Being her sister

Chapter 1: Danielle

It's hard not to be jealous of Rachel. I mean, if you had a little sister who was nearly two years younger than you and yet better than you at everything, wouldn't you spend most of your time feeling depressed?
   I certainly do, anyway. I'm nearly fourteen and in second year at the local community school. She's twelve and she's also in second year. Mom sent her to school when she was barely four as she "showed much potential", and then the teachers moved her ahead in primary school as she was so smart. She, of course, is too intelligent for the community school. My parents sent her to this posh girls' school three miles away. My mom gets up early to drive her there every morning.
   "Danielle," she says to me whenever I complain, "don't you want your sister to get the best education she can?" In response I think, "Don't you want ME to get the best education I can?" I never actually say it though. I don't care about getting an education, it's the principle of the thing. It's that they worship Rachel and couldn't be bothered about me.
Rachel, naturally, never gets into trouble. I try not to, but it's hard when every little thing looks like murder next to her immaculate record. And the not-so-little things, too, like when my friends and I said we were going to each other's houses to sleepover when we really went to this disco in town and had a great time there, well, for a while. Then one guy wouldn't leave Tara alone, and another one kept on pushing Liz and Naomi to take drugs, so we left and swore we'd never go back. We got caught and I got grounded for ages. That was last year and I still don't want to go back there. Anyway, the point is that the most trouble Rachel ever gets into is forgetting to do a tiny bit of her homework.
   Rachel is also much prettier than me. She has beautiful chestnut hair and deep green eyes and a flawless complexion. My hair is the same shade as hers, but last summer I got it cut really short and have been regretting it ever since. I hate it now. It's not extremely short anymore, it's long enough to tie back into a ponytail but I still absolutely despise it. One of my friends from school, Mark, says he loves my hair, though. It still doesn't convince me. He's always flirting with me, anyway, so he probably doesn't mean it.
   I have hazel eyes, at least that's how Rachel describes them. We both have light freckles on our noses, and we tend not to get spots that often, particularly her. She never seems to understand that sometimes there are times when you HAVE to stuff your face with chocolate.
   There are three more weeks until Christmas. We get our holidays on the twentieth, a Tuesday. Our Christmas exams start on the thirteenth, a week before that. No doubt Rachel is going to get all A's. And I will probably get B's or C's if I'm lucky. That's the way it always is. The lowest score I ever got was 35%. The lowest score she has ever got was 85%. That really depresses me. I mean, she's younger than me and yet better than me at everything. We went to the same primary school but we were in different classes, and had different friends, so at least we weren't constantly being compared to each other. It's not that I want to be a brain, I don't even care about school, really, but I hate feeling inferior to people. Especially when it's my little sister.
   My friends all think she's brilliant, of course, to be twenty months younger than me and still be in the same year as me.