Michael Smith: Siblings

Chapter 3:

[…from chapter 3…]

I was working on my third model Zero, being careful to use only the minimum amount of plastic cement. The two halves of each wing were drying in their network of rubber bands, and I was just about ready to insert the wings into the slots in the fuselage. The first two models had come out okay and were lined up on the shelf before me where I could visually check the wing angles. I painted a thin bead of cement along the wing slots, inserted the wings, checked the angles, and prepared to hold my hands steady for five minutes. I intended to have a flight of three Japanese fighters arranged in a diving formation over my study desk, properly detailed and painted and each with its own individual markings.

Alex's head poked in the door, dark red ponytail askew. She watched in silence for a few seconds as I sat unmoving.

"What are you doing?"

I looked at my sister, then back at the model, then patiently back at my sister. She saw my expression and held up a hand. "Okay, I know: You're working on a model. But what are you DOING?"

"I'm holding the wings steady until the cement dries, so they won't sag."

She nodded as if her worst fears for my sanity had been realized. I raised an eyebrow. "Hey, do I make fun of the stuffed animals on your pillow?"

She smiled and continued into my room in cutoffs and a tee-shirt, collapsing on my bed, arms out, with a loud, dramatic sigh. "I'm bored."

I didn't even look up. "It's 10:30 Saturday morning, Alex. How can you be bored?" I kind of knew what she meant, though. I mean, here I was with nothing better to do than build model planes.

"I bet you could think of something to do if you worked at it. What about the Coven?" My name for the four or five girls she ran around with, doing "girl things" together.

"Oh, they're all out of town for the weekend, or they have afternoon dates, or something." She sounded faintly disgusted. "Michael, could WE do something together?"

"Like what?" The wings were setting up perfectly.

"I dunno – go to a show maybe? Just go downtown and walk around and window-shop?"

I looked over at the bed and grinned. "Well, I could take you to the playground and hold your hand while you go down the*big* slide…"

She stuck out her tongue and then grinned back. I liked the way her nose wrinkled when she did that.

"I'm serious! It's a nice day – we could just go out and do something and have fun together, couldn't we? Unless you're embarrassed to be seen with your little sister, of course."

"No, I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you, and you're not so little anymore, anyway." I thought about discovering her menstruation a few months before; I tried to think of her as a "woman" now, but it often wasn't easy.

The Zero's wings had set enough that I could let go of them, but I slipped a paperback book under each wing, just in case. I turned sideways in my chair. Alex had her hands behind her head and was idly kicking one bare foot over her cocked knee. I thought about things I needed to do, projects I ought to work on. Nothing. I was caught up on my schoolwork and so, probably, was Alex. No pressing errands. No place I really had to be today. God, it WAS going to be a boring day! On the other hand, though Alex and I teased each other without mercy, I really did like her company and I knew the feeling was reciprocated. We had become very comfortable just hanging out together.

"You know what we both need?" I said. "Exercise. EASY exercise. You feel like hiking around Fremont Park for a couple of hours?"

Fremont was a large, semi-wild area on the eastern edge of town that combined lawns and softball fields and cycling paths with rocky trails and not-too-difficult ravines. High school students went there with their steadies, to lie in the sun or to sit up amongst the boulder-strewn hillsides and make out. Young mothers strolled their infants, older kids climbed trees and tossed frisbees. In the summer, the park was pretty busy on weekends, but this was a surprisingly mild day in March and most families would be stoking up their charcoal for the first cook-out of the year, or attacking the winter's accumulation of yard work.

Alex considered the suggestion for perhaps half a second before bouncing up with a broad, sparkling smile. "That's a great idea! Wait'll I get my Keds!" She hurried out, toes curled for traction as she angled across the hall.

We frequently rode our bikes over to Fremont, but the idea today was to hike, and if we parked the bikes someplace – even locked – the odds were slim that they would be there when we came back. But it was only a fifteen-minute bus ride from the end of our block to the park, so it was still well before noon when we arrived. There were a few athletic types around, but the families wouldn't begin to appear before late lunch.

"Wanna head for anyplace special?" Alex asked as we got off the bus.

"No place special," I replied. "In fact, let's just go wherever we happen to go. There's no hurry; we can just stroll, okay?"

Alex nodded agreement and we set off at an easy pace along the tree-edged path that separated the open, nearly empty lawns on our left from the rolling, rocky hillsides on the right. We ambled along and I hooked my thumbs in my front pockets. Alex looped her arm through mine. She was only a inch or so shorter than me and we fit together quite well.

"This is nice," she said lazily and squeezed my arm.

A few minutes later, we witnessed one of those otherwise minor incidents, those little public dramas, that can unexpectedly make a real change in your life. Three boys about ten years old came tearing down the path on their bikes and swerved around us. Several lengths behind them was a girl a year or two younger, wearing jeans and a plaid blouse, peddling as hard as she could.

"Keith!" she yelled angrily. "Mom said not to go off and leave me! Wait up!"

One of the boys threw up his hands in dramatic frustration and coasted to a stop while the girl hurried to catch up. The other two boys began cruising in a circle on the grass off to one side, laughing at their buddy's encumbrance. The girl skidded to a halt just behind her brother. She was nearly in tears.

"Why don't you just go home, kid?" Keith looked very disgusted. "Sisters aren't good for anything!" He glared a challenge at her.

"I just want to play…," the girl replied, looking down at her shoes.

"Well, we don't want you playing with us! Get away from me! Just leave me alone!" And he did a wheelie on his bike as he raced off to join his friends. They all headed for the beginning of one of the park's network of hill trails.

The girl watched them go, then slowly turned her bike around and headed back the other way. She wasn't crying aloud, but the misery of rejection was plain in her eyes. There were tears on her cheeks and she was biting her lower lip. As she passed us, I realized that Alex was about to say something to her.

Bad idea, I knew it instinctively. I trapped the hand that had begun to slip off my arm and said, softly but firmly, "No."

Alex looked at me, startled, and then the girl had passed and so had the opportunity to intervene.

"Why did you stop me?" She looked surprised. "I was just going to tell her to keep her chin up – that not all brothers are like that. Didn't you see the way he treated that poor kid?"

I raised my eyebrows; she really didn't understand. "In other words, you were going to point out to her how much luckier YOU were. And how would that have made her feel?"

Alex opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. She looked for a moment at the snubbed girl, who was peddling slowly into the distance with her head down, then looked back at me and nodded unhappily.

"You're right; I didn't think. Sorry." She took my arm again and we went on. She was thinking, and I thought I knew what about, but I kept my mouth shut.