This Winter

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Alice Oseman 2015

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

All rights reserved

Alice Oseman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Ebook ISBN: 9780008147884

Version: 2015-10-21

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Victoria Annabel Spring, 16

Charles Francis Spring, 15

Oliver Jonathan Spring, 7

About the Author

About the Publisher

“Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you:

‘When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd – but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.’

“It is evident by this,” added Jane, “that he comes back no more this winter.”

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

I wake up two hours after I fall asleep. The amount of sleep I get on Christmas Eve seems to be steadily decreasing each year, probably because each year my average falling-asleep time gets steadily later, probably because I’m an Internet-addicted idiot. Maybe, eventually, I’ll just stop sleeping altogether and become a vampire. I’d be good at that.

Not gonna bother complaining about my sleeping pattern right now though, because it’s Christmas and this is the one day of the year when I should at least try not to complain about anything. This is hard when your seven-year-old brother is hitting you in the face with a pillow at six o’clock in the morning.

I say something along the lines of “nooooo” and retreat under my duvet, but this doesn’t stop Oliver from following, tearing back the covers and crawling on to my bed.

“Tori,” he whispers. “It’s Christmas.”

“Mm.”

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

“You are!”

“No.”

“Tori.”

“Oliver … go wake Charlie up.”

“Mum said I wasn’t allowed because he’s ill.” He starts ruffling my hair. “Toriiiiiiii—”

“Ugh.” I roll over and open my eyes. Oliver is completely under the covers, looking at me, wriggling with excitement, his hair sticking up on end, like a dandelion. Charlie and I have discussed at length how it is possible that Oliver can be at all related to us, since he’s the literal embodiment of joy and we’re both miserable fucks. We concluded that he must have got all of the happy genes.

Oliver has a Christmas card in his hands.

“Why do you have a—”

He opens the card and a disgustingly cheerful version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas begins to play right into my ear.

I groan and shove Oliver off the bed with one hand. He rolls on to the floor and bursts into giggles.

“So annoying,” I mutter, before sitting up and turning on my bedside lamp, resulting in a shriek of “YAY!” from Oliver. He begins to wander around my room, opening and closing the card, repeating the first two notes over and over again, and my eyes are opening and closing like they do in my early morning English lessons. The realisation that it’s Christmas Day is creeping over me and I guess I feel kind of … I don’t know. It’s not exactly a normal Christmas Day this year.

Christmas is okay at our house. It’s chilled. Quiet. Dad calls it a Spring Christmas, which he thinks is hilarious, for some reason. We open presents when we wake up, then family come over for Christmas dinner and stay until late, and that’s it. I play multiple video games with my brothers and cousins, Dad always gets drunk, my Spanish grandfather (Dad’s dad) has an argument with my English grandfather (Mum’s dad) – truly wonderful stuff.

It’s not a normal Christmas this year though.

My fifteen-year-old brother Charlie had to go to a psychiatric hospital back in October because he has anorexia and some really shitty stuff happened. Don’t really want to think too much about it on Christmas Day.

He ended up staying there for two months and he only got back two weeks ago.

I don’t really think there was a reason he got so ill. That stuff just happens, like diseases or cancer. So it’s not his fault. Actually, I think it was probably my fault he had to go to hospital. When he stopped eating meals with me in the summer, I didn’t tell my parents and I didn’t ask him why. I didn’t talk to him enough. I didn’t even ask him “How are you?” or anything like that. I didn’t think it was weird that he stayed in his room all the time. I didn’t think about it. About anything.