Never Been Born

“Can I go to a party Saturday night, please?”
“No,” Dad answered, simply.
“Why?” Sophie asked.
“Because I know what goes on at parties. There‘ll be boys there. No, no way, Sophie, you’re not going.”
Sophie pouted, then she turned to Mum. “Can I, Mum?”
“Sophie, I said no!!!”
Mum looked Sophie straight in the eye, and said: “Listen to your father, Sophie.”
“Oh, you never let me have any fun!!!” My little sister wailed.
“Your sister don’t go to parties, and she still has fun,” Dad said.
“Yeah, well, Sarah’s boring.” Sophie flounced out of the living-room, and as she stomped up the stairs, she shouted out: “I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN!!!”
“I’d wish you wouldn’t be so hard on her,” Mum said to Dad.
“Don’t worry. She’s being a typical teenager. Drama everywhere. She’ll be fine in the morning.”

Sophie was missing from the breakfast table the next morning, when I came downstairs. It was odd, because usually Sophie was up and downstairs before I was.
Mum and Dad were at sat at the table eating breakfast. They smiled and said “good morning” as I walked in. They made no sign that it was strange Sophie wasn’t there.
“Shall I get Sophie up?” I asked.
Mum and Dad both looked up at me at the time. They looked bewildered.
“What?” Mum asked.
“Well, she’s probably overslept. I’ll get her up, she’ll be late for school otherwise.”
Mum frowned. “Who’s Sophie, Sarah?”
It was my turn to frown. “Er, my little sister, your youngest daughter?”
“What are you talking about, Sarah?” Dad asked. “I don’t know any Sophie’s, not personally.”
“But.. You told her last night she couldn’t go to a party on Saturday night.”
“Did I?”
“Are you sure you wasn’t dreaming, Sarah?” Mum said.
“No, I wasn’t dreaming,” then I laughed. “It’s a joke, isn’t it? Sophie’s just late up, and you’re having a little giggle with me.”
Dad stood up. He walked over to me and shook me by the shoulders. “Sarah, wake up. You had a weird dream last night about having a little sister, and you’re obviously still half asleep.”
I shook myself free. “Fine. If you won’t get her up for school, the I will!!!”
I turned and ran up the stairs, and towards Sophie’s bedroom. The door was closed, so I opened it, and went inside, then I stopped dead.
Where the walls were usually painted pink with loads of posters of Disney princesses blu-tacked up, they were painted white, with framed paintings hung up. There was a bed in the corner, but not Sophie’s bed with her “Cinderella” quilt and pillow, instead it had a boring white quilt and pillow.
“This is the guest bedroom,” Mum had followed me up the stairs. “For when your gran or Auntie Jane come to visit.”
I sat down on the bed. How could it be a joke now? They couldn’t have painted the walls a different colour this quick, could they?
I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was a big fan of “Doctor Who”, but stuff like that never happened, did they? Maybe they did. Maybe I’d stumbled into a parallel universe, where Sophie didn’t exist, and I was an only child.

I thought about it all day at school, and was still thinking about it when I got home that evening. Why did Sophie suddenly disappear like that? And why Sophie? It wasn’t until I was sat in the living-room, with Mum and Dad, that I remembered the conversation the night before, and what Sophie had screamed as she ran up the stairs:

“I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN!!!”

‘Of course,” I thought to myself. ‘Sophie had wished she was never born, so the next day, she disappeared.’
I wasn’t exactly sure why that had happened, but it had. And there something I had to do. Even though Sophie could be annoying sometimes, breaking stuff and framing me, she could be alright sometimes. And I did miss her. So if I wanted her back, I had to wish her back, the way she’d wished she hadn’t been born. I decided to wish it when I went to bed that night, so Mum and Dad wouldn’t think I was crazy.
I put my night clothes on, and got into bed. And before I switched my lamp off, I whispered: “I wish I had a little sister called Sophie.”

I woke the next morning before my alarm went off. I got up earlier than I usually do, eager to go downstairs to see if Sophie had come back.
As I got to the stairs, I could hear a baby wailing. ‘Funny,’ I thought. ‘Mum never mentioned Auntie Jane was visiting with my baby cousin, Luke.’
I went into the kitchen, eager to greet Auntie Jane, but she wasn’t there. Mum and Dad were sat at the kitchen table, Mum bottle feeding a tiny baby. I thought that perhaps Auntie Jane had asked us to baby-sit Luke, and had dropped him off early. I noticed Luke was even smaller than I remembered, and he was wearing a pink baby grow.
‘Oh, no,’ I thought.
“Mum, why is Luke smaller? And why is he wearing pink? I didn’t think Auntie Jane liked him wearing pink.”
Mum looked up at me, surprised. “Luke? Why would Sophie be Luke?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Sophie?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you remember? I’ve just given birth to your baby sister. Sophie’s only a couple of days old.”
“Er, yes, of course, you did. Sorry, I had this dream last night that Sophie was thirteen. I guess I must still be half asleep.”
I sat down to eat my bowl of shreddies. I now had a new problem. Did I want to wish Sophie was thirteen again, or did I keep her as a baby?