In Sarah’s Shadow

In Sarah’s Shadow

Karen McCombie

For the four girls at Coombe Girls’ School

who helped inspire a plot twist. (You know who you are!)

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

PART ONE Out from the Shadows Megan’s story

Chapter 1 Charmed, I’m sure…

Chapter 2 Wonderful things happen…to other people

Chapter 3 Good deeds = good luck?

Chapter 4 Ice and fire…

Chapter 5 Funny? Peculiar…

Chapter 6 The surprise – make that shock – party

Chapter 7 A secret shared…

Chapter 8 On the Angel trail

Chapter 9 Take a chance on me…

Chapter 10 Luck…but which kind?

PART TWO Life in the light Sarah’s story

Chapter 1 Walking on eggshells

Chapter 2 Good times, bad vibes

Chapter 3 Twitterings and warnings

Chapter 4 Waiting impatiently

Chapter 5 The many faces of Megan

Chapter 6 Party hard

Chapter 7 The damage done

Chapter 8 The end of a beautiful friendship…or two

Chapter 9 Too much, too little, too late…

Chapter 10 Shadows and light

Preview

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE Out from the Shadows Megan’s story

Chapter 1 Charmed, I’m sure…

There’s always a flip side to everything, isn’t there?

For every good bit of news, there’s bad. For every amazing piece of luck, there’s a dog poo waiting to be stepped in. For every silver lining, there’s a big, fat cloud. For everyone who’s charmed, someone’s jinxed. For every Sarah, there’s a Megan…

“Hey, Sweetpea, what’s with you?” Dad beams as Sarah bounces through the living room doorway. “You look pleased with yourself!”

Ah, yes…and for every Sweetpea, there’s a Pumpkin. ‘Cause in our family, my sister Sarah is the bringer of good news; the one who has amazing luck; the girl with her own in-built silver lining; the charmed eldest child with the pretty pet name to go with her pretty self.

Then there’s Megan (ie, me): the bringer of bad news; the one destined to tread in the dog poo; the girl lurking under the big, fat cloud; the jinxed younger sister with the pet name as round and lumpen as—

“Put your legs down, Pumpkin!” Mum orders me, practically shooing me off the sofa I’ve been curled up on since I got home from school. “Let your sister sit down!”

All praise Princess Sarah! She hath arrived and we must all bow low to Her Loveliness. Wonder if I should wipe away any grime left behind from my trainers before she graces the sofa with her wondrous bottom?

Nah. I won’t bother.

Oh, God – I know how bad that sounds. I’m coming over like a total bitch, aren’t I? But I’m not…honest I’m not. Just ask anyone who feels like they’re the least loved kid when it comes to their parents and they’ll know exactly what I’m going through. After fourteen years of watching my parents and Sarah indulge in this mutual appreciation society, it’s like I’m this invisible member of my own family, somehow surplus to requirements. Think of it that way and you’ll see it’s hard not to sound bitter and twisted sometimes, but all I really am is hurt, hurt, hurt.

Specially when I spot those snidey, sideways looks Sarah sometimes throws my way when she thinks I don’t notice…

“Come on then, Sarah! What’s put that smile on your face?” says Dad excitedly, setting aside his newspaper and giving his favourite child his full attention. Mum’s the same, turning the sound down on the local news she’s been watching on TV and gazing at my sister expectantly.

Sarah shrugs her fluffy-collared coat off her shoulders and shakes free her sheeny-shiny chestnut hair. Where does she think she is? At an audition for a shampoo ad? The steps outside the Met Bar, with the whirr of cameras and catcalls of the paparazzi all around? Doesn’t she realise that this is just our normal front room, with its normal floral wallpaper border and a normal family sitting around on our extremely normal sofa and chairs? Ah, but maybe that’s it; maybe that hair-tossing business is for my benefit. You know, just to remind me that my dull, brown fuzz of a hairdo can never compete with hers.

Oh yeah, Sarah likes to let me know my place, but it’s in these subtle, paper-cut sharp ways that can only be seen by the trained eye. And believe me, I’m trained. After a lifetime of being related to Princess Perfect sitting here next to me, you get wise.

Sarah is just about to speak, when Mum starts fluttering and clucking around her as usual.

