Little clare

I never wanted to be the only child because I had seen my best
friend Sarah Grove left on her own many days with only her nanny mrs
cross for company, while Sarah's parents worked all hours in thier
furniture business would flying all over the world. Mrs Cross was of
the "old school" she would get Sarah up at 7.30am and take Sarah to the
ensuite bathroom to make sure she washed properly, then after breakfast
she would take Sarah to school until it finished at 3.35pm Canadian
time. Sarah was always sent to bed at 7.30pm by Mrs Cross so she could
call her "girlfriend" for hours at a time. Sarah was a skinny frail
girl with lovely blue eyes and blonde hair, of course nothing like me,I
had been blessed with a fuller figure shall we say, with brown short
hair and matching brown eyes. So no I did not want to be playing with a
mrs cross if you know what I mean!

It was a sunny August morning when little clare came into our mad world
on my 6th birthday, I remember telling my parents clare was all I
wanted for a present, it's funny what children say! my parents were
over then moon she had all her fingers, toes e.t.c just what we all
wanted another baby. Our house was not as big as Sarah's but we did
have 4 bedrooms one bedroom had been made into an office for my mother
who was an editor of a popular magazine, which I did not like as it was
aimed at 40 year olds, way to old I thought, well that was until I
reached 40 last year, anyway I was in the smaller room out of the two
child rooms, I called them, while clare had the big bedroom with the
lovely bay window which always caught the sun in the morning, I did not
mind as I had my playmate now.

Well time as an habbit of passing by sometimes and it had been another
10 years since that lovely happy summers day when little clare entered
this mad world, but clare was not so little any more and she knew how
to get what she wanted off dad, as he stayed home to look after us
girls while mom worked. I knew I was the older one so sometimes I would
just let clare get a way with some of the tricks she use to play on me,
like one day she would put brown sauce in my oxtail soup and mix it up,
but despite all her tricks I still loved her and believed we would work
togeather when we got older.

It was on our birthday when our world change completely. I was 17 and
clare was 7 so mom and dad had surprised us with a party all our
friends were there including my boyfriend terry long, I had only known
him for a few months but it was cool. Sarah came there were lots of
people and a group mom had arranged to play for me and a clown for
clare, yes I know the clown was a bad idea but clare loved him. We were
also having a water feature put in by dads collegue john dins, yes dad
did work in the end but only on projects he wanted to do like the water
feature, he had worked in design before looking after us. Most of the
guest had gone apart from a few close friends and family, clare had
disapeared so we all went looking for her, but we did not worry to much
as she oftern went missing for a few minutes to play in her dolls
house, but when we realised she was not there we panicked and finally
called the police, it was 6 hours when we found clare she had fallen in
to the water feature which was part done and all the building material
had fallen on top of her but because she was small and the fountain was
at the bottom of our huge garden it was to late. So I felt guilty
because I had wished for a sister so much I some how thought it was my
fault.