The Third Black Widow

1995

I'm supposed to be asleep right now, but how can I be when I have so much energy? It's not my fault that my sisters and I snuck some candy right before bed. Okay, so maybe it is our fault. Oh well. It's a weekend, who cares?

I decide that I have to most brilliant plan ever. I'm going to wake up Yelena, my older sister, who's six, and I'm going to make a pillow fort with her in my room. What could go wrong?

Natasha, my other older sister, who's eleven, is on the other side of Yelena's room, and my parents room is on the other side of Nat's room, far out of earshot from my room all the way down the hall.

I bounce out of bed, walk across my room that's illuminated in a light pink glow from my Sleeping Beauty nightlight, to my door which is slightly open.

I slide out of my room without having to move the door anymore than it already is open. Perks of being small, am I right?

Despite being four, I've learned a lot of different tips and tricks for how to sneak around from my sisters. Especially when it's late at night and we don't want our parents to know.

I tiptoe into the hallway and right next door into Yelena's room. Her room is illuminated with a purple Princess Twilight nightlight and it makes it hard to find her as this shade of purple is violet which darkens objects in her room.

I trip over something and crash to the ground. I hear movement through the semi-thin walls coming from Nat's room. Uh oh. The sound stops almost as quickly as it came. I'm surprised that Yelena didn't even stir. Then again, she's a deep sleeper. Most of the time.

I successfully make my way to the other side of  Yelena's room, which has toys all over the floor spread around like a boobytrap. I make it to the head of her bed.

"Yelena," I whisper. No response. "Yelena!" I whisper loudly. "Hmmm?" says Yelena. "Do you wanna build a pillow fort with me in my room? You could probably sleep in there with me," I say. "I'm in," says Yelena.

She grabs her flashlight off her nightstand and we use it to find all of her pillows and blankets plus a few lucky stuffed animals. We leave her comforter on the bed since neither of us want to make the bed later. We load all of the supplies onto a blanket which we drag into my room.

I pile my stuff onto the floor and we get to work. It takes a long time and a lot of patience. We make the fort over my bed using the headboard and the end board thing as the stability points.

We finish and fall asleep on my bed exhausted from making our fort. I don't even wanna know what's going to happen to us in the morning when our parents see this. We're for sure going to be in big trouble. There's no doubt about that. At least it's fun to sleep in.

My older sisters Natasha and Yelena, and I have always had a natural knack for causing mischief as our parents like to put it.

Today is Saturday. It's April and Natasha has been begging our parents to let her dye her fiery red hair blue. For some reason, our parents won't let Natasha dye even part of her hair blue. After a sister meeting, Natasha decides to let Yelena and I paint her hair electric blue with permanent paint so it lasts a while.

We change into clothes that can get ruined and Nat brings the paint bucket into her bathroom upstairs. We put paper towels and a tarp on the floor. Nat brings a chair in and parks it in front of the mirror and she sits down.

Then Yelena and I dip paint brushes into the bucket and we get to work. Yelena does the left and I do the right. Divide and conquer. Am I right? Nat's whole head is blue about an hour later.

Yelena and I have so much paint on us and not just on our clothes, hands, and arms. Our hair has some paint on it too. A few mini chunks at the front have paint on them. We forgot to have Nat put our hair in ponytails before we started. Oops.