Free The Dark Messenger by Milo Spires Page B

should just
say they were sisters to avoid any confusion, she thought.
     
    This ‘’coincidence’ of the same last name had
been anything but though. What had happened was that all of the
babies that were adopted in the same week from the children’s home
where the girls had started their lives had gotten the same
surname. Jenny and Becky had both been left on the steps of the
orphanage in the first week of September in 1981, and so were given
the same name--Barker. The friends did wonder sometimes if maybe
they were really sisters, but the matron in the home had promised
that they weren’t.
     
    Jenny was actually left twenty minutes later
than Becky, and was always considered to be the older one. The
matron told them that she remembered she had taken Becky in first,
but just as she had placed her down in a cot, she had felt icy cold
air blowing past her ankles, making her think she had left the
doors open. When she had gone back to close them, she had been
shocked though, because there was another baby lying there in the
exact same place, only this one was wrapped in a green parker
jacket.

    Inside the hospital waiting room, Jenny
grabbed a magazine and sat down. As she did, someone behind her
said, ‘Mizz! Mizz!’
     
    Turning round she could see there was a nurse
standing there. She was a petite-looking woman in her fifties;
Jenny thought at first glance by her looks that she might have been
Filipino.
     
    ‘You are Jin-ny, Becyee’s friend?’ the woman
said.
     
    ‘Y.yes…’ Jenny replied, after pausing for a
second to work out what the woman had just said in her broken
English.
     
    ‘Woud you lik come see her, she want yu and
big happy, she say you beist friend.’
     
    Jenny jumped up, and the magazine that had
been on her lap fell down to the floor. As she picked it up and saw
the Vogue model on the cover, she felt slightly embarrassed at the
comparison between herself and the magazine picture. It dawned on
her that she looked a complete mess in what she was wearing. She
had on old hand-me-down clothes from the charity store in the high
street and a pair of cheap worn-out Primark runners on her
feet.
     
    The nurse smiled, turned, and started walking
back through the doors. Jenny put the magazine back on the table
and quickly followed her. As she got through the waiting room
doors, she saw Becky sitting up and looking across at her.
     
    ‘Oh my…how are you?’ Jenny cried as she
approached the bed. ‘You scared me so much! She said as she leant
down and put her arms round her for a big hug. ‘You know, I love
you so much! Please don't get sick again!’ she said in near
hysterics.
     
    A nurse quickly pulled Jenny back, saying,
‘Careful, miss. We still don't know what happened to your
friend.’
     
    Jenny released the death grip she’d had on
her friend, and realized that she could feel tubes stuck across
Becky’s chest underneath the hospital nightgown. Suddenly it became
all too much to bear seeing her mate like that, and she burst into
tears.
     
    Becky reached across for the box of tissues
on her side table and handed them to Jenny, a soft smile on her
face.
     
    Jenny took them gratefully. ‘Sorry, but I do
love you so very much,’ she mumbled as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I
really thought you were going to die earlier. I think my heart
needs looking at now too, because it was nearly broken!’ she said,
sniffling and wiping her face.
     
    ‘I love you too,’ Becky said, smiling up at
her friend.
     
    ‘How do you feel? I nearly fainted, I think.
Seeing you unconscious in your shower, you gave me such a fright,
you know! Your neighbor’s nice, isn’t she? What a way to meet her
though, how are you?’ Jenny sat down on the chair where the nurse
had just been sitting.
     
    ‘Not so many questions!’ Becky said, laughing
a little. ‘Oh, and you have asked me how I am twice,’ she said.
     
    ‘I’m sorry, I just panicked. You know I am a
bit neurotic, don't you, hun?’ she