Page 68 of Little Miss Fortune

‘I am not great, Dad. I keep messing up and hurting people.’

The fish goes in the bowl and a drizzle of mirin and soy sauce coats the chunks. What is he making?

‘Then you should apologise.’

‘I tried. But I made such a mess of things, I don’t think they’ll ever forgive me.’

He goes through the stash of fatherly wisdom in his head. But he just reaches out and squeezes me into a hug. ‘You need to be braver.’

‘Weirdly, that’s the second time someone has said something like that to me.’ I laugh ‘No, wait, maybe third.’

Toby and Leon both said something along those lines before. Maybe I do need to do something else. Something braver to entertain the lady luck.

‘But be nicer to Hanako, Dad, she is a different person to me, and she will do great things once she grows up a bit.’

‘Maybe she will be a teacher like your mum.’

‘Yeah, ishi ni Hanako ga saku.’ I wiggle my eyebrows at the word play. The Japanese equivalent of ‘when pigs fly’ is ‘flowers bloom on stone’. I replaced the word for flower with my sister’s name...

Look, it’s quite skilful, okay?

‘Masterful.’ See? Dad agrees.

He returns to making dinner, and I let myself go upstairs, knocking on my sister’s door. I wait for her to answer with an annoyed ‘yeah’ before entering.

She is sitting by the desk. Her pink headphones are blasting some loud alt-rock music. There’s a small window of a cozy farming game on the screen that is hiding a maths paper behind it.

She was doing some maths to see whether she got any marks, I realise.

‘Hey.’ I wave awkwardly.

‘What do you want?’

‘I just spoke to Dad…’ I say, and her head furiously snaps at me. ‘Not about the grades. I was just talking, and you are right. He does unfairly compare you to me.’

I take the slippers off and sit on her bed.

She doesn’t say anything.

‘I am sorry for what I said. I shouldn’t have had a go.’

She nods, lips pressed into a thin line.

‘If you want to go to uni, I promise you we will find a way. Only if you want to. Student loans are no joke.’

She sniffles. I stretch my arms and let her snuggle up to me in a hug as she cries her eyeballs out.

‘I promise you it will be fine. No need to cry.’ But she doesn’t listen. I reach for the tissues on her bedside table and let her blow her nose and wipe her tears. ‘Leon’s A-level grades were piss poor and yet here he is, so I’m not worried about you in the slightest. We’ll figure it out.’

She finally calms down. ‘You can go now.’

‘Wow, I actually came here because I have a favour to ask.’

‘What is it?’

‘Do any of your friends have a boom box?’

‘A what now?’