Sibling Rivalry

After a morning like that I was ready to jump at any chance to put some proper clothes on and get away at least for an hour or two. So, when Jenny’s little sister suddenly badly needed to go into town and there was no-one free to take her, I volunteered at once. For all the jokes about how I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, I’d never been so glad! What was more, Jenny’s sister turned out to be a sweet little thing so that was one way in which there wasn’t a family resemblance. Wearing vivid red shorts with a bright blue pattern she would have been hard to miss, especially since everything else she had on was black!

Her intake of sweet things was truly awe-inspiring to behold, and she let me in on her secret that this urgent trip into town was actually just so she could treat herself to some special pick-and-mix and fizzy drink in an extra big can which you could only get at a certain shop in town.

“OMG, I just can’t believe you’re getting like this over my sister,” she declared, then gulped down a big swig of her fizzy drink and hiccuped prettily. “How you can stand to be around her, I mean er, I don’t even. Mum wanted me to wear her hand-me-down shorts but I so wasn’t having it because I so don’t need that sort of back-smell, so I made her buy me new ones.”

Something told me my girlfriend for the afternoon was on a bit of a sugar-rush! “I wish you knew how everything you say about her’s true but I’m mad about her all the same,” I confessed with a sigh.

“You’re nice,” said the little girl matter-of-factly. “Mum said you were helpful making the salad.”

Later on when we were back home I was in the spare room when I heard a row going on outside between Jenny and her little sister. The door was open a crack so I took a secret peek. Jenny’s friends had gone home but she was still in her tennis whites, which by now looked pretty dingy from the day’s exercise.

“You’re such a pain, always borrowing my things without asking!” Jenny whined.

“Like I’d even want to borrow your smelly things!” retorted the little sister.

“I’d have thought that knowing everything I’m going through in my personal life you’d be grown-up enough to show me a little support,” said Jenny pathetically.

As that wasn’t especially complimentary to me, I was quite happy when the little girl responded by pushing out her butt, giving both me and Jenny a great look at those blue-patterened red shorts before flouncing off. “And those are mine!” Jenny yelled crossly after her.

I exited the spare room and joined her on the landing.

“Hi,” she sang, tonelessly and without enthusiasm.

I was suddenly bashful. “Um, so how was tennis?” I asked her weakly, shifting one bare foot around. “We had fun in town.”

“I bet that little horror drove you out of your pants,” the girl corrected me hotly.

“She’s sweet,” I told her, because I felt I owed Jenny’s sister that much.

“Don’t let her tease you,” Jenny instructed me, sternly. “She’s only a little girl and it’s not right to let her get away with it. I’ve heard a thing or two about how she’s been driving you up the wall today, and she’s old enough to know not to behave like that towards people who aren’t allowed to tease her back. That’s the only reason she does it. You need to find some way to show her you’re not helpless like she thinks.”

As I was exhausted and most of this was news to me, I asked Jenny what she suggested.

“I know you’re not much on sports, but don’t you know you can show a girl up by winning at something easy like running?” she cried impatiently. “You’ve seen how grotesquely overweight she is, all those sweets she keeps sneaking. I bet if you both ran tomorrow you’d outstrip her, and then whenever she teased you you’d at least be able to say you got the better of her at that.”

Jenny’s mother came upstairs at that moment, for which I was secretly grateful. “Jenny, you’re not going to slouch around in grubby whites at dinner, are you?” she said coaxingly.

“I can if I want,” Jenny grumbled. “Why’s everyone forgetting how much I’ve already got to put up with this weekend?”