"Just one more hour!" My sister shouts at me from behind the couch. "One more game!"
That's what she's been shouting for who knows how many hours, and I've been agreeing to it for who knows how many hours. But she's my sister, and tomorrow is her first day at school. She should probably be in bed by now, but I want our friendship to last for as long as possible because, when tomorrow comes, she'll make new 'besties' and I won't be special anymore.
I jump to the left infront of the couch, and she jumps to the right behind it. "One more game, Mithy?" My name is Missy, but her lisp always makes it sound like that. I like it, it's cute. "Please, Mithy?"
"Okay!" I laugh at the adorable grin which engulfs her face, then I run to the back of the couch and she runs to the front. We chase each other around and around and around until she grabs her head.
"Are you okay?" I go to her side and move her hand to assess the situation. She nods, but I can tell that her eyes are getting teary. "I think you just bumped it against the couch. Let's go to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."
I wake up in the morning to find my sister jumping on the end of my bed. "It's time for church, Mithy! Mummy is real mad that you slept in." I notice that she's all dressed up in her yellow polka dot dress, her hair is collected in a bun and her white shoes are ruining my sheets. I'm still in bed, crap.
"When are we leaving?" I climb out of bed and stare at my frizzy bed hair in the mirror, my sister's reflection jumps onto the floor and stands beside me.
"Ten minutes." She hands me my hairbrush. "Mummy is real mad."
I accompany Little Miss Polka Dots to her kiddy bible class, where we are given a pile of cardboard. The supervisor, a university student who volunteers at the church, tells us that we've got to begin making dioramas of the Easter story. I ask why we're starting on Easter stuff so early, she says that a lot of the kids here are starting school tomorrow so they won't have as much free time. This reminds me of how much I'm going to miss my sister, she's going to be overwelmed by going to school everyday. I bet she'll be too tired to play with me and her new school friends.
"Mithy!" My sister taps me on the arm, bringing me back to reality. "Which part are we going to do first? The cross or the tomb?"
I shrug. "It's up to you, which would you prefer?" She doesn't answer, but instead she grabs a texta from an old baked beans can and begins drawing squiggly lines on the cardboard. I know she's trying to draw a cross, but the unruled lines look more like a flower. A very pretty flower, almost as pretty as her.
We continue drawing and cutting for who knows how many hours until my parents come to tell us that it's time to go to the bakery for lunch. Little Miss Polka Dots rubs her head and asks if she can go home instead. "Aren't you feeling well?" I ask her as we walk off to the car." She holds up her hand and points her thumb down.
My sister slowly falls asleep as we drive home and I find myself dozing off as well.
I wake up in my bed. I thought that we'd just been driving, but it must have been a dream, the memory is fading every second. Missy runs into the room and I shut my eyes, pretending that I'm still asleep. She's in her special yellow polka dot dress which she always wears to church. Wait... church? Crap, I've slept in!
"Mithy!" She climbs up onto my bed and begins using it as a trampoline. "Mum is real mad!"
I open my eyes, yawn, and slowly climb out of bed. I frown at myself in the mirror, bed hair always looks ghastly on me. "Here's your brush." My sister appears at my side, holding my old brush. "Mum's real mad at you." She holds the handle out for me and then bounces out of my room. I laugh as I try to get the knots out of my hair, it makes her so happy when mum is angry at me instead of her.
I walk into the kitchen at five minutes until nine, which is our departure time. Mum tells me off for sleeping in, then says how nice it is of me to join them. I grab a box of crackers from the pantry and rip it open. The crackers turn my mouth uncomfortably dry as I scoff down as many as possible.
Little Miss Polka Dots comes and sits down at the kitchen table, she looks at mum with big, teary puppy eyes. "I don't want to go today. My head hurts." Mum hugs her and says that the both of us can stay home and rest, so that she'll be ready for her first day at school tomorrow. I smile at the thought of having a whole day alone with her before she goes off to school and doesn't have any time left for her embarrassing older sister.
I wake up the morning and check the clock. It's eight thirty and everything seems ten shades darker than it should be. Is there a black out? Did the sun fail to rise this morning? Maybe the big ball of fire is also sad that my sister is going away to big school today. Crap! Today's the day and I've slept in! I was meant to walk to school with her half an hour ago! Crap, crap crap. I hope she hasn't taken the bus, I wanted to hold her hand as she entered the class room.
I sprint out of bed and throw on whatever clothes I can find. I don't even bother about my bed hair, I just pull a beanie over it. Please be waiting for me, Little Miss Polka Dots. I run into the kitchen and my heart climbs out of my chest and falls into a puddle on the cold tiled floor. My sister isn't there, she's left already.
My mum is sitting at the kitchen table and my dad is kneeling on her floor, his arms wrapped around her. "She took the buh... bus?" I stutter. My mother nods, tears are flooding down her cheeks. My parents may be devastated at the thought that their little girl has gone to school, that she's grown up, just like I did. But I feel worse. I just lost my little sister. No more piggy back rides, no more chasey around the couch, no- she's too cool for that now, it might embarass her infront of her new friends.
I hear a cough coming from the unnaturally dark hallway. Has she come back for me? Could she not bare the thought of her big sister being being away from her? I run into the hallway and jump in fright, there's a policeman standing beside the front door. He wears a poker face but his body looks stiff and nervous. He asks me if I'm Missy and I nod. He tells me my sister died in a crash.
I scream into the bright white walls that surround me, my fingers claw at the black sofa which I'm lying on. My psychiatrist rubs the side of my arm in an impossible attempt to calm me down. She whispers things to me but I can't make them out amongst my screams. And I keep screaming for who knows how many hours.
