A Fetal Feat

By Chantel Ings

A sibling is a friend by nature. This is true in some cases, but sometimes...

From upstairs, Mrs. Young could hear the familiar shrieks of her two daughters waging war in the basement. She shot an apologetic look towards her neighbour, Mrs. Banks, who stood at the front door.

“It sounds like the party is already getting rowdy down there,” Mrs. Banks laughed as she handed a sleeping bag and overnight bag to Mrs. Young. Behind Mrs. Banks stood a girl of eleven, looking reluctantly into the house while she clutched a pink pillow in her arms.

“Oh you know those girls, easily excitable when they get together with pizza and sugar,” Mrs. Young chuckled, but her eyes already looked too tired for the long night she would have ahead of her, chaperoning her daughter’s 12th birthday party. “You can go on downstairs, Julia,” she said to the girl and Julia quietly made her way towards the music and noise.

“Are you sure she is up to this?” Mrs. Young asked, after Julia was out of sight and the basement door closed behind her.

“We’ve all had a strange week, and having some fun with her friends will be good for her,” Mrs. Banks said and thanked Mrs. Young for inviting Julia over earlier that day. After a quick word to send for her in case Julia should need her mother, Mrs. Banks said goodnight and returned to her much quieter home across the street.

Julia, standing on the steps to the basement, was engulfed by shouting and loud music as she surveyed the scene. The girls had already set up their sleeping bags on the basement floor and around the room were scattered bowls of chips and paper cups. A stereo was playing music and one of the girls from Julia’s class was skimming through the playlist, barely giving it a chance to play a verse or two. In the middle of the basement floor stood Heather, the birthday girl, and she was too busy screaming to notice that the last party “guest” had arrived.

“You KNOW you are not supposed to be down here, Sasha!” she shouted as she poked her younger sister in the chest, a couple times, hard enough to bruise. Sasha was three years younger than the other girls, old enough to want to be part of the fun but too young to be welcomed.

“YOU ate all of the snacks mom bought for US,” Sasha stomped as she snatched a bag of chips from on top of the television. “I was ONLY going to be a minute!” she screamed as she dodged her sister, who was about to snatch back the snacks, and ran up the basement stairs. As Heather went to chase her younger sister, she finally noticed Julia sitting on the basement steps quietly.

“Oh. It’s you,” Heather said, not bothering to hide her foul mood. “You can set up your sleeping bag anywhere,” Heather pointed and then jogged off to explain to her friends in frantic whispers that SHE had not invited Julia, but her mother had. Then she began complaining about how much she loathed her little sister and how much better things had been before Sasha had been born. Her friends gathered  around her and agreed that little brothers and sisters were the worst possible thing to happen to an 11 year old, and that their parents never understood the plague that they had set upon the family.

“It’s normal,” Julia said from outside of the group, busy unrolling her sleeping bag and getting comfortable.

“What do you mean?” Heather glared from inside of the circle of friends, everyone turning towards the strange girl.

“It is a battle of the strongest,” Julia said matter-of-factly. “Siblings cannot get along because they are always fighting to survive.”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Erica, Heather’s best friend for the week.

“It is not. That’s why I killed my sister,” Julia stated and looked solemnly at all of the girls. The room grew tense as each girl gave Julia a confused look.

“What are you talking about? You don’t even have a sister,” Heather said, rolling her eyes at the theatrics Julia was known to have, especially when she wanted attention in class. Everyone knew that Julia was prone to lying.

“I used to,” Julia almost whispered and the girls had to strain to hear her words. “But then I ate her.”

Earlier that week, Julia had been admitted to the hospital to have a biopsy done on a lump that her mother had found on her side. Heather had overheard her mother talking on the phone, saying that the doctors had worried that it was cancer and wanted to do tests. What the doctors had found, however, wasn’t anything cancerous, but a couple of teeth. Julia had heard the doctor explaining to her parents that she must have had a twin, while she was in the womb.

“We must have fought for space and food, inside of my mom, but in the end, I won because I was born and she wasn’t.” Julia explained to the basement full of quiet, horrified girls. “You could always eat your sister, I guess.”

Mrs. Banks had hoped that Julia spending time with girls her own age would do something for her daughter’s social life. She always thought that Julia spent too much time alone. It would have disappointed Mrs. Banks, if she knew that the girls slept with the lights on in the basement that night, and Julia slept on the other side of the basement room, alone.