Author's Foreword

Strictly speaking, this isn't really a Skins story at all, despite the fact that the names of the family members are all instantly recognisable. It could be viewed as a piece of very AU Skins fiction, if you want, but in truth it's more of a crime short story, an attempt at a piece of psychological drama and I've just used the Fitch names to make it more accessible for now for fellow Skins fans.

It's just a first draft at the moment, it's fairly raw and I need to work at it quite a bit more, not least cut the length of it down by about 500 words as I might enter it in a writing competition later, if I feel happier about it. But I thought it would be useful if I 'put it out there' for any of you to read and let me know if you felt it worked at all. As always, your comments and thoughts will be invaluable in helping me to improve my story-telling skills. So here it is, warts and all. Let me know what you think!

In my experience, those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it. Take my darling sister, for example. Now, if I were to tell her what I had decided today I was going to do to her, namely kill her, I 'm sure I could predict her reaction with chilling accuracy. She would be pleading with me to forgive her, to give her one last chance not to be a complete bitch for the rest of her miserable life. I can see her now, prostrating herself ingloriously in front of me, howling like some sad, demented old crow, not caring how undignified and pathetic she must look to any casual onlooker who might walk in on our little sisterly tete-a-tete.

Not that she's my real sister, of course, just adopted. I didn't ask for her to be brought into our family. Nobody bothered to consult me, ask MY opinion on whether I wanted a friend to play with, someone to share my thoughts and feelings and secrets with. Oh, no! She was just foisted upon me, a veritable fait accompli, without so much as a by your leave. Here you are sweetheart! Meet your new sister. You'll have such fun, the pair of you. DEAL WITH IT!

So, deal with it I shall – in my own special, twisted little way. I mean, it's not as if I haven't given her enough chances to toe the line, to recognise who's Numero Uno, who's the Big Cheese around here. But none of it ever seems to get through that thick skull of hers. I was here first and for that I demand respect and total deferral at all times. But do I get it? Do I f**k!! The little cow's so clever at playing up to the rest of the family, so devious and conniving. She gets them on her side every time we have a spat, she turns on the charm, she plays the innocent, injured victim role to perfection and they fall for it. Hook, line and sinker.

All she ever has to do is put on her cute little face act, make those big sad eyes at the lot of them and they all fall under her spell. It's really quite nauseating to watch it happen time after time. I used to try to defend myself at first, point out it wasn't my fault, it was hers but after a while I gave up. I could see I was never going to make any of them understand me or believe me. They'd never swallow the unpalatable truth about who the real bitch was in this house. You lose the will to care, eventually.

Anyway, enough is enough. My patience is finally at an end. I m going to do away with the little bitch. I haven't worked out yet how I'm going to do it. I shall take my time over it. It's got to be planned meticulously; nothing must be left to chance. I want to commit the perfect murder and since I'm bound to be one of the main suspects I've got to ensure that suspicion doesn't fall on me. I have to give myself….what's the word? …Oh yes, an alibi! That's right. I need an alibi so they can't possibly think it was me that did for the little tart. I'm going to enjoy this whole planning process, considering each possible option in turn, then calmly eliminating each one by one before finally arriving at my chosen method of disposal. Almost as much as I'm going tot enjoy killing her. Almost…..but not quite!

'Emily! Katie! Will you come down now? You'll be late for school! Daddy's ready to go and he mustn't be late this morning.' Jenna sighed with exasperation. Jesus! It was the same performance every morning! Why couldn't those girls ever be ready on time without giving them a right good kick up the backside? Sometimes she thought they did it deliberately just to wind her up. Besides, they weren't even allowed to wear make-up at school so why did they both spend ages in front of the mirror before they would condescend to be even seen outside the house?

Seconds later Katie ran down the stairs and into the hall, slightly breathless, in the process almost falling over a brown and black tabby cat which had decided to park itself inconsiderately in her flight path and have a wash. The cat screeched wildly as it felt the full force of Katie's weight on its tail and flew off, spitting and growling.

'Oh, Katie, do look where you're going. You almost trod on poor Molly.'

'Stupid animal,' muttered Katie, throwing a stray trainer in the direction of the poor moggy which had scuttled off to lick its wounds in the kitchen. 'She's always getting under my feet. Why can't you control your bloody cat, Emily?'