Finally I feel a sharp pain in my arm and then I begin to calm down. My arms begin to relax, my hands let go of the sofa and I can finally make out what the woman beside me is saying. I swallow and begin the routine which has etched itself into my mind. What did I dream about? "I dreamt about my sister." What happened to her? "She died." How did she die? "Her bus was hit by a truck." Did she feel any pain? "No." Where is she now? I pause. "With God."
It always pains me to say that last answer, every time I have to force it out. And I feel guilty for struggling; it's good that she's not suffering, that she's with her creator, the Lord that she loved so much. Yet it makes me so upset, so jealous. Because I want her to be with me. I want my little sister to be with me.
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Hey Dracula!
I know you requested a review forever ago >.> I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner, but I'm here now~
Okay... You've got a cute premise here, I think.
The multiple dreams are a little confusing, but I kinda like it. I think you should give us more of a hint towards the beginning, so that it's not completely from left field. I think this would only be done in a kind of hypnoses kind of therapy, so maybe start with something like, "Now relax. Just listen to my voice. Keep your mind still and calm." You could probably disguise it as some dialogue between Missy and her sister?
How old is Missy in comparison to her sister? There's only a certain age where the reader would believe that Missy would think that her sister wouldn't spend time with her anymore.
Also, give us a more dimensional relationship between Missy and her sister. We know that they loved each other, but anyone who's ever had a sibling before knows that relationships between siblings isn't simple. The real beauty in that kind of relationship (at least in the relationship I have with my own sister) is that we can be screaming at each other and calling each other horrible names, and three hours later we'll be laughing together. Don't just give us fluff. Give us a real relationship
Last thing:
Therapy is supposed to help a person and get them to move beyond their grief. These questions don't move her forward at all. They may be good for beginning sessions, but if they're 'routine' they play no real part in recovery.
I think you've got a promising base. I'm a sucker for sibling relationships, and if you can develop this a little more, I think you've got a winner.
(I also really like the title Little Miss Polka Dots)
If you have any questions or concerns, lemme know,
Megs~
Hey, Jazzy. Never fear, Adrian is here for a review! You requested for me to review this a few days ago, so I'm finally here to deliver it!
From reading on, I see that the next day isn't a school day-- but a church day. Now, was that a typo or an error? Or was school really on Sunday, because I'm just a bit confused.
What I notice that there really isn't anything to give away a "time skip." Because right here:
It seems like one is needed. Maybe three asterisks, or hitting the enter key twice!. There can be a short paragraph about putting Little Miss Polka Dots to bed, or nothing has to be changed at all. This is simply a stylistic choice that I noticed and I thought it would be nice to point out.
Question: does the bed bounce? Was Missy disgruntled by the jumping on her bed? It is said that the girl's shoes are ruining the sheets-- but how? Are the white shoes ripping through the thin fabric? Are the sheets just getting wrinkled? Are there now dark stains from the bottoms of the shoes? While this may be a short story, some small details are important.
However, I do love Little Miss Polka Dots. She seems like such a happy, bouncy character! Although, I don't really see her forgetting Mithy and making completely new friends. Because while she seems out-going towards the MC, she could be totally different around kids her own age. Also, friends wouldn't take up most of someone's time (I don't think). I assume she's around five or six, she would go to school, make a few friends... and it might take a couple of days or weeks to mention that she really wanted a play-date. Even then, the play-date might only take up from 3 to... around 6. Then the kids would have to go for dinner, to get back home and such things like that. There would still be a good three hours of time to hang-out. If Little Miss Polka Dots was around 9 or 10, I could see the 'leaving her older sister behind' thing. However, right now it just doesn't make that much sense.
I feel a bit cheated now. The scene I just read was literally just a dream-- and it took me two times reading this over to catch that. What was the point of the dream anyhow? Was it just to throw the readers off their trail-- or to create a sense of deja vu? Because I'm just left here scratching my head in confusion.
...did Missy wake up from a dream again? Or was the whole day just simply... skipped? That could have given the reader a whole look into each character's personality! While Little Miss Polka Dots is bouncy, fun, and excitable... I don't know that much about her. What is her favourite game to play? Does all that being happy tire her out? These are things that will make me want to keep on reading, or know more about the characters.
Each times a new character speaks, there needs to be a new paragraph!
I'm left with a feeling of emptiness, overall. I didn't feel much of anything for the characters, they were just there. The death... while supposed to be shocking was unexpected and I don't think it was done very well. Just a few paragraphs stating that Little Miss Polka Dots was dead, then Missy being in a ward of some sort. I'm just... not sure how I feel about this now. However, beside all of that, keep on writing! This was interesting enough for me to keep on reading!
~Adrian
(PS. I believe Little Miss Polka Dots would be an awesome title.)
Hi! Nice to meet you! My only problem with your story is that it didn't really have a satisfying ending. I felt like you could've added more to it. I also didn't really feel for Missy. She just felt bland and had no personality. She could've been sassy or sarcastic or whatever! But, otherwise it's pretty good well rounded story.
Nightmare's rating: 3 out of 5 stars!
Hello

Firstly I think that you could name your short story something like
a) Be with me.
or
b)I once had a sister.
Now, I would like to tell you that I really liked your short story.I loved the fact that you put little hints of ''her self'' and her personality and that made the text have that emotional touch.
It's always admirable when someone tries to put down to words the feeling of greeve and loss. It's all pretty emotional and thoughful.
I enjoed it a lot
-Pavlina
Could I have title suggestions please?