Scarlet and Ivy – The Lost Twin. Sophie Cleverly

dashing in, bouncing on the mattress and untucking the bed sheets – she always said it made her feel like she was in a sarcophagus if they were too tight. She would blow a dark lock of hair from her eyes and tell me to stop looking so gormless and bring in our bags.

      I stared down at my feet. There was just the one bag there, its sides slumping on the hard wooden floor.

      Shaking my head, I picked it up and walked into the room, the ghost of Scarlet evaporating from my mind. I had to calm down, to pull myself together.

       Sort out your room. Unpack your things. Don’t forget to breathe!

      Out of habit, I immediately went for the bed on the left, before realising that Scarlet would have gone for the right. I had no idea if anyone would notice such things, but I dutifully crossed to the other bed, set down my bag and looked around.

      The whitewashed room contained a big oak wardrobe, a wobbly chest of drawers and a dressing table with a chipped mirror. I caught sight of myself in it. Scarlet and I had the same dark hair, same pale skin, same small features like a child’s doll. Only on her it had always seemed pretty. It just made me look lost and sad.

      “Scarlet,” I whispered. I stepped forward and held my hand out towards the mirror. When we were younger we used to stand either side of the downstairs windows and copy each other’s movements, pretending to be reflections. I would always do it backwards by accident, and she would collapse in fits of laughter. Yet now, as I waved my hand at the mirror, the image in the glass followed it exactly.

      My head hurt.

      In one corner of the room there was a washbasin with a sink and plain porcelain jug, with white flannels laid out next to it. Even though this room had belonged to Scarlet in the previous year, there was no sign of her.

      I began to wonder what they had done with all her possessions. If they weren’t here, where were they? Where were her clothes and her books? Where was …

      Her diary.

      When we were little, she always showed me the contents of her diary. Sometimes she would let me write in it too. A new one every year. She would fill it with drawings of us, identical stick figures living in a gingerbread cottage with the evil stepmother. But as we got older she became more secretive, always hiding it. Not that I would have read it. If there were thoughts in there that she couldn’t share with me, her twin, I didn’t want to know them.

      Scarlet’s precious diary could have been destroyed or lost or tossed away by a maid, and that thought made me shudder. But there was a small chance that Scarlet had hidden it too well for it to be found.

      And if it was still here – all that was left of my sister – I desperately wanted it.

      The wardrobe, I thought. It was always one of her favoured hiding places. I dashed over and flung its doors wide open, coughing at the musty smell of mothballs.

      The only thing it contained was a single uniform, neatly folded over a hanger – a white long-sleeved blouse, a black pleated dress and a purple striped tie with the Rookwood crest on the end and a pair of matching stockings tucked underneath. I held the uniform up against me; it was exactly my size.

      Scarlet’s uniform.

      I stood still for a few moments. I was being foolish. They were only clothes. Scarlet and I shared clothes all the time. But now she was gone, and it wasn’t Scarlet’s uniform any more, it was mine. And that scared me.

      I carefully laid out the uniform on the opposite bed and continued my search. The base of the wardrobe was lined with old newspaper and I peeled up the yellowing sheets, my nose wrinkling.

      Nothing.

      I stood on tiptoe and felt around on the top shelf – yet more nothing, unless you counted the dust.

      I tried tugging at each of the drawers of the chest in turn. Several of them stuck and I held my breath, willing the diary to be inside. But each time I managed to get one open, I was faced with an empty drawer. Scarlet’s belongings may have been worthless to the school, but they weren’t to me. I knew that Scarlet had our mother’s silver-backed hairbrush – engraved with her initials, E.G. – as I had her pearls. Where could that be?

      I fell on to my hands and knees and peered beneath the beds, but all I could see was an expanse of threadbare carpet. I tried picking at threads to see if it would come loose, hoping for a secret compartment under the floorboards, but it was well stuck down. Useless. I felt like crying.

      I stood up and went over to the bed and threw myself down on to the uncomfortable mattress. Scarlet could have hidden her diary anywhere. Or maybe it had already been found, and destroyed …

      Then – wait – I could feel something. There was a peculiar lump in the mattress. It was something hard and pointy. I shuffled my weight around, hoping that I wasn’t imagining it. No, there was definitely something there.

      I jumped up, ran to the door and checked the corridor for teachers. It was silent, empty. I prayed that Miss Fox wouldn’t return any time soon.

      Certain that no one was coming, I pulled off the grey blankets and bed sheets, throwing them into a heap on the floor. I ran my hand over the bare mattress, and I could still feel the lump. But there was no way to get to it. Or was there?

      I got down on the floor and lay on my back, pulling myself right under the bed until I could see through the metal slats. It was dusty, and I had to resist a strong urge to sneeze.

      And then I saw the hole. It was a long narrow slit cut into the material, maybe with a knife. The perfect size for a diary.

      I pushed my hand into the mattress. Feathers and pieces of cotton stuffing scattered around my head and tickled my eyes as the coiled springs scraped against my skin. Then I could feel something else! It was hard and worn, maybe leather, and the tips of my fingers were just touching it.

      My hand sunk in further, and I ignored the dust, the scraping, until …

      There it was. I wrenched it out by the corner, and I clutched the little book to my chest, my heart pounding beneath it.

      Scarlet’s diary.

      They hadn’t found it. There was a piece of my sister waiting for me after all.

      I wriggled my way out from under the bed and hastily tried in vain to brush myself off. Then I sat up, leaning against the cold frame, and stared at the book in my hands. It was brown and shiny, and the letters ‘SG’ had been carefully scored into the cover.

      It looked as though half the pages had been torn out, but some of it was still intact. Hardly daring to breathe, I undid the leather strap, and turned to the first page that remained:

      Ivy, I pray that it’s you reading this.

      And if you are, well, I suppose you’re the new me …

      

      ou must keep this a secret from everyone. Especially Miss Fox. She cannot hear about this, understand? I’ve had to split up the pages. She would do anything to destroy the evidence.

      You will be fine, as long as you remember me. It’s just acting, like we always said we would do. Only you’ll be playing my part.

      Don’t pay too much attention in class. Don’t wear your uniform too neatly. Stay away from Penny. Don’t get on the wrong side of the Fox … you don’t know what she’s capable of. Don’t be as wet as you usually are – just look in the mirror, remember you’re trying to be me.

      And Ivy, I give you full permission to read my diary – in fact, you MUST!