Friday 25th February

Sometimes I really hate Joan. I know we’re stuck here together with nowhere else to go and we have to make the best of a bad situation, but I swear she makes everything ten thousand times harder than it needs to be. And she’s such a cow to me. She does it on purpose, I’m sure she does – I can picture her sitting in her bedroom just thinking up new ways to torture me and poor little Scarlet, as if any of this mess is her fault.

But today her vileness reached new depths. Scarlet’s blanky disappeared. I know it’s only an old cot blanket and almost worn to rags, but Scarlet adores it. She carries it round with her all the time and she won’t go to sleep unless she’s holding it and rubbing its satin edge up against her darling little cheek.

Anyway, it was her nap time but there was no sign of blanky anywhere. She cried as if her tiny little heart would break. I tried comforting her but she was having none of it. I gave her no end of other things to hug but nothing else would do. And the more tired she got the worse state she got herself into. So I asked Joan if she could help me find it, but she refused and kept going on about how it was irresponsible of me to let Scarlet get so attached to one thing. She couldn’t have been more cruel about it. And all this time poor darling Scarlet was screaming and screaming as if someone was trying to murder her. In the end, she got beyond herself and just cried herself to sleep in my arms. She was completely exhausted by the whole ordeal.

Then later, I found blanky in the kitchen bin. When I fished it out it was filthy, with teabags and potato peelings stuck to it. I asked Joan about it. I mean, there are only the three of us here, and me and Scarlet didn’t put it there. Joan just said that Scarlet was too old to have something like that and it was about time she threw it away. So the entire time that I’d been searching, with Scarlet breaking her little heart, Joan had known exactly where it was – the heartless bitch.

I can’t believe how horrible she is to us. Sometimes I lie awake at night just wondering how I could get my own back, or even get rid of her somehow. Of course, I’d have to make sure I wasn’t caught, because if I had to go to prison then poor S would have no one.

Even though I’m Joan’s sister and Scarlet is her niece, I don’t think she loves us at all. If I could live anywhere else in the world I would go. I swear, you wouldn’t see us for dust. But I know I can’t. We’re stuck here, in this godforsaken house in this tiny town, whilst my old life just disappears down the Swanee.