Читать книгу Blood Sisters: Part 1 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death? - Julie Shaw, Julie Shaw - Страница 6

Clayton Village Hall Youth Club, Bradford, 1983

It’s late on a summer Friday, the sky just turning peachy, and two twelve-year-old girls who’ve been best friends since nursery are hiding behind the stage curtains in the village hall.

They’re making a solemn oath. It’s the most important kind of oath. Which is why they’ve taken the trouble (which has been both a risk and a challenge) of ‘borrowing’ the craft knife from the art drawer in the hall kitchen, which they are now using, in turn, to slit the skin on their right thumbs.

The blood forms beads, dark and glossy behind the drapes, as they squeeze, and in perfect synchrony, despite neither of them consciously timing it, they touch their thumbs together, allowing the blood to mix.

‘I solemnly swear,’ whispers Vicky Robinson, who is the taller of the two, ‘that no boyfriend will split us up, or anyone else come between us. I swear we will be sisters for the rest of our lives … Your turn,’ she then finishes, smiling at her friend.

‘I solemnly swear,’ agrees Lucy Briggs, her voice equally low, ‘that no boyfriend will split us up, or anyone else come between us. I swear we’ll be sisters for the rest of our lives …’

‘Blood sisters forever!’ they both whisper, in unison.

Then they put the knife back in the drawer, roll up the waistbands of their skirts, and, giggling as they both re-apply a sheen of lip gloss, feel their way round the edge of the musty stage curtains and go back to join the boys in the smoking shed.

Life was good in the summer of 1983.