A Hole in the World by Sophie Robbins Page B

Alexandra... I’m not him, I’m sorry.’
    Alexandra looks down and nibbles on the strip of chocolate. There are tears in her eyes, so Bianca determinedly looks away, wishing she could make Alexandra understand and not have to upset her.
    ‘I think you are my Prince Charming,’ Alexandra says, quietly, not looking back up or meeting Bianca’s eyes. ‘Whether you say you are, or whether another may call himself such. I will always believe this.’
    Bianca sighs and she’s about to argue some more when she notices Alexandra looking at her again and smiling. The atmosphere has changed, so she lets it go.
    ‘Thank you, Bianca,’ Alexandra says.
    ‘What for?’ Bianca says.
    ‘Today. Missing a day of your ‘school’ to give me a day full of enjoyment and adventure.’ Alexandra leans across, kisses Bianca’s cheek and rocks back onto her heels. ‘This day meant much to me. I will remember it always.’
    ‘Hey, it wasn’t just me,’ Bianca says, trying valiantly not to blush. ‘Scotty, Cory, Daisy... they helped too.’
    ‘And tomorrow I shall thank them, also,’ says Alexandra. ‘But for tonight, my thanks belongs to you, and only you.’
    Bianca smiles. ‘You’re welcome, Alexandra, you really are.’
     
     

Nine
    Two weeks after Alexandra’s unexpected arrival into the world, Bianca wakes up, yawns, and turns over. Despite the fact that for fourteen days she’s woken up and found Alexandra beside her, she still wakes up and expects to find the bed empty and to discover it was all a truly crazy dream.
    Once more, however, she finds her bed not empty and Alexandra is there, curled up in a ball on the other side of her bed, wearing Bianca’s Hello Kitty pyjamas. Her palm is beneath her cheek, her hair is fanned out over the pillow and her lips are slightly parted as she sleeps soundly. There’s about two feet between the two girls on the mattress, a respectable distance agreed upon by both of them the first night.
    It occurs to Bianca as she watches the blonde sleep beside her that she really has no idea how she’s managed to hide Alexandra’s presence in her house from her parents for this long.
    She takes a moment to muse this and figure it out. Every morning, the two of them shower, dress and come downstairs. By the time Julia rouses, it appears like Alexandra has merely arrived to walk to school and Julia never asks or even wonders, nor does she get up early enough to make sure her daughter is up for school and find Alexandra in her bed. Every evening, Bianca sneaks the other girl upstairs, then comes thundering back down the stairs to announce her arrival back home. Every night before sleep, Bianca sneaks some food upstairs and they have a mini picnic on her bed. None of her family notice this, either, and although it hurts a bit, she figures it’s better this way.
    Her time in boarding school impressed a need for privacy on her long ago and because of this, after all of one argument, Julia never walks into Bianca’s room without knocking and when she knocks Bianca stuffs Alexandra into the wardrobe so fast the blonde’s head spins. Despite that, Alexandra always stays completely silent and Julia never notices anything wrong in the room.
    She doesn’t come in very often.
    So far they haven’t been caught, and this is exactly how Bianca plans for it to stay.
    She turns away from Alexandra in the dark and towards the clock. If she’s lucky – very, very lucky – it’ll be three, maybe four in the morning and she can get another few hours of well-deserved rest before Alexandra-the-Rooster crows and all hope of sleep is lost. Her eyes land on the clock, which proudly proclaims in large red numbers that is it five fifty nine, which means it will go off in...
    As soon as that thought enters her mind, the alarm does just that with an ear piercing series of high-pitched beeps. Bianca groans and slams her hand into the off button, praying to all that is good in the world that she turned it off