Karen McCombie - In Sarah’s Shadow

Somehow, I don’t feel like sitting back down next to her – maybe Sarah’s silver lining is radiating too much ultra-violet light for a thin-skinned person like me to stand. Instead, I perch on the arm of Mum’s chair and try and figure out what exactly Sarah’s boasting on about this time.

“So, Mr Fisher chose you, out of how many people, Sarah?” Mum asks, practically prickling with static electricity she’s so proud.

“Well, there were about thirty people at the auditions today, and I think he saw more people yesterday,” Sarah smiles a golden-child smile. “But today he finally decided on which five to pick for the band line-up.”

“And when is the actual Battle of the Bands competition happening?”

That’s Dad, perched now on the edge of his seat. He couldn’t look more excited if he suddenly saw his Lotto numbers sliding next to each other on the TV screen.

I get it. This Battle of the Bands thing – there are posters all over the noticeboards at school about it. It’s this regional competition that’s on at the end of next month – all the schools in the area enter a band, and the winners get a free pair of drumsticks from the competition sponsors or whatever. It’s pretty good fun; I was in the audience for it last year and there were some really brilliant bands there, and some spectacularly naff ones too, but it was a great afternoon’s skive. I hadn’t realised Sarah was going in for it this time around. I mean, I know she can sing (well, she can do anything, can’t she?) and she’s taught herself to play guitar this year (in between getting top grades in her exams, having an amazing social life and being all-round fantastic). But then she wouldn’t tell me, would she? She’s not even bothering to look at me now; she’s saving all her smiles for her appreciative audience of two.

“Who else is in the band with you? Did Cherish and Angel get picked?” asks Mum.

I realise I’m scratching at my wrists and stop. It’s a nervous habit and I don’t mean to do it, but it just happens. It really winds Mum up.

“Yes, they got picked too. And there’s this guy Conor who’s going to play bass and a lad called Salman who’s going to be on drums. I kind of know both of them, but just to say hi to.”

I rack my brains. Cherish and Angel – of course I know them, since they’ve been best friends with Sarah for years, regularly swanning in and out of our house (and blanking me, usually). But Salman and Conor…well, I’m pretty sure there’s a Salman in the Upper Sixth, but I don’t know about a Conor – there’re loads of Conors at our school.

“And so what happens now?”

That’s Dad again, probably already envisaging some glittering musical career for Sarah. Sorry, Daddy dearest; don’t suppose she’ll be opening for U2 any time soon. Then again, knowing her luck…

“Well,” Sarah says brightly, “we’ll have to get together with Mr Fisher and work out what song we want to play, then it’ll be a case of loads of rehearsals up until the competition!”

They’ll probably win. I haven’t heard them play together and I haven’t seen the two blokes, but unless they make a real mess of it or the guys look like extras out of Planet of the Apes, then it’s in the bag. How could the judges pass over a band that’s got the three prettiest, coolest girls in our school in it?

Oh, boy…Sarah’s swollen head is just about to get that bit more hot-air balloon-sized. Winning the competition will be a case of yet more glory landing slap-bang in her lap, just like it always does. Unlike me, who can’t scrape past average in any given exam. The only competitions I ever bother to enter are for give-aways in magazines. And guess what? ‘Free glitter make-up!! 1000s of sets up for grabs!!! To everyone except Megan Collins!’ I’ll tell you what my luck’s like: if I buy a magazine with a free gift on the cover, I won’t notice the gift’s been nicked off it till I’m outside the shop and can’t complain. And round about then is the time I’ll step in the dog poo and get soaked by an unexpected black cloud’s worth of rain.

God, I’m off on one again, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just hard when you don’t feel like one of life’s shiny, happy people. And it’s even harder when one of life’s shiny, happy people lives in the room across the hall from you.

“Megan, don’t do that!”

Mum’s voice is soft and urgent, her cool fingers are pressing mine still. I hadn’t realised I’d been scratch-scratching at my wrists again. And now they’re all looking at me. Looking at the freak member of their family with the scars on my skin that remind me and them of just how imperfect I am.

“I’ve got homework,” I mumble and get out of the room, away from the pitying, uncomfortable glances that are focused on me. They’re better off without me around, spoiling my parents’ fun as they soak up the sparkles of Sarah’s success.

“Megan…!”

I hope Mum doesn’t follow me – I don’t want her to. I hate those cosy pep talks she tries to give me, when she perches on the edge of my bed and always ends up upset, holding my hands and turning them over so she can stroke the jagged, bumpy white marks running longways across the raised tendons and blood vessels. And then she starts crying, like she always does, as if every time she touches them it’s as shocking as that first time when she found me…

I’ll stick on my headphones; that’s what I’ll do. Listen to something loud, so loud that there’s no room in my head for Sarah and her ten trillion lucky breaks.

My hand wraps around cool metal and I’m about to close the door of my room, to shut the whole world out, when I glance across the hallway into Sarah’s room. There’s her guitar, propped up against the desk, a reminder of how much Fate likes to smile down on my sister while leaving me stuck in the shadows.

Any chance I can get a turn in the luck department? Please? Maybe sometime this century?

“It looks nice!”

Pamela, my best friend, is lying. It’s something she does pretty regularly.

“It doesn’t look nice,” I tell her as I stare at my bizarre reflection in the full-length hall mirror. “It looks crap. Before, I had no boobs, and now – now it looks like I’ve got two satsumas shoved up my T-shirt.”

“But in a good way!” Pamela shrugs uselessly. “Maybe you just need to slacken the straps or something…so they’re not so high.”

High, as in tucked just below my chin, where – unless I’m very much mistaken – boobs aren’t meant to be. Well, bang goes two weeks’ allowance on a Wonderbra that probably does wonderful things for other girls but makes me look like a freak.

“You’ve really got to be more positive, Pumpkin!” Mum had told me this morning when she caught me hugging a cushion across my non-existent chest while sighing at the sight of Destiny’s Child bouncing around in spangly bras that could barely contain their bosoms on some old video they were rerunning on MTV.

“Be more positive”: that’s what Mum always tries to tell me if I’m down about anything. Maybe if she stopped calling me Pumpkin for five minutes I might feel more positive, of course. (Just a thought.) But you know, like most human beings, mothers can’t be wrong all the time, so I decided to try and do the positive thing, just this once, just to keep her happy. And so this afternoon (spent shopping and window-shopping, like every other Saturday), me and Pamela wandered into the underwear department at BhS, laughed at all the old lady knickers (big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries, if you sewed the legs up), sniggered at the G-strings (not enough pant to cover a postage stamp, never mind your girly bits), and bought myself a slinky, black Wonderbra. Which I am now wearing, and which is making me feel about as slinky as a baboon in a fairground hall of mirrors.