“Oh, don’t crush your new coat, darling!” she frowns in concern, indicating Sarah’s long, fawn, sheepskin coat. “Pumpkin – go and hang it up for your sister!”

I’m about to say something – like, why doesn’t Sarah hang up her own coat? – but there’s no point. Instead of Mum realising how unfair that is, she’ll just think I’m being unhelpful and grumpy, instead of bright and smiley, like you-know-who. So instead, I put my magazine down on the floor, wordlessly hold my hand out and wait for Sarah to pass me her stupid coat, like I’m her handmaiden or something.

“Stop fussing, Angela!” I hear Dad jovially tell my mum off as I head out into the hall. “Let the girl talk!”

What a joke, eh? Dad tells Mum off for the heinous crime of stalling Sarah’s latest piece of good news, in her never-ending stream of amazing luck. He doesn’t nark at Mum for ordering me about; it’s as if I came as a package deal with the house (‘1930s semi with garage; servant included’).

“Well…” Sarah begins from the comfort of the sofa, but I’m outside in the hall now, burying my face into the soft-as-clouds furry collar of this amazing sheepskin coat. Not that I want it – if I wore it, I’d look like…well, a sheep. Whereas Sarah – with her matching boots, knee-length denim skirt and tight black top – looks like she just stepped out of the pages of a style magazine.

If only I was taller, slimmer, less round in places I shouldn’t be and more round in places I should; maybe then I’d have people staring at me in the street like Sarah does; maybe then I’d be less invisible.

And then I smell it – the cloying, sickly-sweet scent that Sarah always smothers herself in. It jars in my head and sends a sharp pain shooting through my sinuses. I quickly pull my face away from it and chuck the coat towards the row of hooks on the wall, but I miss and it crumples into a pale heap on the floor. I grab it up roughly, then chuck it towards the rack again, not bothering to search among the white fluffy fibres for a clothes hoop for hanging. Instead, the coat dangles lopsidedly, swaying gently, an ugly bulge already pressing through the suede where the hook juts out.

There’ll be a mark if I leave it like that…I think guiltily. Automatically, I reach over to hang it properly, then hear Sarah’s boastful words waft out of the living room, as if she’s deliberately raised her voice so I don’t miss what she’s got to say.

“…and that’s when Mr Fisher said – ‘I want you, Sarah!’”

I want you, Sarah…to shut up, for once? I say to myself, feeling the blood pound in my veins.

I want you, Sarah…to leave the country and never come back?

I want you, Sarah…to have, just for once, the tiniest bit of bad luck – just enough so you know what life feels like for the mere mortals who have to live in your shadow?

All of a sudden, I snatch my hand from Sarah’s crumpled coat, turning away from it and the ugly bulge, and walk back into the living room. It’s petty and pathetic, I know, but you can’t begrudge a girl a bit of petty and pathetic revenge now and then, specially in the face of a sister who gets the strangest kick out of making her feel useless…

Somehow, I don’t feel like sitting back down next to her – maybe Sarah’s silver lining is radiating too much ultra-violet light for a thin-skinned person like me to stand. Instead, I perch on the arm of Mum’s chair and try and figure out what exactly Sarah’s boasting on about this time.

“So, Mr Fisher chose you, out of how many people, Sarah?” Mum asks, practically prickling with static electricity she’s so proud.

“Well, there were about thirty people at the auditions today, and I think he saw more people yesterday,” Sarah smiles a golden-child smile. “But today he finally decided on which five to pick for the band line-up.”

“And when is the actual Battle of the Bands competition happening?”

That’s Dad, perched now on the edge of his seat. He couldn’t look more excited if he suddenly saw his Lotto numbers sliding next to each other on the TV screen.

I get it. This Battle of the Bands thing – there are posters all over the noticeboards at school about it. It’s this regional competition that’s on at the end of next month – all the schools in the area enter a band, and the winners get a free pair of drumsticks from the competition sponsors or whatever. It’s pretty good fun; I was in the audience for it last year and there were some really brilliant bands there, and some spectacularly naff ones too, but it was a great afternoon’s skive. I hadn’t realised Sarah was going in for it this time around. I mean, I know she can sing (well, she can do anything, can’t she?) and she’s taught herself to play guitar this year (in between getting top grades in her exams, having an amazing social life and being all-round fantastic). But then she wouldn’t tell me, would she? She’s not even bothering to look at me now; she’s saving all her smiles for her appreciative audience of two.

