DUTY OF CARE (The Duty Bound Duet #1) - Sydney Jamesson Page 0,2

they appeared well cared for and cocooned; on the inside most of them were uncultured kids who wanted no more than a place to call their own and a decent chunk of change to buy some of the finer things in life like hair accessories, stickers and clothes.

When Emily and Rita Derbyshire arrived with everything they owned in a single suitcase and two rucksacks, they were treated to the usual gauntlet of glowering boys and girls, the likes of which they had not met before. Rita clutched a teddy and folded into Emily’s thigh too scared to meet their unwelcoming stares. Emily strode on bravely, knowing they were out of options; Summerville Children’s Residence was their new home.

In the early days it was a case of assimilate or suffer—there was no in between. Emily’s twelve-year-old bark was worse than her bite but—a month in—she developed incisors sharp enough to draw blood if necessary.

At night, Rita cried and begged to go home to mummy. Emily didn’t have the heart to tell her that they were home and there was no mummy. She soothed her with the promise of fresh starts and bedrooms adorned with puppy posters and soft sheets. Even though Emily explained that mummy had gone to heaven to be with Jesus, she continued to cry and talk of angels and the afterlife was meaningless to a grieving five year old. Rita’s miseries merged then divided like cells, revealing themselves in a number of ways: she refused to eat, threw herself onto the floor and kicked out like an upturned cockroach; she sobbed for hours and even began wetting the bed.

For a while, Emily struggled to make sense of her sister’s sudden decline. Over a lackluster bowl of Irish stew one evening, a gangly, older girl with orange coloured nails filed into dagger sharp points announced, “She’s acting-up because she misses your mum. You’ve gotta be her mum now. You’re all she’s got.”

From that unsophisticated teen came words of wisdom which would resonate with Emily again and again when Rita acted up and even later in life when the tantrums had long since subsided and that tenacious toddler had been transformed into a beautiful, intelligent young woman.

After following a daily routine of strip, wash, make and dash for almost a month Emily became exhausted. The time came for some tough love. Just as a good mother would, she forbid Rita to have a drink at bedtime and forced her to wear a sanitary towel.

That lasted two nights.

On the second morning, having woken up wet and thirsty, Rita exclaimed, “I’m a big girl, and big girls don’t wet the bed!” She tore the damp sheets off her bed, threw them to the floor and stamped on them as if treading ripened grapes. Emily looked on and glowed with pride—she was a fast learner. She rewarded her with a new teddy she swapped for a pair of cheap earrings her mother had bought her.

A week later, when that teddy went missing, Emily assembled a search party. She looked older than her twelve years and used that to her advantage. She didn’t go looking for trouble, but when it found her, when Kristen Fletcher—a freckled faced ten-year-old with curls and a jealous streak stole Rita’s hard earned prize—she saw it as her duty to become judge, jury and prosecutor. She doled out punishment suited to the crime.

As well as nursing a black eye, Kristen had to forfeit her meagre puddings for a month—a yoghurt here, an apple there. The criminal served her time without protest and Rita put on a couple of pounds.

As the weeks passed, a kind of in-house justice took shape; no crime went unpunished, no achievement unrewarded. A new brand of status quo was established, pioneered by the increasingly authoritative Emily Derbyshire.

CHAPTER TWO

EMILY

BY SOME MIRACLE, I made it home to Brackenbury Village, Hammersmith. I had driven through a snowy haze intensified by the fog swirling around inside my head, dulling my senses. I turned into Clifton Avenue, parked in front of the end terrace, number thirty, the one with the hanging basket by the front door—now an effective snow catcher—and stopped with a jolt so abrupt it awoke me like a sensory alarm.

Being a school day, the avenue was empty and silent. There were no neighbours walking dogs or clearing snow from icy steps. Not that I would have known their names to say hi. Was the woman next door called June? Or was it Jane … the skinny woman