Her older sister stamped down the corridor. Some days Rose would want to braid Laura’s hair, or put makeup on her and tell her how pretty she was. Just like a little doll, she would say. Laura hoped it was one of those days but the angry stomps of Rose’s feet told her it wasn’t.
“How was school?” Rose pulled open the fridge door and put her head inside, as if she was trying to absorb all the cold.
“It was good. Nina said she could climb the big tree but she couldn’t and she fell out and broke her bum.”
Rose stuck her head out and looked at Laura, a can of Coke in her hand. Her lips were tugging up as if she was going to laugh.
“Really?”
“Yep!” Laura began to giggle, and then Rose laughed too. Laura liked it when she made Rose laugh. Rose was the prettiest girl Laura knew, even when she frowned, which was most of the time. When she laughed she looked like a princess.
“Poor kid,” Rose said. She stopped laughing and rested the Coke against her forehead.
Laura didn’t say anything. Nina hadn’t really fallen out of the tree. Actually, she had made it the whole way to the top and then bragged about it all afternoon.
“What was that banging noise before?”
“Dunno. Can we braid my hair, Posey?”
“You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”
“Sowwy,” she said. Sometimes when she pretended to still be a baby, Rose would like her more, but this time Rose didn’t even look at her. Instead, Rose cracked open the can and took a swig. Laura looked at the pictures on Rose’s arm. They went all the way from her elbow to her shoulder and looked like pen, but were there forever. Laura thought they were beautiful. Rose looked up at the clock and groaned.
“I’m going to be late. Fuck.” Rose slammed the can on the bench, and little specks of brown liquid came out.
Laura gasped. She didn’t know what that word meant exactly, but she knew it was one of the worst ones.
“I’m telling!”
Rose didn’t even care; she just walked right out of the kitchen and back to her room to get ready. She was definitely not going to braid Laura’s hair.
Laura jumped down from her stool. “I’m running away. You can’t stop me!”
She ran to the front door and opened it and slammed it shut. Then she very quietly tiptoed away, so Rose would think she had left.
Laura decided to hide under her bed. She wriggled down on the floor and pulled the box of her winter clothes in front of her. If she stayed there for long enough, someone would notice she was gone. They would look for her but they wouldn’t find her. Hiding was the one good thing about being small.
After a while, she started to get bored. It smelled funny under there, like the sports socks she wore all week long for her PE classes. She pulled herself back out. She was sick of this game now. As she sat cross-legged in the middle of her room, deciding whether it was the stuffed turtle’s or the fluffy dog’s turn to be played with, she noticed a shadow pass her window. Someone was coming to the front door of the house. Maybe her mum was home early!
She scampered to the entrance hall and opened the door but there was no one there at all. A wave of disappointment washed over her. Then she looked down. Someone had left her a present! She knelt down to look at it, wondering if it was a gift from Ben’s ghost. To say thank you for not taking his little cat.
The denim shorts and tank Rose wore to work were crumpled in the corner of her bedroom. They were in need of a wash but she hadn’t bothered today. Tugging the wrinkled clothes on, she could smell the sweat and beer caught in the fabric. By the end of her shift she’d reek.
Rose slipped her phone into her back pocket. Her fingers itched with its absence. All day, she had refreshed her email again and again and again. It was difficult to be patient.
She took her shoes out from under the bed. They were new, after the soles of her old ones had split from the canvas. They had been held together by threads and then she’d tripped on a beer keg and they’d ripped open like a mouth, her foot left exposed in the middle like a tongue. These new ones were cheap white sandshoes that already looked dirty. They had rubbed her heels raw last night. She winced a little as she pulled them on. Hopefully soon the material would soften, or her feet would harden.
Rose pulled her hair into a ponytail as she walked down the hall, her wrists flicking expertly. At first she didn’t notice Laura, who was sitting on the floor, her back to Rose. It wasn’t like her to be quiet. The only time she ever was was when she was hiding under her bed.
She knew she’d be late, but still Rose stopped. Laura looked so tiny when she was quiet. Her shoulders were narrow as she hunched forward over her crossed legs. Moving closer, Rose realized she was talking very, very softly in a strange high-pitched voice.
“No, I want chocolate, please. Thank you. Yum, yum, yum.”
“What are you doing?”
Laura looked up at her. “None of your beeswax!”
Rose squatted down next to Laura to see what was in her hands. It was an old-fashioned doll, with a porcelain face and hands and a cloth body. It was nothing like any of Laura’s other toys. Weirdly, she noticed that it looked just like Laura, big brown eyes, brown hair in a bob, cut sharply at its jaw.
“Why’d you cut its hair? You’ve ruined it,” she said.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Did not!”
“You did. You cut its hair so it would look like yours.”
“I didn’t! The person who gave it to me did it. They left it outside the front door. It’s a present for me.”
Rose touched the soft skin under Laura’s chin so that she would look up.
“Are you fibbing? I won’t be mad.”
Laura held the doll in front of her and put on the high-pitched voice again. “Posey’s just jealous. You’re all mine!”
A strange feeling crept inside Rose then, a sense of something not being right. She considered taking the doll away, but Laura looked so content playing with her tiny twin. She was being stupid, she decided; of course someone didn’t leave it for Laura. She must have borrowed it from another girl at school.
Leaving Laura to play, Rose left the house. She pulled the flywire screen door shut behind her and poked her finger through the broken netting to snip the lock closed. The thing was pointless. She remembered when she and her mother had installed it, years ago now, for security. These days it wouldn’t have a hope of keeping intruders out; it would barely even protect them against blowflies.
The door was just like everything else in her life, in this town. After the car factory shut down, Colmstock had quickly lost its sense of purpose. Once, it had been pleasant. The largest town in the area and right off the Melton Highway, it was considered a nice place to stop off for a night on your way to the city. Small enough to have a strong community, but big enough that you could walk down the street without knowing every person you passed.
These days everything in Colmstock was broken and ugly. People weren’t so friendly anymore. Too many residents had swapped a social drink or two for a meth habit. Crime rates were up, employment was down and yet the population stayed the same. It was as though everyone felt a sense of loyalty to the place. Well, Rose certainly didn’t. She was getting out of here. Even the idea of it made her smile. The idea that this wouldn’t be where she lived anymore, that she could have a whole different life. Realizing that her pace was slowing, she forced herself to stop dreaming. Her new life would start soon,