Sugar

Sugar tiptoes along the brick path at the side of her house. The light from her phone shining dully to check for any trip hazards.

“I hope that idiot dog next door isn’t out doing his business,” she thinks. “He should be minding his own business, not doing it, yeah.” Sugar almost chuckles at her lame joke. Exhaustion and a bit too much cider are making her easily amused.

But any amusement is immediately caught short by a deep “Whooo whoo whooo” from the other side of the fence.

“Fuck off you dumb ugly stupid dog,” she hisses through the fence. Unafraid of insults, the dumb dog keeps on barking.

Sugar speeds up along the dark path and reaches the side gate. She swears under her breath that somebody, i.e. Dad the Security Enforcer, has bolted it from the inside.

“What’s with the intense security here?” she thinks, not for the first time. Her dad is obsessed with locking doors, gates, windows and anything that could be locked. “As if we have anything worth stealing.”

Strengthened by an urgency to get inside before being discovered, she hauls herself onto the high gate. She looks for a soft landing to break her fall and avoid the sound of her boots hitting the path and takes aim for the flower garden.

This is her first mistake. No, that’s not true, it’s just one of the many mistakes she’s made that night. The night that is quickly turning into morning and an almost certain bellowing and “conse-fuckin-quences” from her father.

She crawls out of “The Euphorbia Bed”, as her mother insists on calling it, with a bad posh English accent. A bit panicked because she realises she has trashed the ever so special “Euphorbia Bed”, she tries to tidy up the broken plants and hides some of the stems and flower heads under her shirt. “What the hell! I thought they looked soft, not snappy and breaky. Stupid plants!”

Thankfully, Mr Security hadn’t noticed the sliding door leading to the nothing room that is ridiculously known as The Den. “Not a den,” Sugar thinks as she slides the door across, quietly grateful for the stupid forgotten room, that she had left unlocked when she snuck out earlier that night.

Without changing her clothes, she pulls off her boots and quickly hops into bed and falls fast asleep.

“Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, Shoooo Garrrrr!” She wonders how many times her younger sister had been calling her name. She feels a bit delirious but puts it down to lack of sleep.

“What is it Penny? Can’t it wait, I’m really tired.”

“We’re going to Aunty Jen’s remember! Come on, everyone’s ready except you. Mom said get your bathers and towel and hurry up!”

Sugar strips off her clothes from last night and the flowers and stems of the euphorbia fall to the floor. She almost screams out loud when she sees the thick red welts all over her chest and abdomen.

The minute she sees the swelling, she feels the pain and the itching.

“What the actual hell!” She cries out loud. “What the?”

Vague memories of her mother talking endlessly about “The Euphorbia Bed” start to trickle back to her mushy brain.

“Don’t ever pick these, ok? Be really careful not to get the sap on you. As lovely as these Euphorbias are, they have a nasty toxic sap inside.”

The itching intensifies again as Sugar realises what she has done. Looking in the mirror she sees it’s not just her torso, but arms, legs, hands and neck all have angry itchy red welts and blisters on them from her exploits in The Euphorbia Bed.


“Are you ready yet?” squeaks Penny from the other side of her door. “What are you yelling about? Can’t you find your bathers?”

Bathers? Oh shitty shit shit! Far out! Why today? I can’t wear bathers today? I can’t go swimming in Aunty Jen’s new pool like this.

Sugar moves from her bather drawer to her sports drawer. Pulls out a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeved top. Checking the mirror again, she sees a blurry image of herself with bright red stripes around her neck. She grabs a silk scarf to wrap around her neck.

“Farrrr… out!” She screams involuntarily as she runs into the side of her bed, banging her shin on the metal frame and stubbing three toes on the wooden leg. “Geez I must be more hungover than I thought,” she thinks. “I can barely see where I’m going!”

She looks back to the mirror and is horrified to see her eyes puffy and red, with tiny slits where her eyeballs used to be. “Good god! Oh my god, oh my god, what the actual?”

“Sugar? Are you ok?” It’s her damned little sister again.

“Fuck off Penny!” She hisses.

“Awwww. I’m telling mum! No. I’m telling DAD!”

“No! Penny, Pen, no. I’m sorry. I lost my temper. Sorry munchkin.”

“What’s going on Sugar?” Penny wiggles the door handle, and bangs on the door. “Let me in you idiot!”

“No!”

“Let me in!”

“No, farrr… go away pleeeeease.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you let me in!”

Sugar scratches her arms, chest and face. Her eyes are really stinging. She wipes away tears, even though she doesn’t remember crying.

Sighing heavily she unlocks her bedroom door. Putting her finger up to her lips, she quickly pulls Penny into the room.

