hugs and carrying her around on his shoulders even when she was tearful and snotty.
Secretly, Laura didn’t feel sorry for her. It was her own fault she was tired – she waited up until way past midnight, when the church bells rang out, because she wanted to see Father Christmas and Rudolph, even though she’d been warned that if she saw them, they’d never come down their chimney again.
Staying up so late meant she was grumpy and angry when they finally managed to wake Mum and Dad up, jumping on their legs in bed until they agreed to go downstairs and see if he’d been.
He had, and he’d left them loads of stuff under the tree – so Becca mustn’t have seen him after all.
After everything was unwrapped, Becca had her own pile of toys – a Fisher Price kitchen and a koosh ball and a Play-Doh hairdresser set – but of course she didn’t want to play with them. She wanted to play with Laura’s. And when Laura said no, she screamed and grabbed a handful of the ponies off the bed, ran into the bathroom and threw them in the toilet.
She tried to flush them down but they wouldn’t go, even when she poked them with that spikey brush Mum used to clean the loo with.
When Laura chased after her and tried to stop her, Becca snatched Fizzy out of her hand and started whacking her across the head with it. And it really hurt.
She’d tried to be patient, and she’d tried to be nice, and she’d tried to talk to her. But Becca just won’t stop shouting and whacking, and Laura has had enough.
She grabs the shower attachment that is fixed to the bath with a big, bendy silver pipe, and turns on the cold tap. Not the hot one, because even if she is angry, she doesn’t want any burny water spraying out. She points it at her sister and lets it blast full-force into her scrunched-up, furious face.
Becca’s long brown hair is immediately plastered down over her cheeks, and the Strawberry Shortcake nightie she is wearing, the one that used to be Laura’s, goes dark as the water spreads over it.
Her mouth is gaping open in shock, and her eyes are screwed closed against the spray. She drops Fizzy straight away and starts to scream. And scream. And scream.
Laura hears the kitchen door open downstairs and music wafting up from the radio that Mum always listens to when she’s cooking. That song about China in your Hand.
There is a pause, and she knows Mum is standing at the bottom of the stairs listening to Becca screaming. Then the sound of footsteps coming up, and the door to the bathroom slamming open. By that point, Laura has dropped the shower head back into the bath, where it lies, twisting like a snake, sprinkling upwards into the sky.
She looks at her mum, guilt written all over her face, and feels tears sting the back of her eyes.
Her mum has tinsel wrapped around her head like a crown, and is wearing an apron in the shape of a fat Santa’s body. There is a big wooden spoon in her hand, and she waves it threateningly in the air, as though she might use it like a sword at any moment. Her cheeks are red from the cooker, and there is dusty flour on her fingers.
‘Can’t you two play nicely for five minutes, for goodness sake?’ she says, sounding as annoyed as she looks. ‘All those new toys downstairs and you’re up here arguing and fighting? It’s not very Christmassy, is it?’
‘Sorry Mummy,’ says Laura, staring at her feet and trying not to cry.
‘Aaaaaaaggh!’ screams Becca, soaking wet and almost hysterical.
‘I HATE Christmas!’ she yells, pushing past her mum and her sister and squelching her way out into the hallway.
December 25, 1991
Laura decides that her mum is a bit drunk. Or ‘merry’, as her dad describes it, as they dance around the living room together, loudly singing along with ‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred. They are doing actions as well, pretending they are models strutting on a catwalk, and driving a car. Maybe Dad is a bit ‘merry’ as well, she thinks, watching as he tells the world that he is even too sexy for his shirt.
At the age of ten, Laura isn’t quite sure what constitutes ‘sexy’ – but she hopes her dad isn’t it. She also hopes they don’t get so merry they collide with the Christmas tree, because the living room isn’t really that big, and they don’t seem to be entirely in control of their legs.
Becca sits in the corner of the couch, sulking as usual, rolling her eyes in a way that makes her look a bit like she’s having some kind of seizure, and making gestures of glug-glug-glug with an invisible glass while she points at Mum.
That’s because Mum had a bottle of wine open while she was cooking the Christmas lunch this afternoon, and said she needed it because ‘the dragon-in-law’ was visiting.
That’s her nickname for Laura and Becca’s grandma. She says she means it ‘in a nice way’, but she never says it to Nan’s face, so Laura’s not altogether sure she does. Plus she stayed in the kitchen for ages, saying she was busy, but every time Laura went in she was just sitting at the table, muttering to herself, and pouring another glass. Grown-ups, she’d decided with David, were weird.
She wishes that David could have come over, but his parents have taken him away to Wales. Which is a whole different country and everything. She misses him, and hasn’t even been able to speak to him on the phone to see what he got for Christmas.
He’d been hoping for a Gameboy, and had even carried on pretending he believed in Santa because he thought it would give him a better chance at getting one. Laura is also still pretending she believes in Santa, just because she thinks it makes her parents happy to think she does.
It had been harder this year, because Becca had finally decided that it was all made up. She stayed awake throughout the entire night, and all she heard, she said, was Mum and Dad going up and down the stairs, next door’s cat yowling, and some random drunk people going past very late and setting off a car alarm.
Plus, Christopher Eccles at school – who had three big brothers – had laughed at her when she even mentioned Father Christmas. Becca wasn’t keen on being laughed at, especially by Christopher Eccles, and she’d punched him in the face and run off to hide in the bike shed.
So now, Becca is mega-tired and in a mega-bad mood. Nan and Granddad have gone home, and Mum and Dad have decided to have a party of their own, and she’s really annoyed that she got a Girl’s World styling head and a Polly Pocket Country Cottage playset when she’d actually asked for nothing apart from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys – she’d drawn circles around them in the Argos catalogue and everything.
Laura has decided that the most sensible thing to do is ignore Becca and carry on making friendship bracelets from the set she got for Christmas. She plans to make one for David and one for Danielle and Sarah out of her class, and maybe – maybe – one for Becca too. Because leaving her out would be mean.
The music has changed and that Dizzy song is on now. Mum and Dad are whirling around, shouting about how their heads are spinning, and laughing out loud. Dad comes over and tugs Laura up by the hands, spilling her bracelets on the floor.
‘Come on, join in!’ he says, starting to spin her. ‘It’s Christmas! And it’s you girl, making me spin now…’
Mum spins her way over to Becca, and tries to pull her to her feet as well. Becca doesn’t
