We had to be out the door in eleven minutes. That’s when I looked at the kitchen clock and saw that it was already 7:09. My dad closed the door and told me to go get ready for school. As she started down the driveway toward the car, I had this weird feeling that my brother was getting smaller and smaller. When I gave it to him, and my mom opened the door, I got one last long look at his frightened face over my mom’s shoulder. So my mom grabbed Jeffrey off of my lap, put another towel to his face (this one with ice wrapped in it), somehow got her shoes, his winter coat, her jacket, keys, her cell phone, and her purse, and got almost to the front door, before Jeffrey had time to say, Beppie!įor once I went to get my brother something without saying a word about it. Great-for the crime of attempted breakfast-making, I got demoted from “beloved firstborn” to “this one.” I’d never seen my mom take one of our injuries so seriously before. I’m taking your brother to the emergency room. There was an unbelievable amount of blood! It was another one of these frozen moments that always seem to happen to me we all just looked at the towel, and Jeffrey’s nose, and the front of my pajama shirt. So Jeffrey pushed my hand with the towel out of the way. This came out muffled, and we must have looked confused.

This could have gone on for months or even years, in an unending round of guilt-trip Ping-Pong, except Jeffrey stopped us all in our tracks. Now they had me sinking to their capital-letter level. Son, don’t be defensive with your mother! You know what, Mom? I body-slammed him, OK? I decided it would be really fun to set a five-year-old on a bar stool at 6:42 a.m., take a running leap, and knock him down like we were trying out for the WWF. Why does everybody in my family talk in these dramatic CAPITAL LETTERS all the time? Why am I the only calm one?

Drums girls and dangerous pie message