Love Diagnosis

‘Give it back,’ I yelled as I ran into our shared room and wrestled my stupid sister to the floor. She grabbed the doll harder, pulling it close to her heart. My sister wasn’t having it, she always got what she wanted. My mother made it and I wanted it. I forced my fingers into the protective ball she’d formed with her body. That doll was going to be mine. Even though she was a whole year older, she was clumsier and tinier

– born too early, they all said. I was cleverer at six than she’d ever be, stupid child. I’d show her just how much. She needed to know her place. What was hers was mine, and that’s the way things would always be.

As I snatched the arm of the knitted doll, the sound of its button eye pinging against the bed frame stopped us both. All I could hear was the music Daddy played on the wireless, something about the devil in disguise. My stupid sister was the devil in disguise.

She gave me a teary stare as she hugged the disfigured toy. ‘Don’t you dare cry! You know what you’ll get if you cry.’ It wouldn’t be the first time my idiot sister had got me into trouble by bawling her eyes out for nothing. She was always Mummy and Daddy’s favourite with her strawberry blonde curls and her stupid sickly pale face.