Between the Lives - By Jessica Shirvington Page 0,2

over her shoulder and swayed. ‘Really? Me? You wouldn’t mind?’

‘Hey, you’re the best rabbit drawer I know. You think you can draw one of those bouncy ones you showed me the other day?’

She nodded vigorously. I could already see her picturing it in her head.

‘Cool. I’ll make sure no one else draws on this section and tomorrow afternoon it’s all yours. But you better go back to bed before Mom catches you!’ Of course I could already see Mom out of the corner of my eye in the kitchen doorway, but experience had taught us all that it was easier if I got Maddie to sneak back to bed by herself. I gave the top of her head a ruffle and she flung her arms around my waist, carefully avoiding my bad side.

‘Love you, Binie.’ Her squeeze tore at my insides. Getting through days without her was one of the hardest things. I squeezed back.

‘See you in the morning,’ I said lightly.

They were the same words I’d said to her so many times. And every time I finished the sentence in the secret silence of my mind – the day after tomorrow.

Mom had her back to me when I came into the kitchen. ‘Tea?’

‘Yeah,’ I said with a sigh, slumping into one of the tarnished wooden chairs at our chipped kitchen table. Our less-than-perfect kitchen fitted in well with our coming-apart-at-the-seams house.

Mom filled up the kettle using a massive plastic gallon bottle. It was the same one we’d been using in the kitchen for the past two weeks. The problem wasn’t that the S-bend got blocked; the problem was that Dad had tried to fix it. Big mistake.

Mom pottered with the mugs, pulling out her favourite rose one followed by my preferred Daffy Duck mug.

‘What happened?’ she asked, barely taking her attention away from her task. Even at this time of night, it wasn’t a surprise to see her still dressed in her work clothes, her greying hair pulled back in a tight knot, her heavily starched shirt tucked in at her slender waist. Mom and Dad were all about appearances. Mom, in particular, needed her family functional and firing on all cylinders.

‘Subway stairs,’ I answered.

With her shoulders set, she finished making the tea and sat across the table from me. ‘You should’ve called.’

I adjusted my sling, glad that I would only have to wear it for a few days – the cast covering half my forearm was bad enough. ‘You would’ve just wanted to come and help.’ And take over, I thought. ‘There was no point dragging Maddie out of bed just to sit in the stupid waiting room at the medical centre. Anyway, Capri was with me.’

Mom pursed her lips as she passed me my mug. ‘Such a comfort. Don’t suppose she’s discovered the many uses for a hairbrush yet?’

I shrugged and blew on my tea. ‘She has a look going, Mom. She’s happy with it, what’s the problem?’

Mom stared at me as if the answer to that question was oh-so-obvious. She’d prefer I hung with a different crowd. Sometimes I wished I could tell her that I did. I stared into my mug as once again I considered that, given the choice, Mom would probably want my other life for me rather than this one. But that kind of thinking was never worthwhile.

‘Dad still at work?’ I asked.

Mom nodded.

Dad worked long hours. He kept the drugstore open late Tuesday through Saturday, but apart from keeping a qualified pharmacist on duty, he didn’t like to pay late-night wages, which meant he was rarely home before midnight. The drugstore would be a good business if they actually owned it, but instead they’d signed into a lengthy – and unprofitable – management contract. Even with extra staff, Mom and Dad split a heavy workload. They saw little of us and even less of one another. But they were relentless, determined to send Maddie and me to a good college.

At least that was one thing I could do for them. Going through school twice does help in the smarts department. Last year I’d pulled out the brain gene in Roxbury – much to Capri’s disgust – and even cashed in last month with a partial undergrad scholarship to Boston University.

The thing is, I’m not even keen on the whole college thing. School twice is bad enough, college twice will suck – and god knows I won’t be able to avoid it in my other life, so I’d been hoping to skip