Sitting at our usual spot, Evie and I were minding out business, eating our lunch, when some idiot from our class walked past and felt the need to yell out, “Hey Evie, are you aware your friend is gay?”

Evie dropped her sandwich back in its container and got to her feet. With her short stature and adorable face, she reminded me of an angry chihuahua at that moment. “Come closer and say that, Ryan!” she barked. 

“Just trying to look out for you, Evie, so that your friend doesn’t make a pass on you,” Ryan sniggered, though he kept his distance.

I grabbed Evie’s arm and tried to tug her back down. But her leg swung over the seat as she stormed closer. “I’d threaten to rip off your testicles and feed it to my dog, but unfortunately you don’t seem to have any.” 

And you don’t have a dog, I thought, though I kept that comment to myself, looking up at my friend as she chewed the head off my bully. Watching the fury on her face, her blonde bun on top of her head bobbing as her head shook from the words she spat, I felt my heart begin to glow. Evie was always the most beautiful when standing up for something she believed in.

Too bad I didn’t have the heart to ever correct anyone. Because I wasn’t sure if I could correct them.

She managed to scare him off though as he muttered ‘ugh, whatever bitch’ and walked away. Evie returned to her seat, almost sitting down when a teacher rounded the corner.

“Evie, was that you shouting just then?” Mr Peterson asked.

“If you want to get up someone, go talk to Ryan,” she replied, arms flailing as she pointed in the direction he went. “I was just looking out for my—”

“Come with me, Evie.”

With a groan, she abandoned her lunch again, following the teacher around the corner and out of my sight, ready to heed the talk about why we shouldn’t threaten physical violence on people.

I pursed my lips, looking at her half-eaten lunch as I wondered whether I was worth all this trouble. 

But before I had much of a chance to ponder that thought, Ryan came back around the corner.

“Did Evie already run from you?” he laughed. “Finally listened to me.”

I shook my head. “Just go away, Ryan.”

“Are you sad because your crush rejected you?” 

“Shut up, Ryan.”

“Have you ever kissed a girl, Gay May?”

“Oi, shit for brains!” a voice called out from behind me. 

A sense of relief washed over me as I recognised the source of the sound without having to even turn. Her body coming up behind me felt like reinforcements had arrived. I was now the winner of this fight with her flanking me. 

“What did you just say to my sister?” she demanded.

Turning around, I looked up at April. Her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned her weight on one leg, full scowl adorning her face.

“N-n-nothing, April,” Ryan said, looking down.

“Good. Now apologise to my sister.”

“But April—”

“If you don’t, I will tell your big brother what a disappointment you are. Do you want him to find out, little Forester?”

Shaking his head vigorously, he turned to me and muttered, “I’m sorry May.”

“Little louder, thanks,” she said sternly.

“Sorry, May. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay,” I mumbled, watching as he looked back at my sister in fear. 

Cocking my head to the side, I wondered what on earth April had done to invoke such terror in a year eight kid? What reputation could she possibly have for… 

But my burning questions were answered in her next statement. “Tell any other dickweed like you who normally messes with my sister that if I hear this happen once more, I’m going to get every single senior student in year eleven and twelve to find them and kick them where the sun doesn’t shine. And if they are female and don’t have such genitalia between their legs, then I’ll personally yank their hair from their head. Capeesh?” 

He nodded, tears in his eyes. 

“Now run along.”

In an instant, he took off around the corner, almost as if he was running for his life. In the process, he seemed to have passed Evie who was slowly on her way back to us, glancing over her shoulder where Ryan disappeared.

“What did I miss?” she asked when she caught up.

April had us pack up our lunches and follow her through the school grounds. Walking around the science block, past the art block, then finally past the hall, we had reached the music rooms.

She led us around the back to the teacher entrance.

“April,” I whispered, “We can’t go in there.” I was used to getting up to all sorts of mischief with her when it came to our parents, but the threat of detention was a terrifying prospect for me.

Glancing at me, she rolled her eyes then opened the ajar door, signalling for us to walk in. Evie strolled into the hallway without hesitancy, but I stood steadfast.

“I have teacher permission, May Day,” April sighed. “Mr Maldo,” which was short for Maldonado, but no one ever called him by his full surname, “gives us the keys to go in at lunch and practice. So long as we keep it tidy, don’t invite too many people, and don’t break the instruments, he lets us chill in here.”

Staring at my sister for a moment, I searched for any trace of deceit on her face, not that April ever lied to me. Then, with a sigh, I walked into the hallway, catching up to Evie.

As April walked in and passed us, I took my opportunity to look around. I had never been in a teacher hallway before, let alone the music block. The corridor extended both ways from where we entered, with two main classrooms separated by a noise-proof music room. Then at either end of the hallway were two more noise-proof rooms. As I glanced down at the room to my left, I noticed a couple of kids lounging around in there, one blonde-haired boy staring at me through the window in the door.

