NIGHT NIGHT AUNTIE MABEL

"Sally! Wrap this bandage round Mr Homey's wrist, it's cut really deep!"
"Yes, Auntie Mabel," I obeyed.
I took the bandaging off the shelf, and brought it over to the patient my aunt was standing next to, and started wrapping his wound. Ever since I started working at the little hospital my aunt owns, I've had to wrap bandages round gun wounds nearly every day.
"And where's that sister of yours got to!?"
"I'm here, Auntie Mabel," my twin sister, Lilly, walked into the doorway, carrying a heavy-looking bucket of water in both hands. "Getting the water you wanted."
"I asked for that stinking water an hour ago, you worthless weed!" Bellowed Aunt Mabel. "Where have you been!?"
"Well, the walk there was quite long," Lilly answered. "And even then there was loads of people waiting at the well..."
"And don't you dare answer me back, young lady!"
"But I wasn't," Lilly stammered. "You asked where I was, and so I told you..."
"There you go again, you wart! Answering back, I won't have it! And to think I was the one who took you in when your poor mother died. It would have been the orphanage for you otherwise!"
Grumbling, she strode towards the door, glaring at me as she left, although all I was doing was bandaging Mr Homey's gun wound.
"I'd rather have lived in the orphanage than with her," said Lilly. "An orphanage has got to be better than this dingy dump."
"Sssh," I said. "Don't let her catch you saying that."
"I won't," Lilly said. "Let her catch me, that is."
I smiled at my sister's feeble joke, and finished off Mr Homey's bandage. He was quite good-looking, and if I was Lilly, I would have been blushing while I was tending to him. Lilly got so embarrassed easily.
It's been like this ever since we were ten. Until we were seven, we lived with our mother, until she got leukaemia, and had to be taken to hospital. Our Aunt Mabel owned a hospital, so that’s where our mother went. But Aunt Mabel couldn’t save her, and she died in her sleep. We’d been brought up by Aunt Mabel since then. But when we were ten, she insisted we had to work to stay with her, and she put us to work in her dingy, damp hospital. I was the one who was always tending to patient’s wounds, mostly gun-wounds. Lilly was always set the task of fetching water, and anything else that was heavy. We always made sure we did everything she told us, because she was always shouting at us about something. Once, Lilly came back with a bucket of water, which she spilt when she tripped. Aunt Mabel called her a worthless waste of space and smacked her face so badly, my poor sister got a black eye for two weeks.
Lilly and I always swore that once we were eighteen we would get away from Aunt Mabel as fast as we could, but we were nineteen now, and haven’t done it yet. Not because we didn’t know where to go, but because Lilly was terrified of Aunt Mabel. Lilly, being clumsy, always came off worse in Aunt Mabel’s beatings. Lilly was afraid that if we ran away, Aunt Mabel would find us and beat us senseless.
“There you go Mr Homey,” I said now. “Don’t go getting in the way of any more guns,” I smiled, good-humouredly.
“Thanks, Miss Pottrow,” Mr Homely smiled back. “I’ll be off then.”
“Ugh, stop flirting, Sally,” Lilly joked, setting the bucket of water she’d brought on a table. “Aunt Mabel didn’t say where she wanted this bucket, so I’ll leave it here out of the way.”
Speak of the Devil. “Don’t put it there, you nitwit!” Aunt Mabel bellowed, coming back into the doorway. “That’s the table with the wobbly leg! Don’t you know anything you poor excuse for a human being!”
“Sorry, Auntie Mabel,” said Lilly meekly, picking up the bucket again. “I forgot-”
“Speak only when you’re spoken to, girl!” Replied Aunt Mabel. “Honestly, you have the manners of a pig!”
“Sorry,” Lilly mumbled. Then she mumbled something else. I caught everything she said, because I was standing nearer to her: “Which I could get out of this dump.”
Aunt Mabel must have heard all, or some, of what my sister had said, because she went purple in the face with rage, and yelled out: “Why, you ungrateful brat! I took you in when your poor mother died! Brought you up! And this is how you repay me? By saying you want to leave? I’ve got a good mind to...”
Suddenly, without warning, Aunt Mabel ran towards Lilly. My sister stood there, rooted to the spot, scared stiff to move. I couldn’t see what was happening, but Lilly yelled out, and it sounded like she was choking. Afraid that Aunt Mabel would kill my poor sister, I decided to stop her. Not really thinking about the consequences, I picked up a knife that was lying on a table nearby. The knife was usually used to cut umbilical cords when women had given birth. But right now, it was being used for something else. With all of my strength, I threw the knife; it embedded itself into Aunt Mabel’s back, killing her instantly. She keeled to the ground.
Lilly and I stared in horror at what I’d done for a couple of minutes. I was shocked to see that Lilly’s neck had gone a deep purple where she’d been choked. I took the knife from Aunt Mabel’s back and wiped the blood off it onto my clothes.
“Night-night, Auntie Mabel,” I said.

***

After the murder of Mabel Pottrow, her nieces, Sally and Lilly went on the run. The law took off in hot pursuit after them, thinking that running from the scene of the crime made them likely suspects. The twins were eventually caught six months later, and a trial was held. Sally Pottrow confessed to the crime, saying she did it all, and that Lilly had nothing to do with it. Sally was sentenced to hang from her neck until she was dead. When this happened, Lilly felt there was point in life anymore, and she killed herself two months later, deliberately running in front of a gun when a fight had broken out, causing herself to get hit with a fatal bullet. When Lilly lay dying, it was rumoured that she heard saying: “Night-night, Auntie Mabel.”

The End by Charlene Samm