Auntie Mabel

Mum had nipped out to the supermarket to do our weekly shopping, leaving me to look after my little sister, Bonnie. I’d sat her down in front of the TV to watch the Cbeebies channel and went off to to the washing up.
I’d just poured the water and the washing up liquid in the sink, when the doorbell rang.
“There’s someone at the door, Billie!” Bonnie called out unnecessarily.
I opened the door to a policeman and a policewoman, both looking solemn.
“Are you Sybil Williams?” the policeman asked.
“Yes,” I answered, my heart thuddering. “What’s wrong?”
“Is your mother a Miss Molly Williams?”
“Yes? What’s the matter? Has she been arrested for shoplifting or something?”
The policewoman managed a weak smile at my little joke. “I’m afraid I have some terrible news. Your mother was involved in a car accident. A hit and run. She’s in the hospital now. She asked us to come to take you and your sister there.”

Mum died a few days later. Bonnie and I went to live with Auntie Mabel. She wasn’t a proper auntie, that was what she told us to call her. She was Mum’s cousin; the only living relative left alive who was willing to take me and Bonnie in. Auntie Mabel was a very horrible person. When we went to live with her, she more or less teated us like Cinderella slaves. We were made to do every single chore going. If we had school that day, she would get us up out of bed at five o’ clock in the morning to do all the chores before we went to school. We did it all, Auntie Mabel never did anything. We had to do the laundry, the washing up, the hoovering, the dusting, even taking her two vicious dogs for a walk. One of the dogs bit me once, and drew blood, and all Auntie Mabel said was that I shouldn’t have teased the dog. All I was trying to do was put the lead on.
Auntie Mabel never actually hit me, or anything. I wasn’t scared of her, and I suppose she knew that. It wasn’t until three years later that I found out about Bonnie.
When Mum died, and we went to live with Auntie Mabel, Bonnie was only five, and I was fifteen. Auntie Mabel lived in a big house, that had big rooms. It had three bedrooms. Two were big, and one was a box room. Auntie Mabel had one big bedroom. The other big bedroom she kept for when she had guests; which she never had. Both me and Bonnie were put in the third bedroom, the box room, to share.
Before we went to live with Auntie Mabel, Bonnie was never particularly clumsy, but afterwards I started noticing she’d got increasingly clumsy. I remember a few nights when we were getting dressed for bed. Bonnie always wore her tops tucked up around her neck, and I got a shock one night, when she took her top off. Her neck was bruised black and blue.
“Bonnie, how come your neck’s bruised?” I asked.
“I fell down the stairs,” my sister replied.
I couldn’t help but think about it. Fell down the stairs? Her neck wouldn’t be that bruised, surely? But I shrugged it off.
Over the next two or three days, poor Bonnie developed a nasty looking black eye. But again, when I asked her about it, she answered that she’d walked into a door.
It was after that, that she was forever covered in bruises. Every time she told me that she’d walked into a door, or that she fell down the stairs, or that she was being bullied by the other kids at school. I didn’t find out what was really going on, until much later.
We’d been living for a year with Auntie Mabel. A year of forever doing chores, and then being made to do them again if Auntie Mabel wasn’t satisfied with what we did. Over that time, Bonnie required more and more bruises, each came with an excuse.
One Saturday, Auntie Mabel sent me out with the dogs. Usually, I walked them for half an hour. Today, however, I was only out for ten minutes because it started to rain hard.
When I got back to the garden, I let the dogs off their leads, and made my way inside the house. As I entered, I was met with a child’s crying. It sounded scarily like Bonnie, and it was coming from upstairs. Thinking she had fallen down again, I went up the stairs, towards the sound, which was coming from our bedroom. When I got there, I saw Auntie Mabel, with her back to me. She had poor Bonnie pinned to the wall, her hand squeezing Bonnie’s neck. She was threatening my sister with what to tell people if they saw her bruises. I was angry. All this time, it had been Auntie Mabel abusing my little sister. And I didn’t even catch on. I was mortified.
I sneaked back downstairs, to the kitchen, and picked up the sharpest knife I could see, and went back upstairs. Obviously, Auntie Mabel hadn’t heard me, or she didn’t know I was in the house, because she still strangling my poor little sister.
With all of my strength, I hurled the kitchen knife at Auntie Mabel’s back. She turned to look at me, shocked.
“Billie,” she said. “What did you do that for?”
“Making us do chores over and over,” I answered grimly. “And for abusing my sister.”
Antie Mabel smiled. “I was only showing her who’s boss. Who to obey. So she wouldn’t misbehave.”
“You bitch!” I yelled at her.
She grinned. “I was doing so well. Then you come along and do something stupid like stab me.”
She fell to the floor, a gurgling sound coming from her mouth, dead.
All this time, Bonnie was sat on the floor, whimpering. I went over to comfort her, at the same time, making sure our ‘auntie’ was dead.
“Are you in trouble now, Billie?” Bonnie asked.
“No,” I answered. “I did it to save you. To save us. Everything’s going to be all right now, Bonnie.”