I hope someday to watch my little sister Katie’s wedding ceremony and gracefully step aside as she and her true love join arms and walk down the aisle. I will also enjoy the snide thought that the groom sure owes me. The fact that she even survived to such an age is a miracle with an older brother like me. He will never understand the torment that she endured as my unfortunate sibling.
Not that I was a bad brother, most of the time. I was generally a good kid, all things considered, but, like all strapping young boys, I would occasionally get myself into a little bit of trouble. More accurately, I deserved to get in trouble and got away with things until my sister told on me.
“Mike threw an egg at my friend Tina!”
“Mike took the wheels off of my bicycle and won’t give them back!”
As one can imagine, these reports were often followed by early bedtimes, denial of dinners and spankings, none of which I enjoyed. To me, it seemed only fair that if I had to suffer repercussions for my actions, she clearly deserved repercussions for her tattletaleing.
After she reported me for a now-unimportant incident involving fireworks, her hamster, Bern, found himself curiously removed from his tubular cage and sitting inside a plastic box that sat atop a large Lego train set. A 20 foot-long rollercoaster track stretching down the 27 stairs in our house was reflected in his small beady eyes. A purple pillow waited for him at the end of the ride.
The tissue paper with which he was mummified, combined with my mad Lego skills, kept him from any irreparable harm, but the event was nonetheless quite traumatic for both Katie and the poor rodent. Katie, of course, could not keep her mouth shut. As I hungrily listened to my parents and sister enjoying their spaghetti downstairs from the prison of my room, I decided that the war had begun.
The key to defeating Katie was through her many ranks of animal friends. A friendly snapping turtle that she had adopted was my next target. I felt that this turtle deserved to run wild and free, as all turtles should. I felt it my duty to offer him the opportunity. Knowing that he could never escape from his shoebox prison, I liberated him in a nearby creek bed. When he refused to take his freedom, preferring instead the warmth and comfort of his shell, I did what any child would do: construct a cage of doom around him while he cowardly wet himself inside his own skeletal structure.
Inspired by the Mad Max Thunderdome, the structure was a full two feet tall, with giant thorns stabbing in from all sides. The entire edifice was artfully balanced upon a single thin twig, sensitive to the slightest touch: 1/16 of an inch would decide whether the turtle walked to freedom or brought his own destruction tumbling upon his head.
It was a juvenile masterpiece of architecture and well worth the many thorn pricks I received during its construction. My sister’s eventual discovery of the trap and the daring turtle rescue that ensued was a source of great frustration for me. Her malicious report to our mother only brought me further grief.
I realized that the weakness in my planning was its tangibility; my machinations could easily be destroyed or prevented. I turned to the great poets for inspiration, finding my solution in deception and illusion, which could never be thwarted because they do not actually exist.
Our house had open pastures in most directions, and normally the moon provided enough light that one could easily walk in the dark without a flashlight. One moonless night, at about 1 a.m., it was my job to check on the goats. As I passed the pen, I noticed that the goats’ eyes turned a frighteningly effervescent shade of green as my flashlight beam passed over them. I was struck by how much they looked like hyenas in the dark. The herd, sitting back on their haunches, looking out at me with a hungry glare. I knew the sight would give Katie quite a scare.
I returned to the house to tell Katie that hyenas had eaten all the goats. We rushed back out, pellet gun in hand. A wave of the flashlight was all it took to convince her that hyenas had, in fact, devoured all of our precious goats, each of which she had personally named.
I got in a lot of trouble when she woke up Mom and Dad in tears at 1:30 with a story from her brother that hyenas had eaten Tommy, Floppy, Clover and Aslan.
I had one reserve left, and it would have to be my coup de grace. It would not be an indirect attack on the animal peasants, but on Queen Katie herself. Nothing else would halt her from tattletaleing. I had to scare her so badly that there would be no way that she would tell on me ever again.
Late one night, I ran into Katie’s room, woke her and hauled her into her bathroom. We hid in the bathtub behind the shower curtain as I explained that robbers had broken into the house and were coming for us. Two friends of mine, sleeping over that night, came in just after me, muttering curses in Spanish and making it clear that they were not only bad dudes, but also interested in both thievery and kidnapping.
The plan was going perfectly until I looked at Katie, scared out of her wits and looking to me for protection, and I broke. I started crying, I felt so terrible. I loved her so much, she was so afraid and there was absolutely no reason for me to torture her. When she learned how to walk, my dad had to install a ramp on the steps because I always carried my beloved sister around, grabbing a hand or foot and dragging her along behind me. When driving at night, she would lay down on the backseat and my lap became her pillow, my arms her blanket.
And now I was torturing her. I turned myself in that time, but a spanking and no dinner were nothing compared to the guilt I felt. We haven’t had a fight since that extended feud. I’ve never even raised my voice at her. When I get the news that she’s engaged, I’m going to fly over and spend a few days with the fianc? to make sure that he’s good enough. He’d need to love her even more than I do, and I’d still be the only one who’s allowed to be mean to Katie; not that I ever would be.
