Strawberry Sisters Read online

  Also in the Strawberry Sisters series:

  Perfectly Ella

  Older books by Candy Harper:

  Have a Little Faith

  Keep the Faith

  Leap of Faith

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Candy Harper

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Candy Harper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London

  WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  PB ISBN 978-1-4711-4708-1

  eBook ISBN 978-1-4711-4709-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in Bembo by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and support the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  For my moody big sister, Naomi

  (who grew up to be a real sweetheart)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  You can never find a hairbrush in our house. You’d think that with four sisters and one mum, all with long hair, there would be plenty of combs and brushes and cute hairslides lying about, but the truth is that hairbrushes disappear quicker than chocolate-chip cookies in this place. Which is why I keep a secret supply in my bedroom. Of both cookies and a brush. But someone (and I had a pretty good idea of which someone) had stolen my secret brush.

  I knew it wasn’t Mum. She doesn’t borrow my things. Chloe, who I share a bedroom with, is always taking my possessions without asking. But I ruled her out because even though she is only a year younger than me and therefore practically a teenager – meaning she should really start paying some attention to her appearance – she never brushes her hair if she can help it and, last time I saw Chloe, her hair was in its usual sticking-up-like-a-loo-brush state. My next sister down, Ella, is always neat and tidy, but her manners are far too good to go through my stuff. So that left my little sister, Lucy.

  ‘Lucy!’ I shouted. ‘Where’s my hairbrush?’

  ‘It’s twenty to twenty!’ she shouted back. When Lucy doesn’t want to answer your questions, she pretends that you asked her what the time is. Except she’s only seven and she doesn’t know how to tell the time, so it’s always twenty to twenty in Lucy Land.

  ‘I said, where’s my hairbrush?’ I shouted even louder.

  No answer. I was supposed to be meeting my best friend, Lauren, to go shopping in town. Obviously, I couldn’t shop with scrumpled hair. I stomped downstairs.

  Lucy was in the sitting room surrounded by stuffed animals.

  ‘Have you got my hairbrush?’

  ‘I’m playing with my pets.’

  I looked down at a toy hedgehog family who seemed to be about to attack a toy rabbit family with teaspoons. Then I spotted my hairbrush at the back of the line of hedgehogs. I picked it up.

  ‘Don’t take him!’ Lucy shrieked.

  And she actually snatched the brush back from me and whacked me on the arm with it.

  ‘Ow! Don’t smack me!’

  ‘That’s what you get for trying to tear a poor baby hedgehog away from its mother.’

  I thought it was weird that Lucy would want a hairbrush; she’s not exactly keen on keeping tidy. She’d obviously borrowed my hairbrush to complete her hedgehog family. Unbelievable.

  ‘It’s not a toy!’ I said, grabbing it back. ‘I need it to brush my hair.’

  Lucy pushed past me and picked up the phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to call the RSPCA and tell on you.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Tell them what? That my hair is tangled? I haven’t been cruel to any animals.’ I waved the brush at her. ‘This isn’t actually a hedgehog.’

  She hugged her largest cuddly hedgehog to her chest. ‘But Prickles is and you’ve broken her heart.’

  ‘Prickles is a stuffed toy!’

  ‘Shh! You’re hurting her feelings.’

  I wrestled the phone out of her hand and slammed it back in place.

  ‘I’ll use Chloe’s mobile,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t even know the number for the RSPCA.’

  ‘Yes I do. I learnt it off by heart from that sticker Mum used to cover up that chip in the car window.’ She scowled at me. ‘And I know the number for when it’s cruelty to children and that’s what you’re doing. I’m going to phone them and then they’ll come and take you away.’

  ‘Good! Then maybe I can live somewhere nice and quiet without a load of annoying sisters!’

  But Lucy didn’t hear me because she’d already run out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Honestly! This is the kind of madness I have to put up with.

  I took a deep breath and started running the brush through my hair. I’m lucky that my hair isn’t wiry like Chloe’s or fluffy like Ella’s. Mine is dead straight and shiny.

  Before I’d finished my phone chirped and I slid it out of my pocket to see who was texting me. It was Lauren. At least my best friend never annoys me. She’s brilliant, unlike my family; she completely gets me. Her texts always cheer me up.

  Except this one didn’t. It said: Can’t make it for shopping. I’m sick! Sorry. Call you later.

  I blew out a big breath. I hadn’t seen Lauren all half-term because she’d been at her aunt’s and now she was ill.

  I thought about going shopping by myself, but it isn’t quite the same when you haven’t got anyone to try outfits on with or make sarcastic remarks about how pouty the assistants in Topshop are. And I’d been sort of hoping that we might see Cute Josh from school. Sometimes he and his friends hang out in front of the skate shop. But I didn’t feel like trying to spot him without Lauren.


