The Sister Surprise
ABIGAIL MANN
One More Chapter
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Copyright © Abigail Mann 2021
Abigail Mann asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © 2021 ISBN: 9780008393694
Version: 2021-03-01
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Abigail Mann
About the Publisher
To Joe
For all the laughing and walking that brought me back to myself
Chapter 1
At twenty-seven, I should have outgrown the act of picking glitter from my cuticles, but then again, being Lorrie Atmore’s daughter comes with its own set of obligations. Today, I’m covertly multi-tasking. If you were to part the wind chimes at the back door to peek inside our tiny kitchen, you’d see me blasting oak leaves with a hairdryer, using my elbow to pin down the stack that I’ve already washed and dried. In my head, however, I’m running over lines from the script I’ve spent every lunchtime working on for the past week.
Mum launches into an anecdote about a supposedly malicious gluten scandal between the PTA mums as I silently mouth the words that I’ll present on a live stream tomorrow morning. After five years at Snooper, I’m a little too well-adjusted to my role as sub-editor, or Captain Comma, as my colleague Max so often calls me. The Oxford A-Z of Punctuation is my Bible and I can reference it with the passion of a born-again Christian. It’s not the legacy I thought I’d have, so when I was offered a chance to front something of my own, I said yes immediately. Seeing as Snooper claims to be ‘on-the-pulse media for the anti-news generation’, I should have expected that career progression would be unconventional, but going from an editorial desk to a spotlit studio is decidedly out of my comfort zone, not that I’ve admitted it.
Mum, however, relishes being at the centre of a community that hums around her. She’s been the chairperson at Dulwich Green Primary since 1999, a position she refuses to relinquish, despite the fact that I stopped attending fifteen years ago.
I hold two glittery acorns to my chest like I’m plucking the cherry from an iced bun. She frowns, her cheeks dimpled in a barely suppressed smile.
‘You look like a burlesque dancer. A really cheap one,’ she says.
‘Mum!’ I shout, as she chugs with laughter like a faulty diesel engine. I flick the acorns across the table, stretch high above my head, and let my mind tick things over. I’ve been on the cusp of telling her about my work assignment all week, but every time I open my mouth it’s like a claw drags the words back down my throat. ‘So …’
‘Mmhm?’ She threads a silver bead down the stem of an oak leaf.
Now. Tell her now.
‘How many more do I have to do? My fingers hurt,’ I say, falling back on topics I know to be conversational safe zones.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s too early for that. You’ve got no idea what a hardcore session with half a dozen placards and paint tubes looks like—’
‘Back in the day …’ I say wistfully, pre-empting her speech. Thanks to her terrible aim, the acorn she throws in my direction misses by a foot and tinkles as it hits a porcelain teacup on the dresser behind me.
‘Cheeky cow,’ she says, using her glasses as an Alice band for her mess of over-permed hair. ‘But yes, back in the day we’d pull all-nighters with the fabric paint. That red blob by the fireplace is a symbol of resistance. And sleep deprivation.’
‘The one that makes the living room look like a crime scene?’
‘That’s it. “You Otter Be Ashamed” painted over four bed sheets. We made the front page of The Sunday Times with that one. Best day of my life,’ she says, wistfully.
‘Thanks …’
‘All right, second-best day of my life,’ says Mum. ‘Before you came along, obviously.’
I push my chair back to let our pot-bellied cat vault onto my lap. He purrs, kneads my thigh, and looks up at me with sleep-drunk eyes.
‘Tea?’
‘All right, but then I’ve got to go to bed. Big day tomorrow.’
I rub my stiff knuckles and knead my temples, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. I glance at the clock and check my phone through a squint. If I go to bed now, I might be able to get six hours in before I have to travel to Holborn for the hair and make-up appointment that was booked for me. Personally, I don’t think my twice-yearly trim needs updating, but apparently when you’re asked to present on a live stream it requires a look that’ll ‘stop the kids from scrolling’, whatever that means.
I think back to the steps that led to me presenting tomorrow and struggle to credit it to the Rolodex of self-help books I listen to on my commute. To get ahead at work, The Career Doctor suggested ‘socialising