“Who else is in the band with you? Did Cherish and Angel get picked?” asks Mum.

I realise I’m scratching at my wrists and stop. It’s a nervous habit and I don’t mean to do it, but it just happens. It really winds Mum up.

“Yes, they got picked too. And there’s this guy Conor who’s going to play bass and a lad called Salman who’s going to be on drums. I kind of know both of them, but just to say hi to.”

I rack my brains. Cherish and Angel – of course I know them, since they’ve been best friends with Sarah for years, regularly swanning in and out of our house (and blanking me, usually). But Salman and Conor…well, I’m pretty sure there’s a Salman in the Upper Sixth, but I don’t know about a Conor – there’re loads of Conors at our school.

“And so what happens now?”

That’s Dad again, probably already envisaging some glittering musical career for Sarah. Sorry, Daddy dearest; don’t suppose she’ll be opening for U2 any time soon. Then again, knowing her luck…

“Well,” Sarah says brightly, “we’ll have to get together with Mr Fisher and work out what song we want to play, then it’ll be a case of loads of rehearsals up until the competition!”

They’ll probably win. I haven’t heard them play together and I haven’t seen the two blokes, but unless they make a real mess of it or the guys look like extras out of Planet of the Apes, then it’s in the bag. How could the judges pass over a band that’s got the three prettiest, coolest girls in our school in it?

Oh, boy…Sarah’s swollen head is just about to get that bit more hot-air balloon-sized. Winning the competition will be a case of yet more glory landing slap-bang in her lap, just like it always does. Unlike me, who can’t scrape past average in any given exam. The only competitions I ever bother to enter are for give-aways in magazines. And guess what? ‘Free glitter make-up!! 1000s of sets up for grabs!!! To everyone except Megan Collins!’ I’ll tell you what my luck’s like: if I buy a magazine with a free gift on the cover, I won’t notice the gift’s been nicked off it till I’m outside the shop and can’t complain. And round about then is the time I’ll step in the dog poo and get soaked by an unexpected black cloud’s worth of rain.

God, I’m off on one again, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just hard when you don’t feel like one of life’s shiny, happy people. And it’s even harder when one of life’s shiny, happy people lives in the room across the hall from you.

“Megan, don’t do that!”

Mum’s voice is soft and urgent, her cool fingers are pressing mine still. I hadn’t realised I’d been scratch-scratching at my wrists again. And now they’re all looking at me. Looking at the freak member of their family with the scars on my skin that remind me and them of just how imperfect I am.

“I’ve got homework,” I mumble and get out of the room, away from the pitying, uncomfortable glances that are focused on me. They’re better off without me around, spoiling my parents’ fun as they soak up the sparkles of Sarah’s success.

“Megan…!”

I hope Mum doesn’t follow me – I don’t want her to. I hate those cosy pep talks she tries to give me, when she perches on the edge of my bed and always ends up upset, holding my hands and turning them over so she can stroke the jagged, bumpy white marks running longways across the raised tendons and blood vessels. And then she starts crying, like she always does, as if every time she touches them it’s as shocking as that first time when she found me…

I’ll stick on my headphones; that’s what I’ll do. Listen to something loud, so loud that there’s no room in my head for Sarah and her ten trillion lucky breaks.

My hand wraps around cool metal and I’m about to close the door of my room, to shut the whole world out, when I glance across the hallway into Sarah’s room. There’s her guitar, propped up against the desk, a reminder of how much Fate likes to smile down on my sister while leaving me stuck in the shadows.

Any chance I can get a turn in the luck department? Please? Maybe sometime this century?

Chapter 2 Wonderful things happen…to other people

“It looks nice!”

Pamela, my best friend, is lying. It’s something she does pretty regularly.

“It doesn’t look nice,” I tell her as I stare at my bizarre reflection in the full-length hall mirror. “It looks crap. Before, I had no boobs, and now – now it looks like I’ve got two satsumas shoved up my T-shirt.”

