Page 41 of Darling Girls

The lights seemed to dim further.

‘I know this is distressing. And it’s a lot to take in.’

Alicia shook her head. ‘I can’t stay here.’

Sandi blinked her spidery eyelashes. ‘Oh. Well, we can look into another placement for you . . .’

‘I don’t want another placement. I want Grammy.’

Sandi’s face crumpled in sympathy. ‘Oh, I know, baby. Shh. It’s all right. I know. Come here.’

Sandi opened her arms, and this time Alicia sank into them. Despite what Sandi said, it wasn’t all right. With Grammy dead, nothing would ever be right again.

Alicia lay in bed all afternoon, crying so hard her head ached and her throat became sore. Jessica sat on the edge of the bed, her hand resting on Alicia’s arm. Norah was at the foot of the bed, her long legs stretched out, almost reaching Alicia’s nose. Neither of them seemed to know what to say or do.

‘Are you going to stay at Wild Meadows?’ Jessica asked.

Alicia hadn’t thought she had any tears left, but at this, her vision blurred again. ‘I told Sandi I didn’t want to. She said she’d look into another placement. But I don’twantanother placement.’ She let out a sob. ‘I wantGrammy. She was all I had. Now I’ve got nothing.’

They let her weep for a minute or two. Alicia assumed it was because they knew she was right. She had nothing. But when she looked up, Norah was shaking her head.

‘You have us,’ she said. ‘That’s not nothing.’

Alicia felt a stab of guilt. Before she could say anything, Norah continued, ‘You don’t have to leave, you know. There are worse places than Wild Meadows.’

Alicia nodded, but she didn’t believe it.

‘It’s true,’ Norah said. ‘For example, the family that locked us outside from seven in the morning till five in the evening every day – boys in one paddock, girls in another, while the parents sat inside watching daytime television. Or the family that made us pick up dog poop with our bare hands if we forgot to wash up before dinner, to teach us a lesson. The place with the foster brothers who locked me in the cupboard and wouldn’t let me out until I touched their ding-dongs . . .’

Alicia stole a look at Jessica. Her eyes were full of tears.

Norah crossed her legs, resting her ankles on Alicia’s side. ‘And the family who made us watch movies with naked people in them . . . that was gross.’

As the stories went on, each one definitely, unequivocally worse than Wild Meadows, Alicia began to cry too. No child should have to choose between this place and one of those others Norah described, just because their parents had died or were unable to care for them. It wasn’t right.

‘At least here we have each other,’ Norah said at last. ‘Maybe if we stick together, we can become like . . . like sisters.’

Even through the grief that pierced Alicia, it was hard not to be affected by what Norah was saying. Especially when, after a couple of seconds, she extended her pinkie. Norah wasn’t one to be sentimental; it made the gesture all the more moving. ‘What do you say?’

Jessica offered her own pinkie without hesitation, which Alicia found equally moving.

She could see that, after the stories Norah had just shared, it did make sense to stick together, forge their own family. But that meant staying at Wild Meadows with Miss Fairchild. It felt like an impossibly cruel choice.

And yet, there were Jessica and Norah looking at her, their pinkies extended, their expressions painfully hopeful. Alicia sighed. How could she say no topinkies?

She closed her eyes, sent up a prayer to Grammy. Extended her pinkie. Within seconds it had been snatched up into a three-way.

‘Sisters,’ she said.

18

NORAH

Detective Hando, to Norah’s delight, was a dog person. He had four dogs at home – one more than was legally allowed in his inner-city dwelling: a German shepherd called Roger, a Staffy named Ian, a beagle-cross called Martha and a terrier with one eye called Boris Johnson. Norah had already offered to take one of them, which of course would be one more thanshewas legally allowed to have, but like Hando, she cared not for silly dog rules.

After ten minutes of them sharing photos of their dogs on their phones, Hando glanced at his watch and suggested ruefully that it might be time for Norah to make her statement.

‘Fine,’ Norah said, sitting back and crossing her arms. ‘If we must.’