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Chapter Fifteen
Esmerelda rushed into the mirror room and sat down before holding up a card with her sisters names on it. The mirror then stopped being transparent and the scene changed to one of the two younger blondes. They were sat in Sybil's room playing a card game and looking quite bored. Esmerelda felt her heart beat with happiness as she saw they were okay.
"Ethie, Sybie!" she said feeling like it had been years since she had last spoken to them and shouting their names so happily.
The girls turned and seeing Esmie jumped up happily, rushing over to talk to their big sister.
"ESMIE" they both said beaming. They had missed speaking to her so much.
"I am sorry it has been so long, I tried to change my punishment but Miss Cackle wouldn't have it, I missed you two so much!" Esmerelda told them wishing she could walk through the mirror and take them into her arms to hug them.
"We missed you too..." Ethel said before she stopped "What happened to your arm?" she asked noticing the sling on her sister's arm. Esmerelda sighed, she should have known they would realise.
Esmerelda looked down. She didn't want them to know the truth, she didn't want them to know how bad things had been for her.
"Esmie? What happened?" Sybil asked looking close to tears as she saw her sister was injured. Esmerelda knew it was now time to say the truth, no matter how hard it was for her, or what their reactions would be. She couldn't lie to them anymore.
She therefore told them everything. About how all the students had hated her for all the attention HB gave her, how she and Gretel had had a fight with one another over the picture which is what she had gotten the punishment for, and then the curse they put on her, causing her to wet the bed so the revenge Esmerelda had used on them and then how they had pushed her of her broomstick and she had nearly fallen to her death but Miss Drill had saved her life, but she was still left with a broken arm.
Ethel and Sybil looked at her shocked as she finished talking. They had had no idea things had gotten that bad. Sybil started crying and Ethel's lip trembled but Esmerelda quickly kept talking.
"They have being expelled it doesn't matter anymore, I am okay, my arm will heal quickly" Esmerelda told them trying to reassure them but this just made Ethel start to cry.
"Please don't cry, it is okay" Esmerelda told them, hating to see her darling little sisters crying at her expense. It broke her heart seeing them so upset.
"How is it okay when you have had such a bad time and no-one did anything?" Sybil said covering her face as she kept crying.
"Miss Drill tried but the girls just didn't want to give up. They lost anyway, I am not the one who has to leave the school, they are" Esmerelda told them, wishing she had made something up now she saw their reaction.
"I thought you loved Cackles, I didn't realise you were having such a hard time!" Ethel sobbed as she felt guilty for not realising. She knew she hadn't spoken to her in a month but she should have being more attentive, she told herself.
"Cackles is okay" Esmerelda told her sisters "But you are right I wish I could come back home to you two, I hate being away from you and everyone at the school is so harsh" Esmerelda told them as she saw them cry more.
"But I will be okay, things are not great but they are starting to get a bit better, I am starting to get more used to it here" Esmerelda told them with a shrug.
"I don't want you to suffer" Sybil said, crying more at the thought.
"I am not, as long as I can talk to you two I will be fine" she said deciding to change the subject to try and cheer them up a little. "How are things with you two?" Esmerelda asked wondering what home-life was like. Ethel sighed.
"Boring" she replied "Mum and dad are never here and without you here there is nothing to do" Ethel replied as she became a little less teary.
"Yes, we can't think of games as well as you can" Sybil replied as she looked at her sister.
"Oh well when I come home I will make one up" Esmerelda told them with a smile.
Always left alone, Esmerelda made up games for her and her sisters to play or told them stories to keep them entertained, some days were easier than others if they were allowed to play outside but others were hard to keep them interested, but she always tried. Children had such a long attention span, but they enjoyed the creative things Esmie came up with.
"Oh yes I miss your make believe games" Ethel admitted. She had tried to make some herself but they were never as good as Esmerelda's ideas and they got bored much more easily, although that could be for the fact they just missed their sister and were to sad to play.
"I miss making them up, but I will think of some when I see you" Esmerelda told them before stopping to fix a strand of her hair which was hanging in her face and moving it out of the way "How are you both health wise, they haven't tried to serve you anything dangerous again have they?" Esmerelda asked remembering when Ethel had been served raspberry jam by the chefs. The one food that could kill her with a single taste.
"No, not since Grandma Josephine had a go at them" Sybil said as she wiped her eyes and chuckled slightly.
"Good, has the food gotten better then?" Esmerelda asked curiously.
"Not so much, but at least we can eat it without getting sick" Ethel replied she had come to realise that they had to eat the gross food even if it was disgusting because they couldn't let themselves starve and get sick, Esmie suffered with it at school as well so it was not just them. They were all getting served food they hated.
"At half term I am going to make you both some pasta" Esmerelda told them knowing it was both their favourites, they liked it in different ways but they both loved it and always asked for it when she was at home.
"Ooo yum!" Sybil said smiling happily, she loved her sister's home-made pasta.
"My favourite, I want it now" Ethel said and Esmerelda chuckled as it wasn't possible.
"Sorry Ethie, you will have to be patient" her sister told her.
"Only two weeks now" Sybil said as in two weeks it was the Christmas holidays and Esmerelda was so excited to go home to see her sisters.
"It will be here before you know it, have mum and dad got a tree?" Esmerelda asked. Their parents never brought a real one because of the mess but normally put up a small fake one, but sometimes they forgot about it, depending on how busy they were. The sisters were to fearful to ask if they could have one themselves.
"Yes they remembered!" Sybil said smiling. She always loved having a tree.
"I can't wait to see it, I bet you two have decorated it amazingly!" Esmerelda said and the girls nodded.
"We found the baubles we made with Grandpa Nelson and Grandma Josephine!" Ethel said with a gasp as she remembered and smiled even bigger than Sybil.
"What?" Esmerelda said in shock "We lost them years ago!" Esmerelda commented.
The girls had made some beautiful handmade Christmas baubles the year before their grandfather died and the year bedsore Josephine left to live in Australia. It was one of the last things they made with their grandpa before he suddenly fell ill and he had loved them so much that Christmas, the girls therefore treasured them but one year they had become separate from the other decorations and they had lost them, the girls had been so upset and looked everywhere but they were gone. It had been four or five years since that time. They still looked every Christmas but they could never find them.
"I know, we found them in the attic, in a bag of old stuff Grandma Jo left, I don't know how they ended up in there but we were so happy" Sybil told her sister.
Esmerelda was confused. She would bet on anything they had looked through Grandma Jo's bags every year for the baubles and they were never there but the girl couldn't help smiling despite this. Maybe it did suck being away from her sisters and their Christmases were never that great as they were stick at home alone with nothing to do but them decorations made everything better, they made them feel happy every time they looked at them and reminded them of a time they had adults in their lives who loved them. Esmerelda therefore could not wait to go home, she only hoped it didn't drag until the holidays began.