Looking at the puffy red face of her older sister, “Oh,” was all Penny could say.

“Yes, OH!”

“What happened to you?”

“I accidentally fell into mum’s “Euphorbia Bed”. Despite her pain, Sugar manages to pull off a good imitation of her mother’s exaggerated English accent.

“Don’t you know that is toxic?” Penny’s eyes are wide as she slowly shakes her head.

“Yeah, well I do now, obviously, Britney!” Sugar spits out from increasingly swelling lips.

“Glasses, you need sunglasses. The bigger the better. And you definitely don’t need any lip gloss,” Penny offers.

“Girls! What’s the hold up? We need to go. Aunty Jen wants us there early because the boys have to go to a basketball party in the afternoon,” Mum yells from down the passage.

One last look in the mirror and Sugar dons sunglasses and a floppy hat, and in a token gesture, grabs a towel from the cupboard in the hallway.

“Oh hello Marta Hari.” Says mum, with a smile on her face.

“I don’t know what you are talking about old woman.”

“No need to be like that. I was just making a joke. Marta Hari was a famous spy from the war.”

“I’m not a spy!”

“No. Of course not.” Mum sighs. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

From the driveway Dad beeps the horn.

They all pile into the car in a tumble of bags, towels, spare bags, spare towels, floaty toys, umbrellas and more bags of sunscreen, water and snacks.

“Maree, I’m sure your sister has water if we need it,” says Dad calmly, giving Mum a pat on the knee and a wink.

“I know. It’s just for the car ride,” says Mum, shrugging her shoulders.

After final inventory is called they set off for the forty minute drive to Aunty Jen’s house.

In the back seat of the car, Penny nudges Sugar every time she starts to scratch herself.

Dad stretches his neck as he looks in the mirror, wanting to see what’s going on in the back seat, rather than behind the car.

“Are you two ok?”

“Yep.”

“Yep.”

Come quick replies from the back.

“You’re as red as a beetroot Sugar! Why are you wearing so many clothes if you’re hot?”

“Beetroots are more of a maroon colour,” answers Sugar, hoping to deflect the conversation.

“Hmm. Now that you mention it, you are a kind of maroon colour.”

Mum swings around from the passenger seat and has a proper look at Sugar.

“Take off those glasses!” She demands. Sugar slowly removes the oversized sunnies to reveal her swollen red eyes. Alarm shows on her mother’s face, as she looks from one daughter to the other. Then fixes on Penny’s eyes enquiringly knowing the younger girl would be the first to break.

“Sugar accidentally fell into the euphorbia bed and now she’s covered in red blisters and her eyes are red and she’s really itchy and I think she needs to go to the doctor because euphorbia are really toxic, and she might even go BLIND!”

Penny heaves a massive sigh, letting out the anxiety she’d been holding onto in a state of cognitive dissonance. If she only knew what that meant it would make a whole lot of sense of the confusion she was feeling right now.

Dad looks into the mirror again, but this time to check the road behind. He swerves across three lanes of traffic and leaves the freeway to head to the nearest hospital.

Mum tells Penny to put some towels on Sugar’s lap and to help her flush her eyes using the water bottles. Mum can’t help sneaking a sideways glance at Dad, who returns a worried smile and pats Mum on the knee again.

Luckily, triage in the Emergency Department is relatively swift. Being mid morning, enough time has passed after the Friday night overdoses and fights, and too early for the Saturday sporting injuries. Sugar is led panting and scratching into a shower room. By now she can’t see more than vague shapes directly in front of her face. The water on her body feels like pin pricks from a thousand hedgehogs. Sugar lets the nurse irrigate her eyes, for way longer than she thinks necessary, without complaining. Her usual cockiness has been severely reined in with the realisation of how close she’s come to more serious injury.

Aunty Jen’s inaugural pool party is postponed and finally Sugar is released from the emergency room.

“She’s a very silly girl. But a lucky one,” says the scowling nurse, as she gives instructions to Mum on further care.

On the way home no-one says a word for a good fifteen minutes. Just as they turn down their street, Mum can’t hold back any longer.

“Sugar, what the hell! Why didn’t you tell me darling? Why were you trying to hide this? Don’t you know you could’ve been permanently blinded by euphorbia sap? Wh… wh… why? Whoo oh, oh, why didn’t you tell me?” Then she breaks down and sobs uncontrollably as she tries to hold Sugar’s hand from her seat at the front.

“I thought you’d be mad that I ruined your plants,” says Sugar quietly.

“You mean the You-For-Bee-Ahhhh Bed,” Penny pipes up dramatically.

They all throw Penny glowering looks, until they see her beaming face and the car erupts in relieved laughter.