Her sister had now joined her at the foot of the stairs and was looking daggers at Katie who was slipping into her shoes. 'Don't you dare throw things at my cat, you cow! She's always picking on her, Mum. Molly's a sweetie, not like that vicious little bully Suki.'

But before Jenna could open her mouth to intercede between the two girls and nip yet another one of their all too regular arguments in the bud, the aforementioned 'vicious little bully' appeared out of nowhere, as if on cue, to demonstrate that Emily's description was far from exaggerated. Launching herself like a tracer bullet and with all the precision and timing of a highly skilled predator, a second cat, this one black and grey with white paws and a white splodge on her nose, flew at Molly and succeeded in knocking her onto her back. As the two squared up to each other, hackles up, spitting and growling into each other's face, Emily ran into the kitchen, pursued by Katie and shouted at the perpetrator with sufficient intensity and anger in her voice to persuade her sister's cat it might be wise to retreat.

'Don't shout at Suki like that! She was only playing; she wasn't going to hurt Molly.'

'Yes she was. She's a nasty, vicious bully, Katie, just like you are.'

'Now stop it girls or I'll tell your father. Why do you two always have to start every day with an argument? I'm fed up with it. Get your stuff together for school right now and hurry outside before your father loses patience and leaves. Or do you want to walk to school?' Their mother had finally lost her cool and was giving full expression to her rising irritation and frustration at her perpetually warring daughters.

The two girls pulled faces at each other in silent, seething resentment and grabbed their bags before stomping out of the house, each muttering barely audible obscene accusations of blame at the other as soon as they had got out of earshot of their mother. Katie won the unequal race to the front seat next to her father, leaving Emily to roll her eyes, shrug her shoulders with weary acceptance of her secondary status and clamber into the back of the car where she threw her bag onto the seat with barely disguised irritation.

'Sorry we kept you waiting, Dad,' said Katie sweetly. 'Molly got under my feet, as usual, and practically sent me flying down the stairs.'

'No she didn't, you lying cow!' piped up Emily from behind, determined not to let that barefaced lie from passing unchallenged. 'She wasn't even on the stairs and anyway, you weren't looking where you were going. We're late because your revolting moggy flew at Molly for no reason at all.'

'Suki was just playing, she didn't 'fly' at Molly. Stop exaggerating.'

'Now, come on you two, stop arguing.' Rob was in no mood that morning to have to step in between his two daughters to break up another one of their confounded rows. It had been getting worse between the two girls lately, he had noticed. He would have to speak to Jenna later on to try to work out what they could do about it.

'Sorry, Dad,' said Katie meekly, turning towards him and flashing such an enchanting smile that it would have melted the icy heart of the White Witch of Narnia. 'Look, I saved you a biscuit. It's your favourite, a Custard Cream.' She held out the biscuit to his mouth and Rob took a bite from it, smiling broadly as he did so.

'That's nice of you. Thank you, sweetheart,' he mumbled, as he crunched happily away. Behind him Emily scowled and her brown eyes narrowed menacingly as they bored in to the back of Katie's head. She passed away a few idle minutes in happy silence trying to imagine what her sister's head would look like if it had been bludgeoned to bloody smithereens with some heavy metal object. The image conjured up by her fertile imagination brought a chilling smile to her face, which her father observed from glancing in his mirror.

'What are you smiling in the back about, sweetie pie?' he asked casually.

'Nothing, Dad. Just thinking about something, that's all.'

'Something to do with school, you mean?'

'Yeah, something like that, Dad,' Emily lied disarmingly. Katie turned round to stare at her sister with an expression of disbelief and scorn etched all over her face. She might fool Dad easily enough, but she couldn't fool her. Katie knew Emily had never found anything at school remotely interesting or enjoyable. What was the little bitch smiling so smugly about?

Jenna closed the door behind the two girls, let out a huge sigh of relief and went into the kitchen to comfort a still frightened Molly who had climbed up on to the kitchen table to seek sanctuary from a still restlessly prowling and chuntering Suki.

