Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (8 page)

Hot searing p
ain flared across Nettle’s scalp. She yowled,
wondering if Jazz had torn a patch of hair from her head. Jazz’s
snarling expression was mere inches from her own. “Stop it, let
go!” Nettle grabbed hold of Jazz’s hand trying to extricate her
from the nest of knotted locks. Jazz only tugged harder. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done
anything.”

Jazz snarled, “I
am going to do to you exactly what you’ve done to
me.”

Nettle
’s eyes pricked with tears, she tried to turn away, but
couldn’t. Jazz had really, really, really, bad morning breath. “Oh
come on… Why so cryptic? Why don’t you just come on out and say
it.”

Jazz let go.
Nettle rubbed her smarting scalp, eyeing her cousin balefully.

Jazz sneered.
“I’m sorry you’re dirt poor, having to ride around
in that scrap of junk, in second hand clothes and home-made
haircuts. But don’t be jealous of me, and my family, and our money,
and all that it affords us.”

“Ah, technically, you don’t have any money,” piped up Bram,
cleaning his lenses with the corner of the bed-sheet before putting
on his glasses to look
up at his cousin, owl-like in
expectation.

There
was a tick in Jazz’s forehead that started to twitch. She stared at
Bram as if he were a little bug she might squish beneath her shoes.
“You know, when mum said she was sending me to you guys, for a
moment I was excited. I remembered how much fun it was hanging out
with you when we were little kids.”

Huh? That was new.
All she’s done since being here was complain and
moan and roll her eyes at me,
thought Nettle.

“But
then, I remembered, listening to all those stupid stories you used
to make-up to impress me. Lies and fibs is what they were, just
like you’re telling right now.”

On top of the dresser were the l
ittle dolls her father had made
especially for her. Nettle had found some time last evening to dust
and polish Private Tonks and comb Little Judy Carbunkle’s golden
hair. Jazz snatched up Little Judy by her ringlets. She dangled the
doll between clenched fingers, while a little smile that didn’t
reach her eyes played on her lips.

It was Bram
who recognized what was about to happened. “No, Jazz don’t,” he
cried. Nettle caught on just as Jazz’s smile hardened. The older
girl took hold of Little Judy and ripped half her hair from her
head and threw the scalped locks at Nettle.

“Stop
it! What are you doing?!”

Jazz
gleefully snapped the wooden doll in two and tossed the body parts
at Nettle. Little Judy’s limp body flopped onto the mattress at
Nettle’s feet. Nettle gathered up the broken doll, completely
shocked. Her cousin had gone mental before, but she’d never done
anything as monumentally malicious as this.

“Have you gone insane?” Nettle cried
. “Seriously, are you demented
or something?”

Jazz hurled
Krankshaw Tattersfoot at Nettle who easily dodged the rabbit. “I’m
doing exactly what you two did to my bedroom!”

“
We haven’t done anything to your room. We haven’t even left
our own.”

Jazz,
near imploded. Howling, she became a whirlwind of destruction. Jazz
swept her hand across the top of the dresser, sweeping hair
brushes, the velvet lined jewellery box, money purse, hair ties and
clips, photographs and sketches, strawberry and cherry flavoured
chapsticks: everything went flying across the room and clattered
across the wooden floor, rolling under the bed and side tables. The
treasured perfume Nettle received on her twelfth birthday, smashed
against the wall, spraying a heady cloud of fragrance throughout
the room.

Nettle
and Bram could only stare in disbelief. Jazz was growling and
grunting like a wild animal - and she wasn’t finished. She threw
open the louvered closet doors and pulled out a random article of
clothing. It was Nettle’s favourite navy striped jersey. Jazz tore
at the knitted fabric attempting to rip the jersey. All she managed
to do was pull it out of shape. Jazz shrieked in frustration and
tossed the jersey on the ground to furiously pull things out of the
closet and throw them haphazardly about the bedroom.