“But in a good way!” Pamela shrugs uselessly. “Maybe you just need to slacken the straps or something…so they’re not so high.”

High, as in tucked just below my chin, where – unless I’m very much mistaken – boobs aren’t meant to be. Well, bang goes two weeks’ allowance on a Wonderbra that probably does wonderful things for other girls but makes me look like a freak.

“You’ve really got to be more positive, Pumpkin!” Mum had told me this morning when she caught me hugging a cushion across my non-existent chest while sighing at the sight of Destiny’s Child bouncing around in spangly bras that could barely contain their bosoms on some old video they were rerunning on MTV.

“Be more positive”: that’s what Mum always tries to tell me if I’m down about anything. Maybe if she stopped calling me Pumpkin for five minutes I might feel more positive, of course. (Just a thought.) But you know, like most human beings, mothers can’t be wrong all the time, so I decided to try and do the positive thing, just this once, just to keep her happy. And so this afternoon (spent shopping and window-shopping, like every other Saturday), me and Pamela wandered into the underwear department at BhS, laughed at all the old lady knickers (big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries, if you sewed the legs up), sniggered at the G-strings (not enough pant to cover a postage stamp, never mind your girly bits), and bought myself a slinky, black Wonderbra. Which I am now wearing, and which is making me feel about as slinky as a baboon in a fairground hall of mirrors.

“Hold on…” says Pamela, and before I can stop her she’s got her hands up the back of my top and is trying to wrestle the straps a little looser. “There! Now if I just do this…how’s that? Better, huh?”

Better…no, I don’t think so.

In front of me, all I can see is a girl wearing size 12-14 black trousers, a boy’s (aged twelve) grey Gap T-shirt, with two satsumas loitering in the middle of her chest (one higher than the other), while a hand holds up her dull, brown hair in what is supposed to look like a loose and lovely topknot but is more like a gently collapsing bird’s nest.

God, I’d be irresistible, if I wasn’t such a walking disaster…

“You might as well let it go,” I tell Pamela, wriggling away from her hand and feeling my hair tumbling down over my shoulders. “It still looks lousy, whatever you try to do to it.”

Maybe I should grow my hair really long – that way I could drape it over my chest so no one would see that I don’t actually have one.

“Just trying to help,” Pamela mumbles, taking a step away from me.

I know she’s trying to help; she always does. But sometimes, the more Pamela tries to help, the more she puts her foot in it. Like the time she convinced me that the silver, spray-on hair glitter I bought looked excellent? I wasn’t so sure, but decided to believe her and wore it to the end-of-term Christmas party. Lucky it was the end of term; the nickname of “Granny” that the boys dumped on me that night – on account of my new-look ‘grey’ hair – had been forgotten by the time the next term started, thank God. Even if I still remembered.

“Look, you want a coffee?” I ask her, realising that Pamela’s acting like I’ve slapped her in the face.

“OK,” she replies, following me, lap-dog style, through to the kitchen.

Poor Pamela; she has to put up with me and my stupid black moods, but it’s cool – she knows how hard things get for me. It’s not as if Pamela’s life is some rose-tinted success story – me and her are neck-and-neck when it comes to being resoundingly average at school – but at least her size 12 body is all in proportion, even if she isn’t exactly Kate Moss gorgeous, and at least she doesn’t have an older sister who’s so stunning in every department that she can’t help but feel like the family booby prize by comparison.

‘Course, there is one area where my best friend is scoring considerably better than me.

“You said you’d show me the message Tariq texted you,” I nod in the direction of the bag Pamela left on the kitchen stool when she came round to collect me earlier.

I know what the message says, of course: Pamela only told me about twelve thousand times this afternoon. But then she’s desperate to dig out her mobile and show me the message for real, and if that gets her smiling again then I’ll act surprised (as surprised as she was to get a message like that) when she sticks it under my nose.

“Look, see?” she beams as, right on cue, the jumble of text letters dance in front of my eyes, just as I flip the kettle on.

“Hi, Pammie – what’s up? Tar x,” I read aloud, my voice practically drowned out by Pamela hyperventilating.