'Poor Molly,' said Jenna, stroking the nervous cat reassuringly and looking around to see where Suki had got to. 'She's just too playful and energetic for you, isn't she? You just want a quiet life, don't you, whereas Suki needs to be having fun all the time.' Having succeeded in calming and comforting Molly to the point where she was starting to purr away in quiet contentment again, Jenna went off in search of the little tearaway whom she soon found curled up on her back up on a sofa in the living room, all four paws pointing up towards the ceiling. She looked the picture of innocence and serenity and Jenna had to laugh out loud at the sight of her looking so sweet and vulnerable, just seconds after having terrorised the life out of poor Molly for no reason other than sheer boredom.

That total bitch did it again! Had a right go at me and then got off scot free just by turning on the charm and playing the cute card. Pathetic! How is it that no-one else but me can see it? Are they all irretrievably blind and stupid? Are they all so gullible that they'll fall for any old cutesy display or the most glaringly obvious buttering up? Jesus! It makes my blood boil! I could almost spit. She gets away with murder in our house. Well not for much longer she won't. Soon it'll be me that will be getting away with murder. Then once she's out of the way they'll have to start paying me some attention because I'll be the only one left. I won't have to live in fear any more – the fear of being overlooked, bullied, ignored, reduced to second class status. I'll be the centre of attention once again and then things can get back to how they used to be – before SHE came to live with us.

I still haven't decided on how I'm going to get rid of her. But I do know I want it to be a long, slow and painful death. Ideally, of course, I'd love to be able to sit and watch her die. I would give anything to enjoy taking in the terrified expression on her face that only certain knowledge of one's impending death can truly produce. But I doubt I'll be afforded the luxury of such indulgence. I expect I'll have to make myself scarce pretty damn quickly. If I start hanging around the body I'll just be incriminating myself, won't I? After all, my master plan depends on me getting away with the murder, not being found out. They'll be no point in doing away with my revolting, obnoxious cow of a sister if I get caught and punished without ever getting to reap the rewards of my ingenuity. No, I'll have to settle for picturing her horror-stricken face as she slowly passes away in excruciating agony and despair. That should be enough, even for me. That image should keep me happy for the rest of my life.

Emily was stretched out on her bed thoroughly engrossed in her book, despite the loud music playing in the background, when she heard repeated knocks followed by the sound of her mother's voice shouting at the door. Without taking her eyes off the page she was reading she called out somewhat impatiently.

'What?!'

The door slowly opened and her exasperated mother popped her head round the door. 'I've been calling you for the last five minutes, Emily! Dinner's nearly ready. Can't you turn that dreadful row down? No wonder you can't hear me.'

Emily gave the typically teenage sigh of frustration of one whose parents would never be on the same wavelength as her and reached over to turn the volume down on her CD player. She still continued reading though and her mother was suddenly struck by her daughter's apparently rapt attention to her book, an unusual event in itself which fuelled her curiosity.

'What are you reading that's so interesting, dear?' she asked in as casual a voice and manner as she could muster.

'Nothing much. Just something for school,' replied Emily without looking up at her mother. 'I'll be down as soon as I've finished this page. I'll only be a minute or two.'

Her mother noiselessly came into the room and approached the bed, sitting down on it next to her daughter who swivelled her head round to glare at her.

'I said I'll be down in a minute, Mum! For Christ sake! Why do you want to know what I'm reading? You don't normally show any interest.'

'We don't normally see you reading a book so enthusiastically, Emily. What's it about?'

Jenna leant forward to look over her daughter's shoulder and caught a glimpse of the title of the book at the top of one of the pages. What she saw made her raise her eyebrows in astonishment and stare open-mouthed at her daughter who by contrast seemed completely unconcerned by her mother's sharp intake of breath.

'The Book of Poisons? What on earth are you reading that for?'

Emily didn't bat an eyelid as she returned her mother's perplexed gaze with a stony expression. 'It's for a school project, Mum. Science class, okay? Just a little light reading around the subject, as the teacher calls it. He encourages us to read beyond the textbook, you know?'

'Good God! Things have changed a bit since I did science at school, then. All I can remember us doing was cutting up frogs, messing around with Bunsen burners and stuff like that.'

Emily couldn't help laughing, despite her irritation at her mother's unwanted and unaccustomed interest in her schoolwork. 'Yeah, I bet. The syllabus has moved on a bit since your day, Mum. They teach us all sorts of stuff nowadays – biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, you name it, we have to know something about it.'

Jenna shook her head in silent amazement and got up off the bed. Sometimes you can teach kids too much, she thought. 'Well, don't be long. I'm dishing up dinner now, okay?'

