The Sunshiners

Chapter 1

Pulling her hair out and screaming seemed like perfectly good options to Adele. She rushed around her room, searching drawers and rummaging through piles of clothes. Nothing seemed to be going her way this morning. While searching for her Geography workbook, she came across a scrunchy on her nightstand and began tying her long hair back as she frantically surveyed her mess of a room.

There, on a shelf with her other books.

Adele sighed harshly as she shoved the workbook in her frayed denim rucksack. Her mum must have mistaken it for one of Adele's reading books when she'd straightened up yesterday.

Speaking of her mu­­m, Adele could hear her downstairs, arguing with her dad. Again. Their loud voices carried through the floor and sometimes even shook the walls. It wasn't full-blown angry shouting, although they both sounded angry at something; and it wasn't filled with swearing or insults or any kind of abuse. Although there was the occasional shout of 'idiot' or 'sono stuffa' when her mums Italian came out. And it had never–as far as Adele had ever known–come close to anything physical (apart from an innocent plate once slipping from a wet hand during a wild gesture and smashing on the counter). No. Adele's parents were just constantly on full volume.

The aggressive voices downstairs began to make her heart race. Her dad couldn't find his shoes and was blaming her mum for moving them. It was a variation of the same old arguments they had at the start of pretty much every day. Like a dance they'd practiced for years that only they knew the steps to.

Adele sighed again as she ran a brush over her thick hair, trying to clean up wayward bits her scrunchy couldn't control. The brush snagged easily and she soon gave up, throwing it back onto her cluttered dresser. It was as if her hair was in charge, and she was just something it was growing on, along for the ride.

She paused as she stared at herself in the mirror. She was still there. Still herself. The same round face and big brown eyes. But somehow, the person looking back felt like a stranger; like she'd suddenly grown up from ten years old and was looking at herself as a teenager, wondering who this person was.

She made her way along the carpeted corridor and went downstairs. The arguing had died off and now there were just the sounds of someone–probably her dad–shifting things around in the small room to the left of the hallway.

Adele found her sister in the front room, on the sofa eating cereal and watching TV. The old flat-screen showed a man in a colourful suit telling the camera how to make your own putty. Cassie had her feet up on the cushioned pouf, lounging like it was still Sunday and she had nothing to do all day. Not a care in the world.

"Aren't you too old to be watching these kids shows?" Adele asked by the doorway. "Why don't you put on the news and see what's going on in the world?"

Cassie turned towards Adele but kept her eyes lazily on the TV. "I'm ten, not boring."

Adele regarded her sister, taking in her long blonde hair and clear pale skin. Cassie had always been the thin one. Adele had taken her parents' darker skin tone and thick hair, and had always been a bit on the chubby side – although she'd recently lost some weight after spending the Christmas period with a stomach virus. She shook her head and turned to leave, glancing over the peeling wallpaper and old mould that had stained a corner of the ceiling.

A large presence appeared in front of Adele in a sudden surge of tense, overpowering energy that froze her completely.

Her mum was a tall woman with a curvy figure that verged on rounded, and carried herself with the manner of an army sergeant; a constant frown on her stern, olive-skinned features. At this time of the early morning, her hair was big and messy, which combined with her round nose and wide nostrils gave her a troll-like appearance.