SISTERS
By Sierra Gray
“Hey four eyes!” Natalie struts over to me with swaying. I turn away but her hands reach my She puts her hand on her hip and says, “I wonder around, takes a running start, then throws my glasses crashing sound a far distance away from me. It echoes through my brain.
“What did you do?!” I scream, about to cry.
Hi, my name is Nallu Iknu. That’s Natalie, my sister, and an outright bully. After school I go to the optometrist to pick out new glasses. We couldn’t find what remained of my old ones. I tried on seven pairs and I’m about to give up, but I spy some that look incredible. I try them on and I get the same feeling I got when I put on my old ones. The feeling of relief, relief that I can see.
“These are the ones!” I say.
That night I had almost forgotten, forgiven what she had done, but things changed before school the next morning.
“Look who got new glasses!” Natalie says sassily.
“Yeah, I look great, don’t I? Better than the hot pink ones that matched the color of your face,” I say.
Natalie is my sister; she shouldn’t bully me for wearing glasses, even though her friends do. Besides, she used to wear those hot pink ones that made her look like a deviled egg. She looked ridiculous.
“Wow,” Natalie says, “you can slap some dorky glasses on your baby face but you’re still bad at lying.”
That set me off. I felt an uncontrollable surge of rage coming from my head and moving toward my hands like a runaway train. I didn’t even care if there were other kids around.
“Natalie!” I screamed even louder than I did yesterday. She turns around and, without thinking, I spike her with my laptop. I hear her slam the concrete. Teachers from each and every classroom had apparently heard her screams. They were running to her from each and every direction.
“We’ve got to get her to the hospital immediately!” a teacher yelled. The principal, my Mom, ran down the staircase to all of us.
“Who did this?” she yelled. “Nallu!” she says in the depths of crying, “Nallu Iknu!” I try to run away but she grabs me by the sleeve.
“Good luck.” Natalie’s friend sarcastically says to me, giving me the death stare.
Mom takes me into her office.
“You know she broke my glasses yesterday, Mom!” I yell.
“I know, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt her like that!” she snaps back at me.
“It’s not like she didn’t deserve it!” I argue.
“And it’s not like she’s going to murder you! Nallu, she is your sister for goodness sake! You need to be nicer to her! And, no, I’m not saying she doesn’t have to be nicer to you, too. I’m saying that you two need to get along.”
“But...” I say being sternly interrupted by her.
“I’m sending you to therapy young woman!” she says literally slamming the door in my face as I try to follow her. She was holding back angry tears, I could tell.
“How much longer now?” I ask through my chattering teeth and rosy cheeks.
“About three minutes,” she says. My mom wasn’t joking around when she aggressively told me she was sending me to therapy. She’d insisted that we walk because it’s “a nice day” out. Her words, not mine.
“We’re here!” she says excitedly.
“This looks like a junkyard,” I think. If I said that out loud, I’d probably get scolded.
We walk inside and I feel a rush of warm air. Then I smelled that kind of smell that gets stuck in your nose and can’t get out. It smells like a junkyard, and wow, it sure looks like one.
Finally, someone looks up. “Hi, I’m Jamie!” she says, spit flying out of her mouth like ocean spray, onto my face. After a long pause she continues, “I will be your therapist today, Nalu McCarton!” her lisp shining brighter than the moon. She’s reading off of an old piece of paper that looks to have vomit splatters on the edges.
“I’m not Nalu McCarton...” I say, my cheeks feeling so rosy that they’d pop. It feels like steam is coming out of my ears. Nalu McCarton was a ten-year-old who was in the gifted and talented program at my school. I turn around to hide my tears, though I don’t care what that therapist thinks of me. “Come on Mom! We’re leaving!” I whisper, my voice cracking.
“Goodbye, Nalu McCarton!” she says.
“Shut up, you dumb and turn back. I run house, and I don’t anymore. I slip on the
I choose not to answer. I haven’t heard her be principal, she knows very well who Nalu McCarton she’s a little kid. As I lay in bed that night, I wonder, “
I wake up early the next morning. It’s about time the bathroom and the feeling of the tickly rug on my feet changes to cold, hard, tile. I slip out of my pajamas and hop in. I turn on the water. The freezing river shocks me, but it slowly changes into a warm, calm, stream. I squirt out my runny shampoo onto my head. It’s cold, but not the shocking cold from the water. As I scratch my head I can almost sense the shampoo turning into a soft, foamy texture. I rinse and add a new liquid into my hair that reminds me of Natalie. The conditioner is shiny and smooth. But there are some bumps that you can almost forget about. Almost. After the shower, I slip on a t-shirt that I just got. I get on the rest of my outfit, and head to the bus stop.
When I get to school, I see Natalie in the hall. By the look in her eyes, I know she didn’t want to show it, but she was thinking about me too. When I see her head wrapped in a bandage I can’t help but cry. She was hurt because of me, because of what I had done. Then, she started to cry, too.
“I’m so sorry!” I say. I hug her. I can tell we have a crowd, but right now all I could think about was her.
“I could never put my thoughts into words.” When she says it, she sounds so much like Mom.
“I know! It’s exactly what I was going to say!” Typical me. Like her, I was immature. And I know we can learn together. And for some reason, we break out into laughter. And I don’t even want to figure out why.
Sisters have an unbreakable bond. Together, they can do anything. After reading this story, I want people to learn that even the biggest of disagreements can be solved. Relationships can be tough, but you should never give up on them. They can make you stronger. To all the sisters out there, you are brave. You are sisters.