She's my sister

Bluebird

London, England

May, 2020

"I dunno, I expected there to be some big moment." I said to Peter over face time, he called first thing this morning to wish me a happy sixteenth birthday.

"Well you never know," he says with a smile his hair falling across his forehead in the cutest way. "Happy birthday Kit." They way he says my name still gives me butterflies.

"Sounds good, talk soon." We do our secret goodbye and hang up. I run my hand through my hair, well as far as it can go without getting tangled, and head downstairs. The usual sounds float up the stairs, dishes being put away, Tessa's paws on the wood, the overlapping conversations. These noises are some of my favourites. When I round the corner into the kitchen I'm greeted with a chorus of

    "Happy birthday!" From everyone in the kitchen, I smile and give a small curtsy. "So how does it feel being sixteen?" Dad asks giving me a big hug,

   "Not much different than fifteen." I sit down at the table with plates all laid out,

   "We made french toast!" Paddy exclaimed, bringing over a plate full.

   "Well as long as Tom didn't put milk in it or burn it like he has in the past, it should be excellent."

"Your never gonna let me live it down? Are you?" I shake my head and smile, Mum passes the plate of French toast around the table.

   "Any exciting plans?" Tom asks shovelling a piece of toast into his mouth,

   Rolling my eyes I respond "I still have school today, and dance. So no, nothing special." It hardly takes us anytime to get through breakfast, with there being seven of us.

The day is relatively quiet, I spend it in my bedroom doing school or in the office doing ballet. Tom did help during ballet. Monsieur Morin still wanted to work on pas de dux. No partner for a dance with two people, makes sense. It was Tom's birthday gift to me, he was my partner.

It was nice having a partner again but Tom hasn't danced in ages. "Drop me again and I swear to god."

"I'm not gonna drop you," Tom's gotten stronger as he's gotten older but he's clearly forgotten about his technique. Monsieur calls for the girls to switch to pointe shoes, and while I switch shoes Tom lies on the floor. Exhaustion I'll assume.

"Are you gonna make it?" I ask jamming my foot into my pointe shoe. He gives a half hearted thumbs up. "We'll come on then, it's time for turns!"

With an audible groan Tom pulls himself off the floor and exhales.

   "Keet, since your brother iz heer you can work on ze parter turn sequence, oui." Monsieur instructs,

   "Okay so, this combination is pretty standard just," I take his hands and put them on my hips "just rest them here but not to tight, I still need to be able to turn." As I walk Tom through the combination he looks confused and sweaty.

   Sighing I reassure him with "try your best." And he does, I don't fall off my shoe and make the landing but I step on Tom's foot at the end of the combination. "Sorry sorry," it's good that the class ended shortly after the whole foot stomping incident Tom was starting to get moody. Finishing with bow and are dismissed for the weekend.

As I pack up my things Tom stares at his phone looking disgruntled, "everything alright?" I ask he shakes his head and dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "No need to get short it was just a question."

   Mum pokes her head into the office to say "Tom come with me," he follows her out and as I go to follow after them Harry blocks the doorway with his body.