Thirty-One Days of May

Day 1: The Best

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Fred looks over at his furiously blushing sister. She has been eyeing him nonstop  for the last two days, almost as though she has a secret. She's practically taunting him, and he hates it. It is, after all, his seventeenth birthday. Why, he's practically a man. His six year old sister should not be able to lord anything over him. 

She glances over at his room before looking up at him again, and he swears he can see a hint of a smile behind her fingers. What, she's laughing at him now? 

"What were you doing in here, Katie? Did you take something? What did you take?"

Her little grin falters. 

"Fred! You do not raise you voice in this house!"

Their mother sweeps past, her hand mussing up his hair in a mock slap, and he groans. 

"Mu-um! She's taken something from my room! I know it!"

"No I didn't," Katie quickly volunteers and he scowls in her direction, causing her to look down at her feet once more. 

Enough of this nonsense," their mother states in her no-nonsense tone. They know not to mess with her when she talks like that, but Fred is not swayed. Katie never hangs around his room. She knows better than that. And especially today, his birthday, he doesn't want to deal with her annoying little games. He's already irritated, thanks to his parents refusing his plan of having a wild bash out in the garage with his friends. No, a casual hangout with pizza and definitely no alcohol is the order of the day. Fun, he thinks sarcastically. His mates gave him a few smirks over that. Always do what your mummy tells you, they mocked. Well, next year things will be different. He'll be free of his bossy mother, his absent-minded father and, of course, that bratty sister who always had so much attention and clearly now gets her pleasure from torturing him as well..

His glowering continues over the dinner table. Even his mother's hearty lasagne, his birthday treat, isn't enough to distract him from the girl across the table, who still can't hide her guilty eyes from him. His mother makes a smart remark about his attitude, she pretends to be stern when she tells him she just might call his friends to let them know he's come down with a case of the 'sooks'. Fred simply glares at her, unimpressed, and both his parents burst into laughter. 

Yeah. Really bloody funny. 

When they finish, Katie practically springs from the chair, her spindly little legs carrying her from the room as quickly as heavenly possible. He hurriedly thanks his mother for the meal, then follows suit. She darts towards her room, but he manages to slam his hand against the door before it can close. His palm stings, but he pretends it is nothing. He's had enough of her smug little game. 

"I'm serious, Katie. What did you take from my room?"

Her eyes are shining. For a moment, he feels bad. She is not accustomed to his shouting like this. He doesn't usually burst open on her. Honestly, he tries to stay clear of her altogether. The family spends far too much attention on her. Yes, she needs a little extra help. Yes, she can't keep up with others her age. Well, surely the best thing to keep things normal for her is 'no special treatment', right?

Knowing full well he can appear damn intimidating when he wants, he steps closer until he is towering over her.

"Katie."

"I didn't take anything. I... I put something in there."

Oh, fantastic. A dead rat, perhaps, that could sit there for weeks. Then he chastises himself. She is not prone to practical jokes. Give her the benefit of the doubt, his mind chants. 

He asks her to show him, in what he deems to be a soft, polite manner, and she nods, then follows him across the corner. He stands impatiently, his foot tapping. He doesn't really need to tap that foot, but it's his mother's favourite way of saying 'I'm waiting, hurry up' and it seems to have the desired effect as she moves as quickly as her body allows. 

She grabs something from the pillow.  He hadn't even noticed the paper card there. She places it onto his outstretched hand, then rapidly sprints away from him. He doesn't watch her leave. Instead, his eyes are glued to the white card. 

The words 'Happy Brithday Fred' greet him, and he can't help but grin at the spelling error. When he was young, he was notorious for the same mistake. The letters are poorly formed, clearly during each letter she has stopped and started several times. She has chosen to alternate the colours, green and black which are his favourite. Beneath the immature writing are cut-out pictures of balloons. He recognises the balloons. How could he not? They once adorned her wall on a poster. That movie she loved, with the house which was being carried with hundreds of balloons. It was her favourite dream, having enough balloons tied to the roof to carry them through. He chuckles as he recalls how she got their father to blow up some balloons and tie them to her dollhouse, and then her eyes widened in shock when the balloons simply lay inadequately on the floor. No one explained how helium worked, and even now she could not understand what she had done wrong. 

His grin fades when he realises that the sister he cannot stand has cut up her favourite poster in order to make this card. Tears, real tears spring to the corner of his eyes. 

See, his sister is not like other children. Thanks to some random lack of luck, something in her body decided to make things as difficult for her as possible. There's some problem with her DNA, something the doctors can't fully explain. Her mind works fine, yet she cannot make her body function the way she wants. Perhaps the worst part is how her hands live in a constant state of tension, the faulty muscles insisting on constantly curling her hands into tight fists even when she doesn't want them too. Especially when she doesn't want them too. She wears special hand supports at night, she attends physical therapy every week to teach her how to use perform simple, everyday tasks. A year ago she couldn't even hold a pencil, and he marvels at how difficult it must have been for her to write those letters herself. The cutouts are jagged, barely recognisable as the balloons they once were, and knowing the way she has had to adapt to hold special scissors, because regular scissors just don't fit within her practically deformed grasp, he once again feels the tears come. This was her guilty act? Secretly making him a birthday card and leaving it on his bed? 

His friends will be here soon. He sets the card carefully on his bedside table, a smile growing on his previously cranky face. They'll bring him presents, perhaps a CD of his favourite band or new stickers for his skateboard. Maybe a couple will have teamed up to bring him a football jersey, the one he can't afford to buy himself on his allowance. They'll accompany it with some store-bought card that they probably got their mother to pick up on the grocery run. 

It doesn't matter. He already knows that Katie's card is the best he'll ever receive. 

~~~