I Promise

• Ava Vincent, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

I Promise
“It’s our Mother’s funeral and you can’t even look half decent”, she started picking at and pulling my hair. I glared at Susan, she rolled her eyes and licked her thumb to clean my face. My self-proclaimed perfect twin sister had taken it upon herself to keep me in line, ever since Mum had died.
We stopped at a traffic light. The engine started humming, reminding Susan, Dad and I of mum; the way she use to hum along with it. Everyone in the car went silent except for Susan who had begun doing up the buttons of my jumper. I sighed.
We had arrived.
My Mother’s funeral was boring. Full of big sops who couldn’t stop crying and people who were at there to look like they cared but really they didn’t. I sat there, looking at people, Susan went about her business shaking people’s hands and saying how she was soooo sad.
Dad had seen enough people crying, “Come on girls lets go”. “Coming Daddy,” Susan started smirking, “Daddy can we get ice cream?” She had our Father in the palm of her hands. “Yeah, sure”, Dad was too tired to say otherwise.
The air was wet with fog, but it wasn’t raining.
I saw a sign post saying ’Rosie park’. It was on a blind corner. “Girl, I’ll give you ten dollars to get ice cream, I’ll be here, on this bench. There’s some work I need to do”. He was tired, I could see the lines on his forehead. “Yes Daddy”, said Susan. She was smiling at him but to me it looked like a sneer. I sat on the green grass, which had a perfect view of the whole street.
I didn’t want ice-cream, not after my mother’s funeral.
It enraged me that we had to live like this; our dad so tired he couldn’t say no. Susan was using him to get what she want when she wanted, our mother was dead.
Susan started walking across the road towards the ice-cream van. Susan didn’t see the over-sized truck round the corner, she didn’t see the driver glance down at her phone. The driver didn’t see her in the fog, while she was looking down at her phone, but my dad saw. He jumped in front of the car pushing Susan out of the way, as the truck hit him……..

****
I sit with one other person in the lobby of the hospital, screaming children being rushed past. “Isla and Susan Sorrow”, called the nurse,” Your father will see you now”. I stand up. My bruised sister holding my hand. “Isla, I’m sorry I was so picky before. I just needed to take care of you. But now it’s all so clear. We need to stick together. I can’t lose you not as well. Promise me that we’ll stick together. I won’t be picky anymore”. I was frightened. Why was she talking like this? We came across a door I looked through the window. A man was laying in the bed. His eyes were closed. He looked dead, but the life line said otherwise.
“I promise”
By Ava Vincent