✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

5. The Other Little Girl

This chapter is dedicated to Privates, with my usual thanks for making it possible to keep on writing.

The more Tess thought about it, the clearer the scene was in her head. She could see a girl a few years younger than her sitting here, staring at all the boxes. She didn't know anything about her, but in Tess's mind the girl was called Alice, Maybe they were allowed to take one box each, because there was limited space in the moving truck. Maybe they didn't know what was whose. This had been Alice's room, until her baby sister had been born, and then they had to share. Maybe all the toys had lived here, and they all met here if they wanted to play together. Was this the largest room? Tess didn't even know, but she was sure that a house this size had to be big enough for at least two kids' rooms.

Or perhaps this had been the baby's room, and each little kid moved to their own room as they got older. The toys were all here because this room had space for everything that was no longer new and exciting. Alice had her own room, but came here if she wanted to play with her littlest sister. And then a couple of years ago the latest baby was born, and there was no other room to move her to, so they'd put a bed in the baby's room. And when another little sister was on the way, the whole family had to move.

Tess shook her head. It was dumb; she could imagine it so clearly. Alice looked almost exactly like her, but maybe a little more mature. She had red hair in Tess's imagination, and she loved being the oldest of four sisters. They looked up to her, even if everybody else called her a little kid. Here, she didn't need to keep on reminding people of how old she was. She'd been reluctant to leave all those memories behind, but she knew that she wasn't a child any more, so she hadn't shed any tears about moving on.

Had Alice gone to another country? Another city? For all Tess knew, it might have just been a bigger house. Alice could have been one of Tess's classmates at Raybridge High, and she would never have known. But she did know that she needed to stop playing around with someone else's toys and act her age.

She scooped everything back into its box, and rearranged them a little so that two adjacent piles of crates were the same height. They stacked neatly, and seemed stable, so she laid her suitcase across the top and opened it against the wall. On top was her school uniform for tomorrow, which she hung from a closet door handle to get rid of any creases it had picked up in transit. Her bag was in there too, already packed. That would have to do for now; she could work out where to put the rest of her things later.

She opened the door again, and saw her cousin standing outside the room with a faint smile.

Gabby looked different now. She was wearing a grey hoodie and worn jeans, but there was something in the way she stood. The jeans were worn by being heavily used, not shop-torn like the ones she'd had a decade before, and the top looked like it owed more to comfort than to fashion. But there was a phantom business suit in her posture, like she felt formal regardless of what she was wearing. She was very clearly an adult now, almost ready to be somebody's mum, and she was nervous.

"Gabby! Did I... uhh... do you want..."

"I thought you might be busy. I could hear you moving around, I didn't want to interrupt. But if you want to chill out, I got movies and wine. Get to know you a little, right?"

"Wine?" Tess asked, surprise showing in her face. She'd only had wine twice before, except for a glass with dinner at some over-serious gathering, and that was a secret she never wanted her parents to know about. "I'm not allowed to..."

"Dessert wine," Gabby explained. "Ever tried it? Sweeter than most kinds. This one's non-alcoholic, I've got work in the morning and I don't want to get carried away while I'm watching something. I don't know what you like to drink, you can look through the cupboards if you don't like this stuff. But I wanted to offer. I hope we can be friends, I'm not your babysitter now."

"No," Tess shook her head, ready to say she didn't need a babysitter, and then her brain caught up with what her cousin had actually said. "I mean... I know you're not. I can look after myself now. But a movie sounds great. Thanks. I didn't know if you were going to be..."

She couldn't finish the sentence, but Gabby was already heading back to the lounge, and Tess hurried after. The movie turned out to be one Tess had wanted to see three or four years ago, but she caught a couple of jokes that she would probably have missed back then, so she figured it must have been something the whole family could enjoy. That wasn't too patronising. The wine was sweet, and heavy too. It tasted like drinking a cross between fruit soda and syrup, but it was quite pleasant.

"You don't need to clean up after me or anything," Tess said, when Gabby got up to refill their drinks before the final act of the movie. "I mean, you don't need to look after me like my parents would. Just live like you're used to, I'll fit in around you. I can look after myself, so I'm not a burden."

"Want to be an adult already?" Gabby said with a smirk, and Tess found herself automatically preparing for some sarcastic insult about her baby face, or her height. She was so used to it now that she tensed her whole body, almost as if she was expecting a slap. "Well, you look after yourself like an adult and I'll treat you like my adult roommate. Might even have you paying a share of the bills. But if your school says you're a problem child, I'll deal with you like a problem child, and if you act like a baby I'll call you a baby. Fair?"

"Uhh..." Tess mumbled, and absent mindedly raised her glass to her lips. It was empty; Gabby had been getting up to get them refills, but the action gave her a moment to consider her response. "Yeah, that's great. I'm an adult, I promise. Thanks."

Another drink, some more joking, and the end of the movie came all too quickly. Tess didn't quite manage to predict the ending. And then, her first day in a new house, she was ready for bed. She didn't have time to search her suitcase for her pyjamas, which she hadn't thought to leave on top, but it didn't matter. She was so tired after a long day that she could barely keep her eyes open. She just dropped her jeans on the floor, pulled up the covers of the ridiculously pink bed, and was immediately fast asleep.