The Strawberry Sisters (21 page)

Authors: Candy Harper

Sometimes there isn’t a happy ending to difficult stuff that happens in your life. But sometimes, if you have a lot of people to help you with it, you can start to learn
to live with it.

There wasn’t any magic solution to our family living in two different places; Lucy was always going to find that hard. And, even though we were older, me, Chloe and Amelia were going to
find it hard too. But over the next few days Mum, Dad and Suvi all helped us feel a bit better about it.

They explained that it’s a good thing that our family cares so much about each other and they helped Lucy think of ways to cope with feeling sad. Lucy is going to read Kirsti a goodnight
story every night. If she’s not at Dad’s house, she’ll do it by Skype.

Because it was half-term, we went to Dad’s house on Wednesday for the whole day. Lucy was still subdued, but I started to think that it was true what Mum said about arguments letting
people know how you feel because it does seem like the upset and shouting in the last couple of months have helped us all understand each other a bit better. When Mum dropped us off, she came into
Dad’s house and had a cup of tea. She held Kirsti and she talked to Dad and Suvi. It felt like maybe the two halves of our family aren’t so horribly far apart. I don’t think my
mum is ever exactly going to be super good friends with Dad and Suvi, but it’s nice to feel that they don’t hate each other and can all talk together about important stuff.

After Mum had gone, Chloe said, ‘What’s the Plan?’

And Dad said he thought we should all make the Plans together from now on. We chose to play Cluedo and Dad didn’t switch on the football or check his phone once. But he did ask me what I
thought when Amelia and Chloe were having quite a loud discussion about whether belly rings are ridiculous.

On Thursday, the day of my sleepover, Lucy had cheered up enough to help me make a cushion mountain in the Pit and to lick the bowl that Chloe made the brownies in. Amelia and
me blew up balloons and strung up the flower garlands.

‘Do you remember at the beginning of term when you said I was nice?’ I asked Amelia.

‘Yep. You are.’

Lucy and Chloe came in with plates of food to put on the table.

‘Isn’t Ella nice?’ Amelia asked them.

‘Definitely,’ Chloe said.

Lucy nodded.

‘But what does that mean? Doesn’t it mean a bit . . . not anything much?’

‘No way!’ Amelia said. ‘It’s hard work being nice. I should know. I’ve been trying it for the last week and I can only really manage it some of the time.’

‘Nice means lots of things,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s about thinking about other people’s feelings. I didn’t know that that was important, but you always do
it.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yep,’ Lucy said. ‘You helped me get the paint and you wouldn’t let Amelia in the Pit when I didn’t want anyone in here.’

‘And you were nice to Suvi,’ Amelia said. ‘We didn’t even realise she needed being nice to.’ Amelia hadn’t called Suvi the Ice Queen once since she saw her
crying over Lucy and Kirsti.

‘And me,’ Chloe said. ‘You knew that I couldn’t understand Thunder and Amelia and all their feelings stuff, and you helped me work it out.’

‘And you’ve been nice to Alenka in your class by asking her to join Hockey Club and including her in other things,’ Amelia said. ‘Her sister told me.’

Chloe nodded. ‘And then there’s Ash and Kay. And Mum.’

‘You’re the nicest person I know,’ Amelia said, ‘and that’s a really, really good thing.’

Even though Amelia has been trying not to be mean lately, she still doesn’t say stuff just to make people feel better so I believed her.

Ash, Kay, Erica, Alenka and also Jess and Nisha from Hockey Club all arrived on time. I thought that was probably everyone, but then the bell rang again and there were
Jasmine’s friends, Asia and Courtney.

They looked a bit sheepish. ‘Jasmine didn’t want us to come,’ Asia said.

‘But we thought it was really nice of you to invite us,’ Courtney said and she gave me a box of cupcakes, fancy ones with swirly icing and tiny little gold stars on.

We put on some music and everyone spread out on the cushions, eating brownies and cupcakes and chatting.

I looked at Kayleigh drawing a cartoon of Chloe with cake icing on her nose. Ashandra was sitting next to her, reading the back of one of Amelia’s books.

I know they are different.

‘That’s good,’ Ashandra said, looking up and tapping Kayleigh’s drawing.

But I know that we can all get on.

Chloe and Thunder were having a competition to see how many Jaffa cakes they could fit in their mouths.

Amelia was making Courtney and Asia crack up by saying something that probably wasn’t very polite and Lucy was sitting on the table, wearing a crown she’d made out of the leftover
tissue paper.

I love my sisters. They are loud and funny and brimming with self-confidence. But I don’t have to be exactly like them. All these people came to my party and I don’t have to put on
an act or pretend to be someone else: they came to see me. I am a nice person. And that means something good. I don’t want to be anybody else. Like my dad said, I’m perfectly Ella and
that’s not a bad thing to be at all.