  I thought about asking Chloe if she wanted to go into town. When we were little, Chloe and I were good friends, then, a year and a half ago, our parents got divorced and everything changed. I thought that the break-up was completely my dad’s fault and I got really cross with him, and with Chloe, because I thought that she was taking his side.

  Recently, my mum has explained things to me and now I understand that my parents got divorced because that was what they both wanted to do. And I realised it was stupid for me to be mad at Chloe because she wasn’t taking sides and, despite the fact she’s a bit sweaty and noisy, she’s actually quite a good sister. But, even though we’ve spent most of this half-term moving things around so that Chloe and I are sharing a bedroom again, we still don’t exactly have a lot of interests in common. When I go shopping, I like looking at clothes and the market stall with all the gothic jewellery, whereas Chloe likes JD Sports and the bakery. Anyway, she was in the garden with her giant friend, Thunder. They were supposed to be playing badminton, except I think that in the official rules players don’t whack each other with the rackets quite so much.

  I went looking for Ella; she’s only eleven, but she’s quite sensible really and she’s the kind of person who does stuff when you ask her to.

  ‘Ella, do you want to go into town with me?’ I said, sticking my head into the room that she shares with Lucy.

  Ella looked up. She was crouched over on the floor surrounded by squares of card and coloured pencils.

  ‘Um . . .’ she said. ‘I’m making revision cards for maths. We’ve got a test next week and Ashandra’s coming over to revise with me tomorrow, but I could finish them later.’

  I hesitated. Last week, my dad came to watch me sing at the International Day at school and we ended up having a big chat about the divorce. It started me thinking about my behaviour since my parents split up. I’ve decided that I don’t want to be such a negative person. I’ve also realised that maybe sometimes, just sometimes, I can be a tiny bit, well, selfish, and I want to change that too. So I said to Ella, ‘It’s fine. I might not bother with town. Go on making your cards.’

  She tried to hide it, but she was obviously relieved I wasn’t dragging her away. Then her face clouded. ‘Do you think revision cards are silly?’ she asked.

  I certainly never put that much effort into a little test.

  ‘I don’t think they’re silly,’ I said. ‘Super boring, but not silly.’

  I have also been thinking about giving up saying mean things.

  I’m not quite there yet.

  Ella didn’t seem to mind though. She’s used to me. She went back to writing numbers in different colours and I sloped downstairs to where Lucy’s rabbits were being massacred by the spoon-wielding hedgehogs. I’ve always thought of hedgehogs as being quiet animals, but these ones were managing some blood-curdling battle cries.

  I sat down on the sofa and put my head in my hands. Now what was I supposed to do? It was the second to last day of half-term and the only people I had to hang out with were loopy Lucy and her vicious animal friends.

  I don’t like the second half of the autumn term. It’s always raining and cold and my mum constantly tells us to put hats on. Hats are the enemy of smooth hair. And if you’ve got a long face, like I have, once you put a hat on top it’s hard to avoid looking like a mushroom.

  Our second day back at school after half-term started with freezing sleet and Mum went on about not getting chilly heads, plus Lauren was still ill so I had to sit by myself in half my lessons for the second day running. All in all, I wasn’t in a very good mood by the time Chloe, Ella and I got home from school and peeled off our sopping coats and evil mushroom hats. Ella, on the other hand, practically skipped upstairs to change her wet tights and Chloe was so cheerful that she was actually dancing round the kitchen while she made a sandwich.

  ‘What have you got to be so happy about?’ I asked.

  She beamed at me. ‘Something amazing has happened.’

  When Chloe says something amazing has happened, it’s normally about the number of burps she has managed to do after drinking a family-sized bottle of Coke really fast.

  I frowned. I mean, I was already frowning, but I tightened my forehead even more. ‘Is it about burping?’

  ‘Nope,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Farting?’

  ‘Well, I did do one in the bath last night that sounded like someone revving an underwater motorbike, but actually it’s about rugby.’

  I sighed. ‘I think it’s just possible that rugby is the one thing I find less interesting than your bodily functions.’

  ‘But this is brilliant. Thunder’s uncle’s friend’s cousin plays for the Chiefs and, guess what?’ Chloe didn’t wait for me to ask what or even give me an opportunity to block my ears to avoid hearing whatever dull rambling was coming next. ‘They’re starting a youth squad! They’re going to do trials and someone is coming into our school to talk about it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just super,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  The thing about being sarcastic is that it doesn’t really work if the other person is too busy licking peanut butter straight from the jar to notice.

  I looked at Chloe. Her eyes were shining. She really does love rugby. Since I was trying to be a bit kinder to my family instead of always pointing out how ridiculous they are, I swallowed all my hilarious jokes about rugby and said, ‘I hope you get on the squad.’

