Circling Carousels by Ashlee North

her anymore. She gave them no attention, even when they were in the same room. Even though they were sad that she may not be with them for long, they were also frightened and worried that they would be left with no one at all and nowhere to live. They wondered if Marcus would keep them should their mother die, and then they thought of how much they loved her and how they missed the wonderful person she once was. They remembered the good times, although they were now a dim memory, and they remembered feeling so happy, but all that was gone. They reminded one another of the really frightening incidents when she was so scary, when she cut off all their hair, and when she hit them over and over. They blamed the drugs—it wasn’t her fault—it was the drugs and the drink. Crystal and Sienna had learned a very hard lesson, and they both agreed never ever to try them no matter what.
    Only in their dreams, from that day on, could the twins see their mother as she once was, in those days when they lived in their grandparents’ house and when all was well. They remembered the love in her eyes when she would pick them up and hold them when they came running to her from the school bus, and they remembered when she would read them bedtime stories and stroke their hair until they fell asleep. They still loved her so much, and with all their might, they tried to think of a way to save her, to make her better, to get some help for their once beautiful mummy.
    It was her love of her mother and her desire to get her help that got Crystal into trouble with Marcus, and his already pronounced dislike for her only became worse.

Chapter 15
    S ienna and Crystal snuck into their mother’s room one after- noon to look at her, to see how she was and to find out if she was healing at all. To their absolute shock and horror, she was much worse, her face all blue, black, and red, her eyes small slits with puffy skin all around them, and her nose bloody under- neath. This was more than enough for them to put their plan to get help into place.
    Sienna ran back down the stairs to get her mobile phone and take a picture. Crystal, who was the better one on the phone, would make the call. Both the girls were shaking with the fear of what would happen if they were caught. They had previously planned to make this call on the way to school one day soon, but now looking at their mother’s broken and bruised body, they knew they had to do something straight away. It wouldn’t be long before her body simply couldn’t take any more, and the little girls, only twelve years old, could take no more of their mother’s pain and the things she had done to herself while under the influence of this dreadful addiction. Neither Crystal nor Sienna could understand how she could do so much damage to herself like this. Never thinking Marcus to be this kind of monster, they believed his story, and this was what they intended to tell the hospital.
    They wouldn’t phone the police, because they didn’t want anyone to get in trouble. They wouldn’t call emergency because that, too, might get their mum taken away or them taken away from her. They would phone a doctor and try to get a home visit arranged. They knew they had to do it quickly, as Marcus would be home tonight around six o’clock for dinner before he went out again. He seemed to come home at about the same time each evening now, and then after he had eaten and talked with Elsie and the twins for a while, he would go back to work. Sienna and Crystal knew they would have about two hours before he would be home, hopefully. Surely a doctor could come out and then be gone again in that much time.
    Sienna passed Crystal the phone, and she took it in her trembling hand. Crystal dialled the number they had already looked up the day before. A sweet-sounding receptionist answered the phone and listened carefully to Crystal’s story, took down her name, address, and their mother’s name, and proceeded to talk with one