Nettle finally came to her senses. She jumped off the bed
to collect her possessions and protectively pile them into a mound
on her bed. Jazz just walked around her, tearing
a wooden framed
picture from the wall and flung it at the siblings. Bram ducked,
just managing to avoid the charcoal sketch as it slammed against
the wall behind him. “She’s bonkers!” Bram denounced before
slipping beneath the bed to hide.

Nettle approached her cousin as if she were a wild animal
she was trying to capture. She spoke softly
. Jazz had her back to her, trying to
pull the heel off Nettle’s combat boots. “Jazz, you’ve got to calm
down and tell me what is going on. I have no idea what you think
we’ve gone and done.”

Jazz
spun around, her red curly hair whipped about like Medusa’s snakes,
and shrieked, “LIAR! You’ve ruined all of my make-up, smeared it
all over the walls, just because you’re nasty and spiteful. You
couldn’t stop there, neither of you. You just had to tear all my
clothes to shreds… SHREDS! And my bed reeks with perfume. Do you
have any idea how much Chanel and Dior costs? ANY IDEA AT
ALL?!”

Nettle
gave her cousin a disbelieving gape. “You’re insane! Why would we
do that?”

Jazz
stormed across the room and leaned an inch away from Nettle’s nose,
her enraged blotchy face creased with hostility. “Because you hate
me.”

Nettle stood her ground.
The best thing to do,
she thought,
was to remain calm
in front of the maelstrom that was Jazz.
“Hate’s a strong word Jazz. More
like… intensely dislike.”

Jazz let out a shriek of outrage. Spittle struck Nettle’s
cheek. “
Ugh
,” She stepped back to wipe it off with the back of her
hand. “Come on Jazz, calm down. I’m sure there’s a reasonable
explanation-”

Jazz
rounded on Nettle, interrupting her. “Oh, I suppose you’re going to
tell me talking rats did it.”

Bram
slid out from beneath the bed and excitedly tugged at his sister’s
arm. “They must have!”

Jazz snarled,
“Stop it with the talking rats! As if anyone with
half a brain would believe something as stupid as that!”

“But,
we
didn’t do anything!” Nettle yelled.

“As if
I’m going to believe that either!”

A ball
of spitting and snarling youngsters blew through the front door and
onto the porch. Fred had been asleep on the old swing chair. He
awoke with a start, leaping to his feet wondering what on earth was
going on. The din of squabbling children was punctuated with a
flurry of accusations, pointed fingers and stomping feet. Fred
could barely work out what the kids were shrieking at one another.
For the moment, none of them realized he was there.

He be
llowed as loudly as he could, “OI!!” His explosive command
startled a small flock of sparrows from a tall hazel shrub. They
spiralled upward in a flurry of beating wings and squawking
protests to fly across the yard and settle on the higher branches
of an old ash tree.

All
three of Fred’s charges fell suddenly silent. They turned as one,
surprised to see him. A moment later, speaking all at once, they
directed their grievances at him.

“Dad,
she’s mental, crazy, insane, loco,” Nettle glowered, rotating a
finger by her head. “We didn’t do anything.”

“Uncle
Fred, she’s lying,” scowled Jazz. “She’s ruined every single thing
I own!”

“She
blames us for everything,” Bram advised. “Whatever Jazz thinks
we’ve done, it’s not us. It’s those talking rats.”

Fred
held up his hands demanding silence. The kids, reluctantly,
with dirty looks darting between the girls, settled down. He slowly
looked at each of the girls. His gaze rested upon Jazz. Fred
inwardly steeled himself, Jazz looked so much like his sister and
had the temperament to match. He had no idea what had transpired,
but as Jazz looked up at him in that expectant way, mouth pressed
firmly in that peevish manner that he and the kids only knew too
well, he knew he was going to be in for it. “OK, what’s happened
now?”

Jazz
glared pointedly at Nettle, then said, “You may as well come and
see for yourself, Uncle Fred,” and stalked off inside.

At Jazz’s
insistence, Nettle opened the bedroom door. She was met with an
overwhelming stench of sickening flowery perfume. It practically
thumped her in the face. She staggered back, pressing an arm across
her nose.