'Message received and understood,' said Emily with a wry smile to herself, her attention once more restored to her book.

'So how are you getting on at school, girls?' asked Grandma, as she helped herself to more of her daughter's delicious roast potatoes. 'Still near the top of the class, I hope?'

'I was first in English last week, Gran' beamed Katie smugly.

'Really? Oh, well done Katie.' said her grandmother approvingly as an ex- English schoolteacher.

'Yes, Katie has a wonderful imagination, apparently, according to her form teacher,' explained Jenna with more than a touch of motherly pride in her voice. 'They think she has great potential as a writer.'

She's certainly a master at making up fairy-tale stories, thought Emily to herself as she scowled at a still smugly smiling Katie from across the table.

'And what about you, Emily? How are you doing? 'Grandma turned her head to look at her other granddaughter with an encouraging glance.

'Okay, I guess. Of course I'm not in Katie's league when it comes to making up stories.' Emily stared pointedly at her sister after making her cryptic remark and Katie returned her gaze without a flicker of emotion save for a slight narrowing of her heavily made-up eyes.

'Emily's been falling behind a bit lately,' said Jenna, trying not to betray too much concern and anxiety about how strange and distant her youngest daughter had been acting recently. 'Haven't you, darling? You used to be so good at school but your marks have been rather disappointing in the last month or two.'

'Well, she's probably been a bit distracted by her boyfriend, to be fair,' smirked Katie who had decided that if Emily wanted to play games with her in front of the whole family, then she would be the one who would suffer the most.

'Boyfriend? What boyfriend?' asked Jenna, alarmed and even Rob momentarily stopped tucking into his Sunday roast dinner and looked across the table at a now blushing and furious Emily.

'I haven't got a boyfriend, Mum! Katie's just making that up, the lying cow!' Emily's blazing eyes looked daggers at her sister who had pressed her lips firmly together to prevent a snigger from coming out and ruining the effect she was hoping to create.

'What, so you and Tom are 'just good friends' are you?' said Katie as she smiled around at the rest of the family, her mischievously twinkling eyes making her Grandpa laugh out loud as they invariably did.

'Yes! Anyway, you can talk. You've been with so many boys I'll be surprised you can even remember any of their names! You're just a cheap little tart!'

'Now that's enough, Emily!' shouted her mother, shocked at the ferocity of Emily's outburst and irritated almost beyond words at how easily her daughters had started fighting yet again, and in front of their grandparents too. Don't call you sister that. It's horrible. You apologise to her right now, do you hear me?'

Jenna's raised voice and angry tone forced the rest of the table into a deep, embarrassed silence as the two girls glared at each other. Emily was close to tears as she stared down at her plate and Katie was silently seething at being calleda cheap little tart in front of her parents and grandparents whom she had always been able to twist around her little fingers and have eating out of the palm of her hands.

'Emily! You heard your mother. Apologise to Katie.' Rob knew that his wife's beseeching look across the dinner table at him could only mean one thing. He was required to step in and play the strict father role for once, even though he hated having to raise his voice to his children and always much preferred leaving the discipline side of parenting to his wife to whom it had always come far more naturally.

Emily looked up at her father whose eyes were silently pleading with her to swallow her pride, bite the bullet and apologise for the sake of family harmony and the peaceful continuation of their Sunday lunch. The tears were welling up in her eyes and her bottom lip was quivering noticeably as she opened her mouth, presumably to come out with the reluctant apology that was being demanded of her. Just at that very moment, however, and with a perverse sense of comic timing that one could have sworn had been almost pre-planned had that not been rather fanciful, the sound of approaching pitter-patter of tiny feet broke the uneasy silence that had descended on the dinner table.

From nowhere Molly shot into the room and jumped up onto the table with one uncertain, scrambling, prodigious leap, sending a plate of green beans flying in the process.

'Emily! Get your bloody cat off the table!' screamed Jenna furiously from the other end as Molly, looking up nervously at the cries of horror and disapproval coming from the other end of the table, was suddenly distracted by the realisation that she had landed right by a plate of succulent, juicy meat which she couldn't stop herself from sniffing at, despite the growing clamour all around her. Emily stood up, hastily picked up Molly before she could start helping herself to any of the roast beef and ran out of the room in tears without issuing any apology to Katie or the rest of the family for what had just happened.