  She grinned back at me. ‘I will.’

  Chloe and Ella were in such good moods that we had a pretty peaceful time eating snacks and chatting until Mum came home with Lucy. Even though Lucy finishes school before us, she has to stay at After School Club until Mum picks her up. As soon as Lucy got in the door, the quiet, chilled atmosphere disappeared.

  ‘Urgh!’ Lucy stomped into the sitting room where Ella and I were watching TV, shaking herself like a dog so that raindrops flew off her red-gold curls and landed on the carpet. She threw herself down on the sofa, narrowly avoiding knocking my cup of tea out of my hands.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘If you spill my tea, you’ll have to make me a new cup.’

  ‘I am not allowed to use the kettle,’ she snapped back. ‘And when I’m big enough to use it I’ll make you a cup of tea and I’ll spit in it.’

  ‘That’s enough of that, young lady,’ Mum said, coming in and putting her laptop on the table.

  ‘What’s the matter, Lucy?’ Ella asked.

  Lucy stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Everyone is horrible.’

  ‘Have you only just worked that out now?’ I asked.

  ‘Just because you’ve had a tiff at school doesn’t mean everyone is horrible,’ Mum said, shooting me a look. ‘You’ve got a lovely family.’

  Lucy opened her mouth to disagree so Mum quickly went on, ‘And you’ve got lots of nice friends.’

  ‘Hmpf!’ Lucy smashed her fist into a cushion.

  ‘Have you fallen out with someone?’ Ella asked.

  ‘I didn’t fall out,’ Lucy sniffed. ‘I jumped out and away from her because that’s what you should do when someone is horrible to you.’

  ‘I don’t think she meant to be horrible,’ Mum said.

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Emily.’

  I turned back to the TV. Lucy’s battles with her friends are long and complicated and I get confused because sometimes they’re intermixed with the battles that go on in her fantasy land of rainbow ponies and robo-giants. Although it’s pretty obvious to me that Lucy’s friends are more scared of her than they are of the robo-giants.

  ‘Which Emily?’ Ella asked. ‘There are two in your class.’

  ‘Evil Emily.’

  I snorted. ‘I thought they were called Tall Emily and Little Emily. Which one is it?’

  Lucy folded her arms. ‘Little Emily, but she’s more evil than she is little.’

  ‘Why is she evil?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Today we had to put up our hands to vote for who s
hould be library monitor and she didn’t put up her hand for me.’ Lucy glared with hard eyes, waiting for us to be horrified.

  Nobody was horrified.

  ‘Shocking,’ I said.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Lucy pouted.

  I’m going to have to make my family watch a video about sarcasm so they can understand when I’m doing it.

  ‘People put their hands up for Ella yesterday,’ Lucy explained.

  Ella looked up from laying out her school books on the table. She likes to get her homework done as soon as possible. Sometimes I worry she might try to do it on the way home from school and bump into a bus.

  ‘What’s Lucy talking about, Ella?’ Mum asked. ‘Were you in a vote yesterday?’

  Ella wriggled in her chair. ‘Yes.’

  I rolled my eyes. Ella could be nominated for president of the world and she would keep it quiet. ‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘Tell us what it was for.’

  ‘Tutor group captain.’

  ‘Did you get many votes?’

  Ella was as pink as her heart-shaped rubber by now. ‘Quite a lot. Actually, I won.’

  Crazy. When I win something, I like to tell everyone. That way I get to feel winnerish for even longer. Sometimes I don’t understand Ella at all.

  ‘That’s great!’ Mum said. ‘Well done, Ella. I’m really proud of you.’

  ‘Yeah, good one,’ I said, but I couldn’t help adding, ‘even though you’re a traitor for becoming a cog in the hate machine of school that will crush us all in the end.’

  Ella beamed. She doesn’t think school is a hate machine. No wonder I don’t understand her.

  ‘Stop talking about Ella!’ Lucy snapped. ‘I started this talking; it’s supposed to be about me.’

  ‘But you haven’t even been voted for,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly! That’s what I’m talking about. It’s stupid that they didn’t vote for me. I’m really good at things. Ella isn’t. You can hardly even hear Ella.’

  Mum gave Lucy a sharp look. ‘That’s not a bad thing. We never stop hearing you.’

  Lucy looked genuinely shocked. ‘That’s because I’ve got a lot of important things to say!’

  Mum took hold of her hand. ‘I’ve got something important to say so listen hard: you can’t make people vote for you. You have to let them choose whoever they think is the right person and if that isn’t you then it’s no good getting cross with them because that will make them even less likely to vote for you in future. Try being kind to your friends and I’m sure you’ll get picked for something one day.’