“We’re in this one,” April said, pointing to the one between the classroom.

I looked away and followed my sister and Evie into the room.

“This is my oasis,” April said, sitting down at the piano straight away, placing her hands on the keys and scaling its length with her fingers. “You can come here if anyone ever bothers you, okay?”

“About time you showed up. Who’d you bring this time, April?” a girl I hadn’t met asked from the guitar.

“Rhiannon, Oliver, meet my sister and her best friend. May and Evie,” April introduced us, beginning to play a song.

“This is the infamous May?” Oliver asked, grinning. He had a geeky charm to him, with the long shaggy black hair, thick brows, dark intense eyes, but too lanky and scrawny to possibly be one of the ‘cool’ guys. 

Rhiannon was far different from them. She had vibrant pink hair, cropped in a makeshift fashion—almost as if she had hacked it off herself. The eyeliner was laid on thick like icing, and her skin was pasty white. Her arms were showered in all sorts of chunky black bracelets, and underneath her button-up senior shirt was clearly a band tee.

I felt a little nervous at that comment to think my sister had been talking about me, so I avoided Oliver’s searching gaze, looking everywhere around the room instead. But then I noticed Anna behind a pane of glass in what appeared to be a sound mixing booth.

Grinning, she held her hand up, giving me a small wave. I relaxed slightly at the familiar face.

“You’re really good at that, April,” I said, taking a seat on the carpeted floor by the piano, watching the dazzling, mesmerising smile on my sister’s face as her fingers flew across the keys.

“You should hear her when she sings,” Oliver said.

Laughing, I said, “She’s not great. She sings in the shower all the time.”

“That is probably what she wants you to think.”

I turned to look up at my sister who had stopped playing and was looking right back at me, a nervous gleam to her eyes. “April?”

Sighing, she turned back to the piano, repositioned her fingers, and began to play a softer song. And then she opened her mouth and sang.

It was nothing like I had heard before. Oliver was right. She was faking it at home…

When she had finished, the three in the room applauded, but not me. I kept looking at my sister, wondering when I had suddenly not known her.

Reluctantly, she met my gaze, an apologetic look in her eyes. “I knew you’d make it a thing if you knew,” she whispered, getting off the stool and sitting down next to me.

“Of course I would. You’re amazing.”

“It’s not a practical career pathway.”

“So? You like it?”

She shrugged. “Mum and dad would never approve.”

“Who cares what they think?”

“I do.”

“Since when do you care?”

“Since only one of us is bound to get a free pass to do what we want. One of us has to take the ‘respectable’ option and do something they’d agree with. Like being a lawyer.”

“You don’t actually want to study law…” It was a statement of my realisation. This whole time she had my parents and me convinced it was her passion. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel betrayed by her.

“I would rather be the one who does something they don’t want to do than you have to do it, May.”

“But I don’t have anything I want to do yet.”

“I see the look in your eyes when you’re drawing.”

“It’s just a hobby.”

She shook her head. “You know it’s more than that,” she whispered.

“But you’re really good at pian—”

“May, I want you to live your dreams. And I’ll do whatever I have to do to make that happen.”

I stared into the ocean depths of her eyes, roaring with determination. “You could have told me about this.”

“I should have. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t ever lie to me again, April.”

She nodded. “I promise I won’t. And this is the only thing I have ever lied about.” Before I could say anything further, an evil smirk popped onto her face and she grabbed my hand. “Come with me.” Pulling me to my feet, we walked over to the recording booth, April opening the door and pushing me inside.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she grabbed a pen off the desk next to Anna, dropping down to the ground and wiggling her way under the desk.

I crouched down on the floor, watching her as she uncapped the pen and began to doodle on the underside of the desk.

“April!” I hissed. “You can’t do that.”

“Shhh. It’s fine,” she said, capping the pen, a satisfied smirk on her face.

Sighing, I sat on the ground and crawled under the desk next to her. All sorts of graffiti was underneath that you’d struggle to know April had freshly added to it. A plethora of names ‘was here’, a few people ‘were lame’, a handful of ‘x + x 4eva’, and of course ‘April, Anna, Oliver, and Rhiannon are friends forever’ noted in the corner nearby April’s new addition. Inside a love heart, April had written our names with ‘sisters forever’.

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Duh. We can’t ever not be sisters.” 

She handed the pen to me. “I want you to add a drawing to it.”

“I can’t.”

“Please. Draw us.”

We played a game of staring each other down, but unfortunately April won as I looked away first, finally grabbing the pen and scooting closer. In the small gap of wood left, I sketched out two sisters, arms around each other. It definitely wasn’t my best work as wood and pen weren’t the best mix of mediums, but the girls I drew did hold some resemblance to us.

“I love it,” April whispered, resting her head on my shoulder.