My sister died a year ago. I know that my parents were told that her body wasn’t in the school, that she might have escaped, but to me, she died a year ago. My parents keep going on TV stations to broadcast news about their missing daughter, and I just want to scream at them, “She’s dead! If she were alive, don’t you think she’d be home by now?!”
Then again, she never tried to keep in touch with them. When they agreed to let her live with Mom’s sister, a mile out of Kervilham, just because her best friend went there, she gave them maximum one email per year, about nothing much. And yet, she was the favorite, the one they always discussed, the one they always cried about because she wasn’t with them. I kept with the family, but I suppose I was part of the background to them.
I think that because my parents are still looking for her is the reason why we moved to Kervilham, somewhere in the east coast of the United States. What kind of name was that? It sounded like a Muppet that had been dropped before they got popular, and hung out at bars, telling the bartender how he was almost famous.
I have no idea what state it was, because I couldn’t be bothered to check. All I knew, could think about, was how stupid my parents were, for thinking that my sister was still alive, and tearing me away from my band just so they could get a reality check.
“So, you’ll be going to Alice’s old school! I’ve heard its really nice, and I think you might like that they’ve just reinstated their music and drama courses! Isn’t that great?” my mother twittered, as the car sped down the highway.
“Whatever.” I was too busy sending texts to all my friends, just finishing the last one. That meant it was time to listen to my music.
“I thought you would be excited about the music courses. Don’t you like singing anymore, Angie?” I stared at Mom. I couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t believe it. Alice was the one who sang! I wanted to shout, I play the drums! How could you get us mixed up like that?! It was unbelievable.
It wasn’t as if we were anything alike, not even in looks. Alice used to have this really good hair, straight, silky, but with so much peroxide in it I sometimes wondered if it would fall out one day, or something. She did a lot of cheerleading, so she had one of those slim, lean, tanned bodies that buzzed with optimism and sexuality. She merited a one-word description; ‘gorgeous’.
I’m different, tangled knots of scraggly brown hair, paired with blue eyes that I think are the best part of me, if one of them wasn’t half-closed. Yes, I have a lazy left eye that makes me look seriously weird. I don’t even have a face that can be called pretty or anything.
The best one-word description I can give myself is ‘duck’. I have these lips that stick out a bit, giving me the appearance of a really depressed duck. I have the same chance of getting with a guy as a depressed duck, for that matter. Angie had billions of boyfriends, as came about being the light-hearted one who sang.
The one thing that I could say I was better at than my sister, that she would actually care about, was that I was alive and she was dead. And, although this is just something I’m proud of, I have this massive memory for lyrics. It comes in handy when I sing Rammstein in the shower.
“No, Geri, that was... is... Alice sings. Angie does the drums. Venting out the anger, eh?” Dad said, making me break out of my thoughts to roll my eyes. He was so clueless about everything. I was quite sure the most he ever got to music was in the 60’s, when drummers were practically nonexistent. I turned back to my iPod.
“Angie, if you’re upset about what I said... we can talk about this...” Mom said, voice barely penetrating my playlist, volume purposefully cranked up. I glared at her. I mean, she mixes me up with my dead idiot sister, and what, I should talk about how they too are fools? What would be the point? They wouldn’t listen. I was the one who seemed to have no voice. I was, as I said, the one in the background.
We were silent on the rest of the drive to our new place in Kervilham. I did not want to see the scenery that we would move away from as soon as Mom and Dad worked out that Alice was dead, for crying out loud. I kept my attention fully focused on Miss Murder, which, I am ashamed to admit, I keep humming to.
As soon as the song ended, I realized I was actually enjoying myself. I tried to think about how crummy life was instead. After all, without my continuous anger at life, how could I ever play the drums? Yeah, I know; I’m such a cliché.
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