Work Text:
On her ninth birthday, Sarah wonders if her name really is Sarah. Maybe her real mum called her something else. Maybe she left instructions to call Sarah by a different name but they got lost somehow. Maybe her mum’s out there, alive and trying to find her, but she keeps addressing her letters to Kiera or Amy or Gemma and that’s why Sarah never gets them.
At school she gets assigned a short essay every week, and Sarah uses them to practise writing letters to her mum. In the first one she writes about the new book she got as a present for Christmas and how Felix managed to drool on it before she even finished reading it. She writes about Mrs S and the completely unfair rules she has about biscuits. She asks her mum where she’s living, and how her life has been, because maybe one day Sarah will send the letter and somehow it’ll reach the correct address. The post has all kinds of tricks to find people, she knows that from how Mrs S keeps getting all the bills on time despite the fact that they move to a new flat every year.
After the first two weeks the teacher announces they’ll have to read their essays out loud, in front of everyone, to practise their recitation. Sarah crumples hers discreetly under the desk and pretends not to have written one. The teacher rings Mrs S but Sarah doesn't care. She tears the letter into little pieces on the way home, throwing them in someone’s rubbish bin. Mrs S might find it in Sarah’s things otherwise, and Sarah would rather get in trouble again than have to explain.
No one can tell her anything about where she comes from. Maybe she was born out of the stars or out of the sea, maybe Santa made her in his workshop. They tell her she’s a special little girl, but what kind of girl is that, exactly.
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