George and Nicole Harper had never had an easy life. From one set of divorced parents to another, these half siblings have had it tough.
Ever since their mother, Naomi, split from George's father and forced them to move from England back to her hom...
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Nick went into work that morning not feeling her best. She knew she'd get an earful from Donald for not turning up to work the previous day, even though she had convinced Frankie to cover her shift. She'd also hear it from Frankie for having to cover the shift in the first place and, to top it all off, she'd woken to find the house empty. George had left without so much as uttering a single word to her. He could be anywhere, doing anything. After the last time Nick had been called out to help him, she did not have much faith that he was doing something sensible.
Frankie was already there when Nick arrived. She clocked in, dumped her bag in the break room and put on her apron. Frankie shadowed her all the while, not saying a word but voicing her disapproval by tightly crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows whenever Nick looked her way.
"You so owe me for covering your shift," Frankie said at last. Nick sighed and drooped her head.
"I know, I'm sorry I had to cancel last minute like that," she sighed as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Since Joyce had taken her time off all those days ago, it was only Frankie and Nick who worked on weekends. Both girls were currently loitering in the doorway to the break room. Luckily for them, there were no customers in the shop. There never was anyone in that early, the shop had only opened two minutes ago. Still, if Donald caught them, he'd explode.
"You have no idea what I went through for you," Frankie continued to lay the guilt on thick, although part of Nick suspected she was exaggerating, "Don went off on one at me because he's still pissed at Joyce not being here or something, I wasn't really listening," Frankie trailed off and it was lucky she did as Donald decided at that moment to enter the shop floor and saw the two girls gossiping in the doorway.
"Frankie!" He snapped. Frankie took a slow step backwards and held her hands up in a mock surrender which only made Don more angry, "Don't just stand around chatting! And Nick? Where the hell have you been? And don't tell me you were ill because you look perfectly okay now! Get to work!" After Don had finished yelling, he disappeared back into his office leaving Frankie and Nick to get on with their shift.
Frankie rolled her eyes at Nick as she sauntered off to take her place on the tills. Nick secured her hair with a second tie and picked up a box from the delivery room to take through and start stocking the shelves.
From the front of the store, Nick could hear Frankie's voice.
"Hey, are you here alone?"
Nick frowned. The shop had only been open for five minutes, it was unlikely that any customers would be there. But Frankie surely couldn't be talking to herself...right? She's not that weird.
Nick poked her head around the shelves to stare down the aisle and made eye contact with Frankie on the till. Frankie looked back, frowned and shrugged her shoulders, throwing up her hands. Nick frowned harder, set the box down on the floor and sauntered over to the frozen food aisle, where Frankie was pointing.
Nick leant against the furthest freezer unit and watched as a young girl in a faded and very dirty looking pink dress was rifling through the freezer with the frozen desserts in and piled up boxes upon boxes of Eggos in her arms. If it hadn't had been for the pink dress, although it was covered in so much dirt that Nick could have easily mistaken it to be brown, Nick wouldn't have realised it was a girl. Her head looked as if it had been shaved.
"You need a basket?" Nick asked as the girl struggled to hold all of the Eggo boxes. The girl's head snapped around fast to meet Nick's questioning gaze. Nick's words seemed to startle her as she darted backwards a little, tripping on an abandoned box where Frankie had given up restocking the shelves. Her eyes widened and she spun on her heels and bolted for the door.
"Hey!" Frankie yelled as the girl ran past her, "Are you going to pay for those?"
Still in a bewildered daze, Nick sauntered back over to the tills, leaning her elbows on the conveyor belt to talk to Frankie.
"Who was that?" she asked, watching the girl run across the street, "She looks familiar."
"No idea," Frankie huffed, still annoyed that the girl hadn't paid for all the Eggos, "Where would you even have seen her anyway? I've been working here and living in this town long enough to know everyone. There are no families around here crazy enough to shave their daughter's head."
"That's what I thought too," Nick mused, still staring across the street despite the fact that the girl was long gone, "It's just, the last time I saw her, I could have sworn she had long blonde hair."
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