✅ My Sister's Problem

69. The Last Laugh

I was swinging gently, moved only by the sea breeze, while I waited for Mum to cook dinner. A couple of the people who lived on the beach had put together a play area for the children years before, when many of them had young families. I think most of the kids had been a little older than us; at least the families who were staying this week. The place was deserted, and sand drifted up against a hand-made swing set and a rough wooden fort screwed to the bottom of the cliff. Lindy was trying her hand at the climbing wall on the far side of the fort, which she'd so far been embarrassed by her inability to scale.

We weren't in sight of the house, but I knew that Mum would give me a call when we should start heading back. I had my phone in my hands now, trying to choose a game to pass the time with once I had taken a couple of dramatic photos of seabirds silhouetted against the sun. I didn't think dinner would take long. I would have volunteered to help out, but after having both of us under her feet all day I suspected that Mum would be looking forward to a little time by herself. Not that Lindy and I were ever trouble, except a few odd moments over this summer, but I was sure that we were both subtly hyperactive whenever we arrived at the beach house, and it was easy to imagine that our continuous presence could become overwhelming.

My phone vibrated in my hands, and I almost dropped it in surprise. Suddenly I wasn't half meditating, swinging back and forth with only the vastness of the empty beach in front of me. I was back to my normal life, and quickly calling up a new message on my phone.

It was from Hugo, a response to my curious-but-trying-not-to-pry inquiries this morning.

"It's embarrassing," he said. "It's nothing you need to worry about, right? I just had a weird mental image that I couldn't get out of my mind. And it was really weird, I didn't think I could keep a straight face. Don't worry, we're back to normal now. Right?"

I smiled, and sent something vague and noncommittal in reply. A part of me still wanted to know about his mental images, even if they were unintentional. Was he imagining me in diapers? I could imagine that would make any guy embarrassed, even if he was completely sure it was just a deranged figment of his imagination. That would perfectly explain why he had rushed out of my presence. And knowing him, he would probably have dispensed with those images completely before we got home. It wasn't something I needed to worry about.

Still, I wanted to know. I was curious how it would have made him feel if he knew the truth, even if that was the last thing I ever wanted him to discover. It wasn't like I could tell him anything, and there was no way I wanted to. But I wanted to believe that for someone as strange and complex as Hugo, there was a chance he would actually have understood.

Crazy, right? I tapped out a reply, saying I was glad to get back to normal but that whatever strange things he'd thought of, he shouldn't underestimate what I could still find funny. I hoped that would be enough. He'd told me earlier in the summer that he didn't understand most of the reasons that people would want to keep secrets; that was one of the reasons he felt slightly estranged from most of the social groups and cliques at school. So maybe if I could convince him that I would only be amused, and not hate him for it, I could get him to tell me what weird things had crossed his mind.

"You want to go swimming after dinner?" Lindy's voice pulled me out of my introspective mood now. She had reached the top of the fort, and she was looking down on me from a higher vantage point. "I bet the tide pools are nice and warm after today. And you can try out the new swimsuit we got you."

"Maybe we..." I answered, and then spotted the extra meaning; the parts she hadn't said. Mum and Lindy had gone to buy swimming costumes nearer the start of the summer, when Lindy was still trying to persuade Mum that I was the one wetting the bed. She'd wanted to treat me like a baby, and I knew that Lindy would have been happy to buy me something childish if she got the chance. A part of me was dreading it, but the demon on my shoulder was a little excited too, wanting to know what she had in store for me. That had been the time when this teasing was somehow fun; when she was trying to pick on me, but only succeeded in making me feel small and carefree. "Wait, what did you get me? Mum said you'd got something sensible, you wouldn't get away with suggesting weird stuff after today."

"That depends if you're a baby or not," she smirked, and held up something for me to see. A cute little rod of pink plastic, just large enough to sit comfortably in her hand. Mister Tunes; the device that could humiliate me so easily now. She must have gone through Mum's bag while we were changing out of our adventuring clothes. I took a deep breath, half expecting her to press the button right then. But perhaps she was planning to tease me a bit more first. "Think you're big enough to get this back, and you don't have to see what I picked for you?"

"You're going to get in so much trouble," I laughed, and jumped up from the swing seat. I ran towards the little fort, knowing that she could just press the button at any moment. But I also knew that she would have to explain to Mum sooner or later why she even had that thing, unless Mum had actually agreed on letting her prank me.

No, Mum wouldn't do that. I wasn't scared of wetting myself now, but that was only because I knew Hugo didn't believe a word of it. Mum hadn't seen those messages, and certainly wouldn't have guessed what they said half an hour before. She wouldn't have given Lindy that power over me unless she could be sure I was in the mood to laugh at a little bullying. Maybe I was – I wasn't so sure about that – but there was no way for Mum to have predicted it. She couldn't have known that I would be able to forgive Lindy now.

I did my best to move quietly inside the fort. There was a ladder up to the roof; the whole wooden structure was just a place for kids to play games, most of which involved climbing up, over, or through parts of the decor. So there were any number of routes up, and my best chance of recovering that mp3 player would come if I could be right beside her before she realised I was up there. And the trapdoor could be almost silent if you held it by the right part.

Everything didn't quite go according to plan, because I'd crept up half the ladder in the back corner when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Lindy was escaping down the slide, back down to the ground. I reacted without really thinking, dropped down to the floor, and dived out through one of the windows. There was a big mound of dry sand below that flowed like water, spraying up everywhere as I skidded down the side of the dune. And then I was right behind Lindy, just a few feet away.

"Want to get this?" she giggled, and I could see that this time she was having fun. She knew she'd got one over on me, and she was enjoying herself. The traditional one-upmanship of the beach visits, not the malice she had shown yesterday. My sister was my friend again, and I knew I wouldn't report this to Mum. Getting adults involved in our games was like cheating; an admission that you couldn't get the upper hand by yourself. I hadn't expected those baby games to become a part of that perennial contest, but really I should have done. I'd spent so much time worrying about serious things that I might have lost track of how I was supposed to have fun.

"Come on Lindy," I begged, but she could tell I was smiling now. I had no choice but to accept defeat now, and find something I could do to her later. And making her wet the bed again was off the cards, because of Mum's earlier threats. But then, how did Lindy expect to make me wet my pants without Mum realising what she'd done? I didn't see how it would be possible. "Seriously, you could be in so much trouble just for touching that thing, aren't you worried that mum will think you–"

Lindy swung Mister Tunes like a wizard with his magic wand, and my plea was interrupted by a burst of vaguely-familiar music. Apparently the volume had been turned right up as well, because the wall of sound was almost deafening. I automatically tensed up to reject the inevitable, before my brain managed to understand what I was hearing. And then the only sound on that stretch of beach was laughter.