Not the most romantic message in the world; not exactly an excerpt from the love scenes between Joey and Dawson in Dawson’s Creek. But it’s enough to make Pamela feel like the most desired female in the Western hemisphere and I have to say I’m a tiny bit jealous, even though Tariq is the sort of boy I’d have to kiss with a paper bag on my head if we were ever in that last boy/last girl on Earth scenario.

“See? I told you! ‘X’ is a kiss, isn’t it?” Pamela babbles, stabbing at the phone and nearly erasing her precious message.

“‘Course it’s a kiss!” I grin, idly wondering if ‘x’ stands for kiss in all languages. What if ‘x’ is short-hand for ‘sod off’ in Vietnamese? But luckily for Pamela, Tariq is from north London, same as us, and so ‘x’ is most definitely a kiss and most definitely unexpected, since the only communication Pamela and Tariq have had so far is a few shy “hi”s across a crowded dinner hall. Who did he get her number from? What gave him the courage to call? And why’s he suddenly calling her “Pammie” when no-one else in the world ever has?

“Pammie…” says Pamela wistfully, leaning up against the gently gurgling fridge.

I guess it sounds more exotic than plain Pamela (in the same way chocolate digestives are more exotic than plain ones). Pamela Ann Jones: not the most memorable name in the world, as Pamela would be the first to agree. Not even an ‘e’ on the end of Ann for that extra scrap of glamour. But don’t get me wrong; I’m not putting her down for having a dullish name; after all, mine is only just a fraction more interesting. It’s just that it’s ironic, isn’t it, that my best friend happens to be called Pamela, while Sarah’s two best mates are named Cherish and Angel. Cherish Kofi and Angeline Girardot, to be precise. Memorable by name, memorable in the flesh, as most of the boys at Bakerfield School will happily tell you, if only they can get their tongues back in their mouths and their jaws off the floor. They’re like that about Sarah too (naturally), but I don’t want to sully my mind with thoughts of her right now. It’s been two solid weeks of Sarah, the competition and general parent hysteria about Sarah and the competition in this household and, right now, I’m kind of enjoying having the place to myself for five Sarah-free, parent-free minutes…

“So, what are you going to text back to him?” I ask ‘Pammie’, handing her a mug of milky coffee.

“God! I hadn’t thought about that!” Pamela suddenly switches from happiness to panic in half a split second.

Lateral thinking: that’s when your mind spins off at different tangents from one particular thought. Pamela, bless her, doesn’t do lateral; her mind works in one direction at a time, with blinkers fixed to either side of her brain to stop her from being distracted by incidental stuff. Now I feel bad for her, the last thing I want is to spoil her happiness by making her tense up about a suitable reply.

“How about…Hi Tar – hanging with Megan. What’s up with U? Pammie x,” I suggest.

“That’s brilliant!” Pamela beams. “But could you key it in, Megan? My hands are shaking too much…”

“Sure,” I shrug, taking the mobile from her and doing my good deed by tapping out the message.

“Hey, that’s not right,” says Pamela, being a backseat texter and pointing out the mistake I’ve just caught myself making.

“Hi Tar – hanging with Sarah—”

My stupid brain has just subconsciously sent traitorous messages through my nervous system, all because I’ve just heard the front door open and my sister’s laughing voice drift down the hall towards us.

“Oh,” says Sarah, stopping dead in the kitchen doorway. She’s got her wine-coloured velvet jacket on today, with those hipster Levi’s of hers that have worn in all the right places.

“Oh?” I shrug back at her, hoping I sound edgier than I feel as I quickly slam down Pamela’s phone and fold my arms across my lopsided, satsuma-look boobs. (Wish I’d got Pamela to even up the straps at least…)

Maybe it’s worked, me staking my finders-keepers’ claim to the kitchen and my right to a private conversation with my friend. Sarah’s looking weird: kind of flushed and surprised or something.

And then I see why…and it’s nothing to do with me trying (and probably failing) to be edgy or tough with her.

“Conor…” says Sarah, with her voice wavering and her hands fluttering, “this is my sister Megan. And that’s her friend Pamela.”

Behind her in the doorway is this tall guy I vaguely recognise from the Upper Sixth, in a denim jacket, with shaggy, fawn-coloured hair flopping around his face and a guitar case – the flash guitar Sarah’s borrowed from the music department – slung across one shoulder.