Completely unnoticed during the last few moments, Suki had been wisely hiding under the table and biding her time to pop her head over the parapet when she judged it was safe to come out. As soon as Emily had disappeared out of the room with Molly still in her arms, Suki jumped up onto Katie's lap and made herself comfortable there, purring loudly and standing up on her hind legs to rub her head against Katie's neck and chin.

'Hi Suki, Sweetie,' said Katie in her most affected little-girl voice which drew approving sighs from her grandparents, as she knew it would. 'Would you like some meat?' Can I give her some, Mum? At least she doesn't jump up on the table like Molly.'

'Go on, then,' said Jenna, looking at her Mum and Dad with a half smile of world-weary tolerance. 'What was Emily going on about you and all these boys?'

'She's making it up, Mum, just to get back at me. You know how jealous she is of me at school. How could I get all these top marks if I was messing around with boys all the time? Think about it, eh? I'm far too busy studying at the moment. Boys will have to wait.' She could sense the nods of approval from her grandparents without even having to look across at them and she fought to conceal a smirk of self-satisfaction at her cunning duplicity.

'You have to realise it's difficult for Emily, what with you doing so well at school, Katie. It puts pressure on her to try to keep up with you. Go easy on her, please.'

'Okay, Mum. I'll try. I'll go and see her later on when she's calmed down a bit.'

I hate her, I hate her, I hate her! I wish she was dead right now. I don't care how. I just want her out of my life. For good. I'm not even bothered if I get caught anymore. I mean, what could they possibly do to me that could make my life worse than it already is? Everywhere I go, she's there, making my life a misery, turning everyone against me with her mean, spiteful, little tricks. So what if I end up all alone, forgotten, ignored or rejected by the whole family? It's like that already. I've never felt so alone in a house full of so many people.

The good news is, I've made a bit of a breakthrough on a plan to do away with my darling sister. It's not what I originally had in mind at all but, you know, I think it just might work. The beauty of it is that if it were to come off, it will look like it was a terrible, tragic accident and not deliberate murder at the hands of person or persons unknown. I should get away with it completely if I'm lucky. Of course, something could go wrong, someone might see what I intend to happen and manage to save her in time. But that's a risk I'll have to take. She who dares, wins, I believe is the expression. So, go for it, girl. Kill the monster and save yourself!

It's got to be this afternoon! Everything's been set up; I've done all I can to make it happen, I was just waiting for the right moment and it looks like it's going to be today. The whole family's going to have a relaxed, lazy Sunday afternoon in the garden, taking advantage of the hot weather we've been having lately. Deck chairs have been positioned on the veranda in front of the house, huge jugs have been filled with cool, refreshing lemonade and placed on the table, bikinis have been donned and books have been dug out in readiness for a long, peaceful afternoon's family rest and relaxation. Except Dad, of course, who's messing around on the extension roof above us all, doing some badly needed repair work that Mum has been on at him about for ages.

The stage has been set. I've done all I can these last couple of weeks to set the whole thing up. I've been working away at the statue as best I could, whenever I had the chance, when no-one was around to see what the hell I was doing up on the roof. It hasn't been an easy task to say the least, chipping away at it bit by bit, trying to make it as loose as possible without actually going too far and ruining my whole cunning plan by making it fall down too soon. I think I've got it just right. It's really loose now, almost hanging on only by a thread and any sudden, violent movement in its immediate vicinity will inevitably send the heavy, stone piece hurtling over the edge of the roof and down towards the veranda below.

All I've got to do is to ensure that the bitch from hell is perfectly positioned right underneath at the precise moment when it drops from the rooftop as soon as Dad plants his huge size tens anywhere near it as he moves across to that side of the roof.

I'm in prime position myself in the garden to observe everything happening up above on the roof and judge more or less precisely when that moment is likely to happen. I'm ready to spring into action. I can't wait for the moment when I can craftily lure the unsuspecting, smug little cow to the spot where she will finally get her come-uppance. Even now I can see her staring at me with a self-satisfied, little grin on her face. Well, I'll soon be wiping it clean off you, madam! Go on, you keep smiling and gloating, enjoy the last few minutes of your miserable existence. I'll just sit quietly here pretending to be intimidated and scared of you and trying not to act too excited and pleased with myself at how clever I've been and how dead you're going to be any time soon.

