The Wishwasher

Chapter One: Gone Too much had happened far far too fast and she hated, but hated, her new life. Gone was her handsome Dad, absent in the week, only to turn up at the weekends to take them out. Gone was her Mum, as she had always known her. Ever there for them, supporting selflessly, she’d undergone a metamorphosis, she’d become a whirlwind of activity, issuing orders, with her focus not on them, but on her new teaching job. Gone was her beautiful bedroom, her sanctuary, her bolt hole from a world that found it hard to always understand her. Gone was her mobile phone, her lifeline to friends who sympathised and empathised, replaced by a strictly emergencies only model on the grounds of a vastly reduced economy. Gone was her lovely old school, with its solid academic reputation, green lawns and calm corridors that steered its charges steadfastly on the road to learning. Gone were her friends, left miles behind in the move to Belleshires, sobbing collectively when they said their goodbyes, with pledges of eternal friendship that Emily knew, deep down, would be impossible to keep. Her first day at Belleshires had been nothing short of awful - a real culture shock. The illogical, haphazard layout of the sprawling school had made it almost impossible to find her way around - even with a map. The seemingly stale, laid back teachers and the aggressive groups of kids, who examined her with anything from curiosity to contempt, made her long for her old life. She hated it all! Clenching her jaw in the darkness of the bedroom she was determined not to cry. She rubbed her eyes hard with the back of her fists, took a big wobbly breath and tried to find the sleep that eluded her. Emily could hear Scarlett’s gentle snore purring in the darkness. Her eyes stung with unshed tears of frustration and pent up anger as she thrashed about silently in her bed. Suddenly, despite herself, she burst out laughing. In the semi-darkness of the bedroom that she shared with her three year old sister Scarlett, she could see rows of shoe boxes that were the ‘hospical’ beds for a selection of beleaguered cuddly toys currently benefiting from the tender ministrations of nurse Scarlett. In the moonlit room she could just make out the ears of Minnie Mouse poking through the profusion of bandages that swamped her head. ‘It’s like a surreal scene from ‘Casualty,’’ Emily muttered softly. She rolled away from Scarlett’s A&E only to wince in pain. ‘What the hell….’ she mumbled as she fished about in her bed for the source of her discomfort. She sighed as she extricated Scarlett’s Barbie doll from her bed clothes. ‘An escapee from nurse Scarlett’s treatments, eh?’ She was about to throw Barbie on the floor when the moonlight illuminated the doll’s face. ‘Good grief Barbie! You’ll never get Ken looking like this! You’ve been well and truly Scarletted . Looks like you’ve had electric shook treatment and a make over,’ she said as she looked at Barbie’s manically frizzed hair and her felt tipped, clown like lips. ‘I should get away while you can,’ she said laying the doll on the floor between the two beds.