Читать книгу A Sea of Stars - Kate Maryon, Kate Maryon - Страница 5

I’ve wanted a sister forever. Even before Alfie was born. Then after him I kept wishing and wishing and wishing but she never came along. So I’m going to remember this summer holiday forever, even when I’m an old lady with grey hair and wrinkly skin. It’s hard to believe how much has happened between finishing school and starting back again tomorrow. It’s as if these huge hands came down from the sky, picked up my life, tipped it upside down and shook it, like one of those beautiful snow dome things. And I just stood there in the middle while everything got all mixed up and blurry. But then the snow started to settle and now I have to keep pinching my leg to remind myself it’s actually true. Here I am, on the beach, alone, waiting to catch some zabaloosh gnarly waves, and my mum isn’t even panicking. And I feel like squealing and jumping up and down because my sister, Cat, is actually clambering down the cliff to join me, with her surfboard under her arm. She’s actually getting in the water. We’re actually going surfing together. And you’re never going to believe it but six weeks ago I hadn’t even met her. I knew she existed but I’d only seen her face in photos and on the DVD, not properly in the flesh. I didn’t know her beetle-black hair smelt like custard or how loud and earsplitting her screams would be. I didn’t know how much she’d nibble-nibble-nibble on her nails. I had no idea how frustrating and irritating she’d be (and she really is frustrating and irritating sometimes). And I couldn’t have even imagined in my wildest dreams that the sight of her running across the sand towards me would make my heart unfurl like a huge pink flag to wrap her up in love.

Some people wish they had mystical powers so they could see into the future and know what’s actually going to happen. Or that there was this big book in the library where your whole life had been written down. Dad says everything is planned. He says it’s already mapped out in the stars and that we choose our life and our family and friends and everything that’s going to happen to us way before we’re even born, when we’re just tiny twinkling stars in the sky. Some people think its God that has this great life plan drawn out for us, or Buddha or Krishna or Allah – someone like that. That it was their huge great hands coming down from the sky and shaking up my life.

I don’t know if I believe any of that stuff. All I know is that, after everything that’s happened, things still aren’t perfect with Cat and me; having a sister is nothing like it was in my imagination and it probably never will be. But things are what they are. This is how it is now we’re sisters.