Saturdays are a lot easier than weekdays and I’m sure many people will agree with me on that one. By the time I wake up on Saturdays, Matt is out of the house and hanging out with some friends. He’ll either text me where he is or leave me a note or something so that I don’t worry. Today, he is going to the gym with a few of his athletic friends. Matt wants to play basketball in the winter.
Jude doesn’t wake me up when he wakes up, he just goes into the living room and watches cartoons until I stumble groggily through the hallway and offer to make breakfast.
“Good morning, Bud. How about chocolate chip pancakes?” I offer through a heavy yawn as I walk into the living room.
Jude doesn’t even glance over at me, his eyes intently looking on the TV screen as if he’s possessed or something. The only indication that I get from him that tells me that he heard me is a slow nod and then he mutters, “Don’t forget the syrup.”
I pull my wavy (I curled it yesterday but in the night, it’s like it just gave up on life and returned to its naturally wavy style) hair back into a messy bun so that it doesn’t shed into the food and then get to cooking the pancakes.
“Do you have any plans for today?” I ask him curiously from the kitchen although I know he’ll just get annoyed at me or interrupting his cartoons.
“Yes,” He speaks, which surprises me for two reasons. For one, I didn’t think that he’d even respond and two, I didn’t know that my six year old brother had plans today.
“Really?” I wonder with raised eyebrows. “And what are you doing?”
“My friend, Kyle, is having a birthday party today and I want to go,” He states. I’m facing away from him to cook the pancakes on the stove but I’d bet money that he is still fixated on his Saturday morning cartoons.
“Rephrase that,” I warn him. I’ve spent a lot of time online Googling how to teach little kids how to have manners and I think I’ve learned a great deal about it. Just because Jude has to grow up with me as his guardian doesn’t mean that he should be deprived of normal things like learning manners and learning his alphabet by the age of three, which he did.
“Sorry,” He mumbles. “Can I please go do Kyle’s birthday party today?”
“Better,” I state, flipping some of the brown-dotted pancakes. “When is it?”
“It starts at one,” Jude informs me. “And you don’t have to be at work until two, right? So that works?”
I continue flipping pancakes and nod at my brother although I’m sure he’s still watching the TV and can’t actually see me. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’d like an earlier notice next time though.”
“I just forgot,” He defends. “He handed out invitations two weeks ago.”
I continue flipping pancakes and putting the finished ones on two separate plates. “Okay, well I don’t get off of work until nine. When does the party end?”
“I dunno,” Jude tells me just as I finish the last of the pancakes and turn the stove off.
“You’re impossible, do you know that?” I tease my little brother with an exasperated sigh. “Anyway, come over here. Breakfast is ready.”
After breakfast is all cleaned up and the dishes are stacked on the drying rack beside the sink, Jude goes into his room to get dressed and I go into the bathroom to take a shower.
Still wearing my towel, I knock on Jude’s door and peek my towel-covered head into his room. “Clean underwear?”
He nods, pulling a clean dinosaur t-shirt over his head. “Yes, the red ones with Mario on them.”
YOU ARE READING
Hide Your Fires
Teen Fiction"Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see." - Shakespeare People make mistakes. People break rules. People even break the law. Sure...
