deeply and the thought of either of them being hurt- or worse – tears my heart to pieces. When
I got to my sister after the accident, all I wanted to
do was hug her and take away the hurt. And so
I did exactly that – well, I gave her a hug, and took
her for a very strong coffee.
JACQUELINE HARVEY IS THE AUTHOR OF THE ALICE-MIRANDA SERIES AND
CLEMENTINE ROSE SERIES (FROM $12.99, RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA)FOR MOST OF OUR CHILDHOOD my sister
and I shared everything. She was only 18
months younger than me and we lived in a remote
Welsh village where our mother attempted to
home-school us for a few years. It was only when
we finally enrolled at the village school that
our friendship began to fray at the edges. We both
needed to spread our wings and assert our
independence. We did this in very different ways –
she found a best friend in whom she confided
everything while I became part of a jostling gang
of cool kids. But I needed to impress my
newfound friends, and that meant never revealing
the facts of our home life.
I was mortified by my family’s frugal, hippie-ish
lifestyle. All my cool friends watched TV
regularly, ate sliced white bread from a plastic bag
and had mothers who wore curlers under
headscarves. We, however, had no TV. My mother
never curled her hair and spent her days making
brown bread that turned out like bricks. Even
more cringe-worthy, my father was a poet. Forced
to confess that my father was a “poet man”,
the teacher helpfully asked if I meant “a postman”.
Relieved, I nodded, and from then on I pretended
my father was a postman in some faraway,
nameless village.
In order to “bond”
with my new friends
I also felt the need to lie
about our lack of TV.
My friends watched
TV every night, for hours
and hours it seemed.
Every morning back at
school the talk was of
the previous evening’s
viewing. I was desperateto be part of my new crowd of friends, so I lied –
shamelessly and blatantly. For weeks I pretended
that I too had watched Starsky & Hutch, Scooby-Doo
and whatever else they had watched.
One morning my sister happened to be with me
when my new friends began discussing the latest
episode of Starsky & Hutch. My friends were under
the carefully cultivated impression that Starsky was
my idol. Of course, the truth was that I had no idea
what Starsky looked like, let alone what he got up to.
I shot a nervous glance at my innocent, honest sister.
Would she blow my cover? A friend asked me which
bit of the show I’d most enjoyed. I paused waiting for
my sister to blurt out that we had no TV, that we’d
never seen Starsky or Hutch, that I spent my
evenings pressing wildflowers.
But my sister said nothing, just eyed me curiously.
I felt my cheeks redden. My friends stood watching
me, waiting. I ran through my options: I could confess
and lose my friends or I could brazen it out. But if
I brazened it out and my sister then revealed me as
a liar, either inadvertently or intentionally, I would
lose my friends and my reputation as a cool girl. For
a brief second I considered collapsing with a feigned
heart attack or epileptic fit. But then I heard my
sister’s voice, as clear as a bell. “We liked the bit
where all the cars were going really, really fast and
Starsky looked really, really brave.” I stared at her,
my mouth falling open. She prompted me. “Didn’t
we, Annabel? You remember when they went very,
very fast and his hair was all sticking up?”
“Yeah, that was the best bit,” agreed my friend.
And then the school bell rang. From that day, I knew
that whatever happened between us, my sister would
never let me down. And she hasn’t. qANNABEL ABBS IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JOYCE GIRL
($32.99, HACHETTE AUSTRALIA)134 ELLE AUSTRALIA
Compiled by: Laura Collins. Photography: Johan Avedal“My friends
were under
the carefully
cultivated
impression
Starsky was
my idol. I shot
a glance at my
sister. Would
she blow
my cover?”