The Twist In Life

Chapter 4_ Cousin Simon

I raced home and went through the usual process of getting blamed for things I didn't do and stuff I didn't even know about. I always got into trouble because of Ian and the twins.

Ian just couldn't stop messing around the house. Then he blamed everything on me. And the twins, Leslie and Lesley, always misplaced their things and blamed it on me too.

I went upstairs to my room and closed the door softly. My aunt hates it if I bang the door shut. It makes her head ache. Whereas, if Simon bangs it, which he usually does, she has no problem with it.

I go home and do my chores before taking a nap, or else my aunt keeps nagging me for being such a snail. She somehow found out that snails can sleep for three years straight and thus the metaphor.

The chores usually include cleaning up Simon's bedroom. He is such a paper trash freak. Aunt says that he will learn to keep his room clean when he grows up a bit. Boys of his age need to enjoy their life, not to keep their rooms clean.

Yeah right! I haven't seen any other seventeen year old boy being encouraged by his mother to keep his room dirty. If seventeen year old boys need to enjoy their lives, why don't sixteen year old girls get to do so. For example, me.

But I love cleaning his room up.

It is always full of crumpled pieces of paper which are not at all difficult to pick up. Messy notepads and sheets full of his spidery handwriting are strewn on the floor which I am not allowed to touch. But I do touch them anyway. They're full of fascinating stuff. Big and small, thick and thin, all kinds of books are scattered on his bed, and rarely in the bookshelf. There are four tables in his room. All of the them are covered with written material or writing material. The wall beside his bed is covered with scribbles of formulas, equations and derivations etc.

It doesn't look like a room of a teenage boy. Yet it is.

My cousin, Simon, is a very strange boy. He is a genius. A pure, sulky, sour faced genius.

He is also very popular at school. Maybe because of his long messy hair. Or his specific faded jeans, pink coloured shirt and brown snickers which were originally white. Or maybe because of the fact that his dark eyes are always staring into space and he is always unaware of his surroundings. Even if the person talking to him suddenly turns into a chirping bird, he won't notice it. He doesn't even know that I go to the same school as his.

So, back to his room. I love cleaning it because it is the only way I can go inside without being yelled at. I am crazy about reading and scientific discoveries. I love all his books and continually smuggle them to my room.

I get to read the real version of everything my genius cousin writes. But while hiding, as my aunt doesn't approve of anything I actually enjoy. I read them before they get published. Lucky me.

This makes me a genius too, because I usually understand what he has written. Even though it is written for scientific committees dealing with astronomy, geology, microbiology and many other subjects, even astrology.

On the contrary, atleast I know that I'm a genius. Not as genius as Simon, but only a bit less. While Simon is clearly unaware of the fact. He lives in a world of facts and figures and probably thinks that it is normal for a seventeen year old to write mind blowing articles and essays, and to discuss celestial objects with middle aged people wearing white coats.

Sometimes he even failed to recognise me as me in the hallways at school.

~~~few months ago~~~

"Hey, Simon," I waved.