have to be patient.
You have to share.
You have to wait.
Be nice, be gentle, don’t fuss.
It would be easier to go and find the balloon once Bella had inevitably tired of it and bring it back then, so Eve skipped into the kitchen, which was a whirlwind of laughter and activity, with sandwiches being cut into triangles and biscuits piled on paper plates and lemonade poured into a big jug, fizzing and sparkling.
Her mum had just picked up the birthday cake—a cat with Smarties for eyes and purple frosting for fur.
And then there was the blaring of a car horn, and the squealing of tires, and the sound of people shouting and running about outside.
“Oh dear,” Auntie Pam said, glancing out the window. “I think there’s been an accident….”
Eve’s mum looked out the window and suddenly froze.
Then a sound escaped her lips that was somewhere between a choke and a groan, so full of dread and despair that Eve went still too.
Her mum dropped the cake. The plate broke in two on the floor and the cat’s head slid off to one side.
Eve started to howl because how could there be a birthday party without a birthday cake?
She fully expected her mum to swoop in and comfort her, but instead she ran right out of the room without a backwards glance.
Perhaps she’d run to the shops to buy another cake?
Eve took a step towards the door, still crying, but her auntie Pam scooped her up.
She was barely paying any attention to her, though, but staring out the window instead.
“My cake!” Eve wailed, louder than ever.
She thought her auntie Pam would surely comfort her, since her mum wasn’t here. But instead, she said, “For God’s sake, Eve, hush!”
There was something harsh and horrible about her tone, so different from the way her aunt normally spoke to her.
Eve went silent, and suddenly she was afraid rather than upset.
Something was wrong—something that was even worse than the cake, though she couldn’t think what.
Her aunt whisked Eve into the dining room at the back of the house.
There were no windows facing the front, but Eve could still hear shouting and, soon after that, the sound of a siren. Then it all went very quiet.
Eve’s uncle Ben arrived at some point and Eve could hear him answering the door and speaking in a low voice to the people who rang the bell on the other side.
She knew it was her friends because she caught snatches of their voices before the door was closed and the quiet swept through the house again.
“Auntie Pam,” she said, tugging at her aunt’s sleeve. “Where’s Mum? When’s my party?”
Her aunt crouched down by her side. “We can’t have a party today, Eve. There’s been an accident. Bella got hurt. Do you understand?”
Eve didn’t. Not really. Bella was always hurting herself because she was always falling into things, and bumping her head, and tripping over.
Normally their mum just popped a rainbow plaster on the scrape, gave Bella a kiss and a cuddle, and then everything was fine.
She felt a flash of anger. Her little sister was ruining things again. She was always ruining things.
“But where is Bella?” she asked.
Auntie Pam swallowed. There was something wrong with her voice because it came out all dry and husky. “She’s…they’ve taken her away in an ambulance.”
“But what about my party?” Eve’s voice rose to a wail again.
She could feel hot tears filling her eyes. It wasn’t fair. This was the one day that was about her, and Bella had spoiled it. In that moment, she didn’t merely dislike her little sister, she hated her.
“Eve, stop it! This is, listen, this is serious. Bella is…She got out into the road.”
Don’t forget to close the gate….
Eve saw the blue gate in her mind, with the purple banner and balloon.
An icy, tingling feeling crept over her skin, despite the heat.
Some of her anger and hurt ebbed away and she felt a flash of concern for Bella instead.
Then an idea occurred to her, and she hopped down from the dining room chair.
“It’s okay, Auntie Pam,” she said. “I’ll get the plasters.”
Eve had tropical fish plasters, but Bella liked the rainbow ones best and Eve knew where they were kept in the bathroom cabinet. Auntie Pam put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not that kind of…A plaster won’t help, dear. Anyway, Bella isn’t here. I told you, the ambulance took her away.”
Eve frowned, more confused than ever. “But when will she be back?”
Her aunt rubbed her temples. “That’s enough questions now, Eve. We just have to wait, okay?”
So they did. They waited for what seemed like hours. Eve was allowed back into the living room at some point, but her aunt had drawn the curtains so that she couldn’t see outside.
“To keep the sun out,” she said.
She put cartoons on the TV for Eve and then she and Uncle Ben were talking in the kitchen in hushed, urgent voices.
Auntie Pam brought a plate of sandwiches out for her a short while later.
Eve asked about her party a few more times, but Auntie Pam just shook her head and said there wasn’t going to be one.
Eve really didn’t know whether to feel angry and upset about the party or worried about Bella, so she ended up feeling a weird mixture of both.
The afternoon dragged on and then Auntie Pam made her fish fingers and chips for tea.
She’d just put the plate down in front of her when the telephone rang.
Eve listened as her aunt had a brief conversation that ended in a strangled sob.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.”
She hung up the phone and Eve carefully set down her knife and fork, even though she’d barely started her dinner.
She knew, somehow, that she was about to be told something that she wouldn’t like.
Something that would change things. Something that there would be no coming back from.
The plate remained untouched on the table and she was relieved to hear the front door open a short while later as her mum and dad came in.
They would explain things to Auntie Pam.
They probably had Bella with them. Eve decided then that she’d let her sister keep the purple balloon she’d taken.
In fact, she could have all the balloons.
She shook off her aunt’s hand and ran out into the hallway, eager to see her sister…
but it was only her parents standing there.
Eve flew to them. Her arms wrapped tight around her mum’s legs and she let out a whimper as all the fear and confusion and upset of the day bubbled to the surface.
Finally, at last, she would get the thing she most wanted in that moment—to have her mum’s arms wrapped around her, keeping her safe and telling her not to worry and that everything would be okay.
But instead, her mum grabbed her upper arms and yanked her roughly off her legs.
She crouched on the doormat and leaned close to her daughter.
Eve shrank back because for a moment she truly thought this wasn’t her mum at all.
She looked so different. There was something wrong with her face, something ghoulish and frightening.
“Did you close the gate?” her mum hissed.
Her voice was wrong too; she didn’t sound like herself at all. Eve stared at her, too afraid to answer. Her mother’s hands tightened hard enough to leave bruises and then she was shaking Eve.
“Did you?”
“Jane, don’t!” her dad exclaimed. “For Christ’s sake!”
Eve started to cry. She had no idea what was happening. The next moment, Auntie Pam was ushering her mum into the kitchen and her dad was picking Eve up and carrying her upstairs. He closed the door to Eve’s bedroom and she was relieved that it muffled the sound of her mother’s sobs.
“Daddy,” she whimpered.
He wrapped his arms around her, reassuringly warm and solid, yet she could feel that he was trembling, and when he spoke his voice was shaking too and each word made him gasp.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault, Eve, I want you to remember that. Nobody blames you. Nobody.”