'Rob! You will be careful up there, won't you?' asked Jenna nervously, looking up at her husband as he moved somewhat gingerly across the roof.

'I'm fine, stop worrying,' replied Rob with a reassuring smile. 'I know what I'm doing. I've almost finished anyway. I just want to check this old statue's safely secured. It looked a little dodgy the last time I was up here.' He started scrambling across the roof, carefully holding on to the ledge with both hands as he made his way steadily towards the impressively large, weather-beaten, stone edifice which had dominated the roof of the veranda since the day the family had moved in.

'Katie, darling, can you pass me the lemonade?' asked Emily in an unusually sweet and affectionate tone which made Katie stare at her sister with considerable suspicion. 'What was she playing at?' she thought to herself. But she was feeling too hot and exhausted to question her sister's motives right then and so she got up off her sun lounger, put her book to one side and went over to the table to pick up the jug of lemonade.

'It's almost empty. I'll go and get some more.' Katie turned towards the house and started making for the back door when the peacefulness of the afternoon was suddenly ripped apart by a procession of sounds and noises which all seemed to happen in such rapid succession that it was difficult to say with any great confidence which came first and which came last.

Certainly there was an almighty terrified yell from Rob, which seemed to start the ball rolling, and which may have contained the words 'Look Out!', although the intensity and volume of the roar coming from up above made it difficult to be absolutely certain what he was screaming.

Mixed in with this blood-curdling yell from above was the unmistakeable, high-pitched strangled cry of a cat seemingly in some distress and Katie almost found herself falling over onto her backside as she was walking towards the back door as a panic-stricken Molly shot across her path from nowhere, hotly pursued by a rampaging Suki, and nearly got tangled up in her legs. She had to pull up short to avoid falling over poor Molly who then had to veer frantically to one side to avoid a painful collision with Katie who was just taking in the screams of her father from above and was lifting her head up to see what was the matter with him.

The tumbling statue made a strange, eerie sort of whistling sound as it hurtled through the air at breakneck speed and then made a deafening crack as it met a solid impact just as it hit the ground and broke up into dozens of pieces This was accompanied by the sounds of high-pitched girlish screams of horror which cut through the afternoon air and echoed all around the garden for what seemed like an age but was probably only a few seconds. Then there was nothing but silence, a ghastly, breathless unreal silence, followed by the sounds of more screaming and then uncontrollable sobbing.

It was the day of the funeral today. So many sad tearful faces, such an eerie, uncomfortable silence the whole day, even I didn't know quite what to do with myself. I wanted to celebrate, I wanted to do a little jig of joy and relief, show everyone how happy I was but somehow I knew it wouldn't go down very well with the rest of the family. They were, after all, in mourning for our sad, tragic loss. Tee hee!!

Afterwards, everyone came back into the house and just kind of moped around, not really feeling like doing anything. A few words were exchanged without any great feeling or enthusiasm. The bitter smell of death seemed to be hanging over the whole family like an ominous black cloud in a heavy overcast sky. I was the only one who was supremely content with life at that moment but for the sake of good form and out of respect for the others I hid my feelings as best I could. It wasn't easy, though. I was free of her tyranny, free from her constant sniping and bullying, I felt released from the fear of a bleak future without any hope of remission. At long last, I could start to enjoy life again.

Mum came into the room and spotted me sitting quietly at the window, gazing out at the spot where the recent tragedy had taken place. She seemed to pause for a moment, as if not quite sure whether she should say anything or not, before coming over and sitting down next to me in a chair in silence for a while, looking out into the garden while she delicately stroked my head with a comforting hand.

'Are you okay, sweetheart?' she asked with genuine concern in her voice.

I looked up at her and for a few brief seconds I felt overcome by feelings of warmth, happiness and security such as I couldn't remember experiencing for so many years. But this blissful state of euphoria, which I had craved for so long, proved to be cruelly short-lived as her next words tore into my heart and threatened to rip out my very soul.

'Poor Molly! You're really going to miss Suki, aren't you,' she said. 'I know you two girls had your little spats from time to time but you were company for each other, weren't you? Perhaps in a little while we'll see if we can get you a new little sister to play with. You'd like that, wouldn't you, sweetie pie, eh?'