“That’s
$2000 worth of perfume,” Jazz sullenly informed her. Nettle
couldn’t help her horrified expression at the cost. “I don’t think
your measly allowance is going to cover what I’ve lost.”

Inside the bedroom, the whirlwind of destruction looked
like a gang of unruly toddlers had taken to everything inside. All
of Jazz’s possessions were strewn about the room. Necklaces and
bracelets, smashed or snapped in two, dangled from the lantern
hanging from the ceiling, and pearls and diamonds free from their
settings were scattered about the wooden floor. Handbags had their
handles snipped off, clutches had their clasps busted and Jazz’s
precious Jimmy Choo shoes all had their heels broken off. Expensive
clothes,
Nettle didn’t even want to think about, just how
expensive,
had either their arms torn off, ripped knees, or make-up
smeared across the fabric and everything within the room, including
the bedding and curtains, was coated in a fine layer of pressed
powder that had exploded from Jazz’s toiletry bag when that had
been rummaged through.

To make matters worse, crude drawings using Jazz’s
beloved
red
lipstick were drawn all over the bedroom walls. Simple stick
figures, clearly supposed to be Jazz, were drawn in a variety of
poses, all with angry faces surrounded by puffy red hair and
childish writing: Jazz is stupid, except it was spelt
‘stoopid.’

Nettle
chortled, spluttering to suppress it under Jazz’s blistering glare,
who snapped, “It’s not funny.”

“It is…
kind of funny...” said Bram, who was doing only just a little bit
better at hiding his amusement.

“Besides, I can spell,” said Nettle with a grin, scooping
up a snapped lipstick from the floor. She went over to the wall and
wrote ‘Jazz is stupid.’ Her handwriting wasn’t anywhere close in
resemblance to the infantile print. “And this isn’t really my
style,” she added. “I would have gone for something a little more
subtle… like, shearing off your hair.”

“Uncle
Fred,” squawked Jazz, her big almond-shaped eyes flaring wide in
horror. “Do something!”

Fred
was still gazing about the destruction, shaking his head
ever so slightly. His thoughts were far away from the wrangling
cousins.

“Uncle Fred?” Jazz impatiently
sing-songed
,
stamping her bare feet. “Uncle Fred!” she barked.

Nettle
saw her father come back to them with a start. He blinked dazedly
at Jazz, then turned to Bram. “Right, well, did either of you two
do this?”

“No, of
course not,” replied Nettle wondering why her father was sounding
vaguely disorientated. He wasn’t surprised at the mess for some
reason.

Bram shook his
golden-locked head in denial.

Fred
turned to Jazz with a grim smile. “There’s nothing much
that can be done then, Jazz, apart from the kids helping you tidy
up.”

“Are you
serious?!” Jazz’s voice rose a shrilly octave. “You’re going to
just accept that… absolutely outrageous lie!”

“My children are not liars
, Jazz,” Fred snapped. “I did not raise
either of them that way. If they say they didn’t do it, then they
didn’t.”

“I may
not be a qualified CSI Agent,” sulked Jazz, “but who else would
have done this? If it wasn’t me, or you, then that only leaves
them.”

She has a point,
thought Nettle, wondering what her father was
going to do. There was no one else that could be blamed for the
destruction.

Fred stared hard at his niece
, until Jazz clamped her mouth tightly
shut and dropped her glare to the ground. “Nettle, Bramble, help
your cousin clean up.” Fred’s tone was final. There was no arguing
with it.

When their father left, Nettle and Bram both started
picking up Jazz’s torn clothes and broken shoes. Nettle cradled
a
ripped
hockey jacket and cakes of mashed make-up. While Bram totally
believed the talking rats were behind the whirlwind of destruction,
she pondered why their father so readily believed them both. He was
right, he hadn’t raised liars, but he was well aware that at times
both of them had bent the truth somewhat and weren’t exactly
angels. There was something very odd going on here at the cottage
and her father was behaving very strangely.

Jazz
snatched the armful from Nettle, not caring when one of her
bracelets fell to the floor, diamonds scattering. “Just go,” she
said stonily to Nettle. “I don’t need help from the likes of you
two.”