Free The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters by Michelle Lovric

beyond my expectations. Within a few weeks we had tamed her consonants and taught her verbs and nouns to live in harmony with one another. Her spelling showed signs of wanting to be achieved.
    It was as well that the Eileen O’Reilly prospered speedily in her learning, for soon our lessons were abbreviated to snatched quarter-hours.
    Our time together, so contented and peaceful, was stolen from us, by Darcy, of course.
     
    I had to run home from school now. Darcy’s plan was being drilled, slapped and scorned into life. Every afternoon, we Swiney sisters donned the bullied shoes and practised in the barn, to the bemusement of the geese and the kittens, and also of the Eileen O’Reilly, who watched from a crack in the back wall. Annora stood at the barn door, wringing her hands and continually being told to be off with herself to mend our stockings.
    Every time Annora wailed, ‘This is not right, as God is my witness,’ my heart echoed her. I very fervently did not wish to move my body to Darcy’s direction, or to lift my voice in songs Darcy chose.
    There was the cruelty of our hurting limbs too. The shoes Darcy had appropriated were not the same size as our feet. They either pinched like Darcy’s fingers or flapped like goose beaks until we stuffed them with scratchy straw. Our blisters filled, scabbed, itched and filled again. We danced on our pain, grimacing when Darcy screamed at us to smile.
    But in just a few weeks, each girl of us could sing and dance in harmony, even little lisping nine-year-old Ida; even stout twelve-year-old Pertilly who you’d think too thick about the ankle for grace; even eleven-year-old Oona, who’d always been too embarrassed by the deep bass of her voice to speak above a whisper. By the end of a month, we sisters could dance an Irish jig for you in perfect synchronicity, though Enda – despite her seventeen grand years – could never be allowed to stand next to Berenice, because she could not be stopped from chanting ‘Brown Bitch Heifer’ to her in time with the music, to which her twin would reply, ‘I’ll choke you for a dog!’ Once the twins were safely separated, the seven Swiney sisters worked like a fourteen-flanged mechanical toy cut from a single piece of tin. Our voices rose and fell in melodious plaitings and unravellings. We could break your heart with ballads and wash your soul with hymns. We’d finish you off with a dirge.
    We could eke out our talent to fifty minutes.
    That sufficed for sixpence a show, opined Darcy, over the rare luxury of a potato-and-milk supper with a scrape of butter on top. ‘We’d be wasting our time working harder than for sixpence, and us already crusted with the sweat of rehearsing. Who’s to afford more than sixpence round here? And in the meantime,’ she hectored, handing out ghostly white bandannas with eye holes, ‘not a one of you is to show a bare face or arm to the sun, even if it should visit for a rarity. If I see a solitary brutal-looking freckle, I’ll have your life.’
    ‘Why?’ dared Berenice, who liked to garden, although her chiefest joy was digging deep holes to push Enda into. Enda was short-sighted and never anticipated these attacks. Oona and I would brush the dirt from her hair after her falls.
    ‘Yes, why?’ asked Pertilly, who dearly loved to chew a stalk of grass warm from the soil.
    Darcy sighed. ‘Is it more ankles than brains you have? For the sheer drama of it is why. Because if your stupid complexion is as white as a sheet, Pertilly, then your fat arms and ugly face will be a better contrast to the hair on your useless head.’
    Even though she was not one of Enda’s sorority, I felt a tender pity every time I looked at Pertilly. It was only her fifty-two inches of chestnut hair that lent any air to her at all. She had a nun’s face, Darcy always said, born for a wimple instead of a bonnet. Pertilly’s was one of those Irish smiles that’s never more than an acknowledgement of hopeless