My Older Sister

Have you ever noticed how annoying older sisters are?

I was building a card house for all my stuffed animals, since the old one got knocked over. This house was much better because I gave the animals a garage, a basement, and a five floor house. I had to place the cards really slowly though so that they wouldn’t fall. I had been patiently waiting for a whole hour for Charlotte to get home so I could show her the new version of Uno that I got. Last year at Christmas we had all played Uno and had lots of fun so I thought that she would like this version too.

“Look Charlotte,” I said, poking my head into her miserably clean room. “It’s a new--”

“Not right now, Mark,” she said. She was pushing some buttons on a calculator and then writing notes in a very thick notebook. She had like a billion papers everywhere, most of them with really boring high school stuff on them. I don’t understand how people can read books with no pictures in them. I have a complete set of graphic novels that I used to read with Charlotte and we would try to figure out which characters we could win against if they ever came to life one day. They had pictures on every page, unlike Charlotte's book on her desk.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I’m studying,” Charlotte said, flipping through several pages of the thick book.

This is why sisters are liars. Charlotte studied for four hours yesterday. She had to be done studying by now.

“You’re not studying,” I pointed out. “You’re not even actually doing math, you’re just having the calculator do it for you.”

“It’s because I need my calculator. When you get to Calculus you’ll understand. Now get out of my room.”

I shut the door behind me, taking care to slam it.

At dinner, I picked up two cars and ran them back and forth across the dining table, pretending that they were racing.

“Mark, it’s dinner time. No toys at the table. You know the rules,” Mom told me. I groaned and put them away. She looked over her shoulder and called, “Time for dinner Charlotte!”

“Can’t, studying for AP Calc BC tomorrow,” came her muffled reply from her room.

“Can you play with me after dinner?” I asked hopefully. “I have a card maze set up.”

Mom sighed. “Sorry Mark, I have to do PTA work during dinner for your school.”

I sunk down in my seat. “Fine,” I grumbled. 

Why is everyone so busy all the time? Mom has PTA work, Dad is in the office, and Charlotte has something about an important test. Dad has to work, which makes sense. And I guess Mom’s PTA thing is only tonight. But how does Charlotte always have some important test coming up? That doesn’t even make any sense. All of her tests can’t be that important. 

I drew a tally mark on the easel next to the dining table. So far five times this week that Charlotte didn’t come to dinner.

I gloomily poked my broccoli with my fork. I wasn’t very hungry.

After dinner, mom told us we had to clean the playroom.

“But Mark made the mess and I have to study,” Charlotte complained.

“Take a break from studying,” my mom told her.

At first, I was glad I wasn’t the only one who would be cleaning. But then I realized Charlotte helping me clean was actually worse.

“Can we play a clean up game?” I asked her.

“No,” she snapped. “I’ll clean this half, you clean that half.” Of course, she had the less-dirty part.

I began stacking all my graphic novels and put them in the bookshelf. Then the magazines. Then the books. Then the paper books. 

“I’m tired of cleaning,” I grumbled, flopping over onto the ground. If Charlotte heard me, she ignored me. I looked over at her half of the room and saw that somehow most of it was clean now.

I picked up a book and found a funny picture of a chicken. I went over to Charlotte, and said, “Look at this!”

“Is it a picture of cleaning up? Cause that’s what I want to see,” she said.

“Hmph.”

“I’m gonna go back to studying now,” Charlotte said, standing up and going back down the hallway. I heard her door close behind her.

I laid back down on my messy side of the room and grumbled to myself. Cleaning up is too hard and too tiring. I didn’t even know where some of the stuff went--where was I supposed to put random puzzle pieces or a ring to some toy that I didn’t know?

A whole hour later, I still hadn’t finished but I was almost done. I found part of a plastic whale’s tail, but not the whale itself. I recognized it as part of something from Charlotte’s whale figurines, so I brought it to her room.

“Where should I put this?” I asked, waving the whale tail.

“I don’t know. Just throw it in the trash,” she said, briefly glancing up. She looked really tired.

“Throw it in the trash?” I repeated. “We could make a new toy out of it instead.”

“You go do that,” she said to me.

Sometimes I don’t know how we’re related. The only things I have in common with Charlotte are our hair color, eye color, and that we both love reading. But I like reading graphic novels, and she likes reading textbooks, so that’s a bit weird.

“Why do you like studying so much?” I asked her. It was a genuine question, but she immediately glared at me.

“I don’t,” she snapped.

“Well why do you study all the time then? Why don’t you just play video games or play with me?” I pointed out reasonably.

“Because I have to work. If I don’t study then I’ll get bad grades and do bad in school!”

“You study all the time though,” I added. “Like, you probably don’t need to study so much.”

Charlotte flopped over on top of her book. “I need to. I can’t stop until I understand Calculus and I don’t even understand it!”

“Well I get all of my math!” I said to her. It probably wasn’t very nice but I couldn’t help it.

“That’s because you’re in fourth grade!!!” she yelled at me angrily. “You have easy math like division. I have hard math like derivatives!”

I didn’t know what a derivative was but that didn’t matter. Charlotte was spending way too much of her time in her book. “You’re a bad sister!” I yelled at her, and I threw the whale tail at her. It missed and landed on the bed.

To my surprise and immediate guilt, she burst into tears.

“What’s going on here?” my mom asked, appearing in the doorway. “Mark, what are you doing in her room? She’s studying!”

I walked out of her room quickly and pretended to go back to the playroom and clean, but stopped in the hallway to listen.

“What happened Charlotte?” Mom asked her.

“Mark…said…I’m a bad sister!” she said. It sounded like she was crying. I was actually surprised she was crying. We say mean things to each other all the time but never take it seriously. 

“He doesn’t mean that,” Mom said.

“It’s not…not my fault I have so much work. It’s not my fault I don’t get my stupid math,” Charlotte said. “I don’t mean to be mean to him but it’s not my fault I have to study all the time.”

“He doesn’t understand yet,” my mom told her. “Once he gets to junior year he’ll understand.”

Mom was right that I didn’t understand. I didn’t see why she had to do so much homework all of a sudden. That wasn’t how it was last year. And how hard could the work be and why were the teachers giving her so much work? That didn’t make sense to me.

“I wish…I wish I didn’t have too much work. I hate studying. I hate it so much. I hate all the work that I get but it’s not my fault and I wish I had no work like Mark. I want to go back to elementary school,” Charlotte sobbed.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall. Mostly I’m mad at my sister and we don’t get along but right now I feel a little bad for her. I guess it wasn’t her fault that she couldn't play with me.

It didn’t sound very fun to be in high school. If you always have tests and quizzes and things to study for, it probably does make you really tired. For the first time, I tried to picture how hard it must be to be my sister. It was hard to imagine working all the time, but it sounded really draining and boring. I wish life would be easier for her and she would be easier on herself.

I don’t know how long I was sitting there for, listening to Mom comfort Charlotte and hearing Charlotte cry. It made me feel a little sad though, maybe for Charlotte. Eventually, I slipped away quietly to the playroom, and continued cleaning.