Turpin Time

Today is going to be a good day. We are making a trip to a place called a resort where my brothers, all seven of them, five sisters and I, have been promised cold soda and hot dogs. It is going to be a special occasion; our parents have been married for a long time but to be honest, I’m not totally sure how long. I’m looking at my oldest brother Jonas who has some hair on his face and I know you must be pretty old to be allowed to grow that. I figure they must have been married for about nineteen or twenty years anyway.

We have gathered together before we leave to take a photo. I have my blue tee shirt on with a large number 6 showing on the front. On my right is number 7, Josephine, and towering above me on my left is 5, otherwise known as Ezra. The bright light takes some time to adjust to before I can look at a camera head on and I worry that I might be caught with an upside-down smile if I’m caught off guard. Daddy can get mad if any of us spoil things. My favourite thing to do when I come up from down below is breathe in a big nose full of air. Today I smell some freshly cut grass, the hint of the exhaust fumes from the garbage truck down the street and the remains of something that smells like warm coffee.

Before we have dinner we go into another room and our parents give us our outfits to wear for the night. It’s a pinky-purply coloured dress that comes to just below my knees and with short sleeves like puffy marshmallows. I don’t love it but maybe Adele will look better in it. Or Ruth. All seven of us have the same dress so there’s a good chance that at least one of us is going to look good in it. Lots of people sneak a look at all of us together, some even try to quickly grab a photo. "Hi hun, you look just like my daughter did when she went out with her ten-year old friends to that Frozen movie," says a lady. I am sixteen.

The soda tastes delicious; I don’t know how long it will be before I will be able to taste it again. They keep on dancing for a little while longer. The music they’re dancing to seems familiar and I recognise it when I put my hands over my ears, the dull thud and muffled voices the same ones I hear when stuck down in the basement not far from number 9. I discovered some of the links in the chains can make the same sounds as the song if I hit them the right way. If you heard us all together humming in a damp space only lit by a child’s night light it would be easy to think we wanted this. It’s the only way I can keep the memory of that soda and hot dog alive in my mind.



Andrew Hawkey