The Sister Surprise by Abigail Mann (book series for 10 year olds .txt) 📕

‘Who?’

‘My dad,’ she says, beckoning me down a narrow hallway.

Chapter 24

‘Hang on,’ I say, dashing after her as she reaches a staircase lined with floral wallpaper and a chipped dado rail.

‘Just up here,’ says Moira, not looking back.

I consider leaping from a window and sprinting as fast as my floppy wellie boots will carry me, but I seem to be on autopilot. What does she mean? Is there a chance Mum has lied to me about my father being dead? I grow hot underneath my scratchy jumper, panic setting in.

Moira leads me onto the landing, past a magnolia room filled with boxes of paper bags and cake-tin liners, and up to a narrow bedroom at the end of the corridor. Shimmering butterflies are stuck on the door beneath a metal sign spelling out her name in the style of a Californian licence plate.

She’s not leading me to him. She can’t be. I bite my lip, annoyed at myself for the flash of hope that tickled at my ribcage before calcifying into a hard, disappointing lump. He’s not here, and yet for a minute, I truly thought he was.

Moira opens the door to a bright room with a three-quarter-size bed tucked beneath the window and textured plaster on the walls, painted over with lilac. She slides a mirrored wardrobe door open, revealing a vanity table covered in make-up I’ve not seen her wear. She passes me a photo frame and shoves her hand in her pocket. The other points to a man in the picture.

‘That’s Dad: Andrew. And Mum, obviously.’

I stare at the out-of-focus man in the picture. He’s tall, that much is clear. Jacqui’s Nineties perm barely reaches his shoulders and she’s got the height and girth of a rugby prop, with a scowl to match. Andrew squints in the sunshine through dark, curly hair that falls to one side in a style that could seem foppish if it weren’t for his thick arms and patchwork tattoos. His jawline is square, like Moira’s. Like mine. He’s got a hand on Jacqui’s shoulder, but going by her awkward stance, you can tell she’s holding him up. A half-drunk pint dangles in his right hand, cut off by the frame.

‘Mum said that Dad wearing tailored trousers was the best thing to come from a funeral,’ says Moira with a smile.

‘He’s … he’s big,’ I say. Now that I know where I got each part, I’m conscious of my face in a different way.

‘Oh, aye. Good on the tug-o-war.’

I try to imagine Mum standing in Jacqui’s place, but I’d sooner believe that Kian has a second job as a Butler in the Buff. I’ve seen photos of Mum from before I was born. The abundance of hemp cloth and henna-dyed hair was a look, especially when complemented by a ribboned tambourine. Blending in has never been her forte.

I look at Moira and back to the picture, mentally splicing our features apart and dropping them into petri dishes between Mum, Jacqui, and Andrew. Four people, irreversibly connected, but wildly different.

‘Do you miss him?’ I ask.

‘Yeah,’ says Moira, with an upward intonation. ‘He used to take me mackerel fishing when I was little. He had a little boat in the garage and we’d tow it down to the harbour.’

I feel a pang of something akin to grief. Is that possible if you’ve never met the person? Moira looks around the room, as though noticing it for the first time. A rainbow of rosettes are thumbtacked to the shelf above her bed. I give the photo back to Moira, my thumbprint stark on the glass. ‘Was it nice? Growing up together, as a family?’

‘Sure, it was. Mum and Dad never had big bust-ups, but there was always an atmosphere of some kind. I could feel it as soon as I walked in. That’s why Kian let me hang around Braehead so much, ’cos we were in the same boat,’ says Moira.

‘That seems so unfair,’ I say, desperately wanting to add myself into the equation, ‘that both you and Kian missed out on the chance to grow up with them around.’

‘Kian had it worse off than me,’ says Moira. I wince, the unjustness of it all brought into light. Deciding whose ‘dead dad’ situation is worse is a bit like choosing between getting punched in the face or kicked in the stomach.

I don’t have a right to feel hard done by. Historically speaking, Mum’s hazy references to my father might have been a defence mechanism this whole time. The decision to tell him about my existence wouldn’t have been a simple one. Going by what Moira’s said about the way she was fathered, I doubt knowledge of a second daughter 500 miles away would have inspired him to don a Batman costume and start campaigning for Fathers 4 Justice.

I pull Moira into a hug, my arms above hers. She giggles and pats my back with T-Rex arms.

‘I knew it!’ she says. ‘You are a hugger.’

‘Only in special circumstances,’ I reply, squeezing my arms together. Over her shoulder, the collage of pictures stuck to the wall comes into focus. ‘Um, Moira?’

‘Mmhm?’

‘Why is your room covered in pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio?’

Moira breaks away, turning to face what can only be called a shrine. The space beside her bed is covered in torn magazine pages and film posters, the faces of his co-stars ripped away.

‘He’s … an interest of mine,’ says Moira. ‘This one is quite rare,’ she says, pointing to a box frame. ‘You see that? It’s an original wood chip from the floating door in Titanic.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yeah. I had a Titanic birthday party when I was eight. We all wore stripy life rings and made replica “Heart of the Ocean” necklaces out of Blu Tak and tinfoil. What a day,’ she gushes.

‘Didn’t you jump on that bandwagon a bit late? You must have been – what – a toddler when it first came out?’

‘No, definitely not. We rented it on