Call Me Six

15: 'Pink Suits You' -Tobias

TOBIAS-

"Toby!" a childish voice sung as my bedroom door was flung open. "Good morning!"

"Morning," I mumbled, still half asleep before rolling over and burying my head in my pillow.

For some cruel and unknown reason, Sophie had always insisted that we wake up at the crack-of-dawn unless she was on some of the heavy-duty painkillers that followed her operations which had the side effect of extreme lethargy.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up! Up! Up!" she cheered and bounced onto my bed. "The sun's awake, so I'm awake!"

"But Tobias is still sleeping," I groaned and she continued to bounce.

"Is Chrissy coming over today?"

"No," I replied and pulled the cover up over my head.

"Zeke?"

"I don't know."

"Uriah?" she continued to question whilst flopping down beside me and crawling under the covers.

"I-"

"I hope he does! We haven't played princesses with him in ages."

Because Sophie's been in and out of hospital so often in her short life, I decided that it was best for her to do homeschooling since all the medical equipment she required in earlier years was easier to access at home. She has a tutor that comes over for a few hours every other Monday and the rest of the course is done online and in textbooks that we mail off to get assessed each month.

"Toby..." she whines and holds my face in her tiny hands to make sure that I'm looking at her - unintentionally squishing my left eye shut and angling my nose to the right. "Please can you make blueberry pancakes? Please?"

"Fine," I reply since there's no way she'd actually let me go back to sleep.

"Yay!" she squeals and jumps up - successfully removing the warm duvet so that a rush of cold air chills me to the core. "Then can you call Zeke and Uri and tell them that I'm having a tea-party so they need to be here with a packet of biscuits and a dress - or they could borrow one of mine - in two hours!"

"Soph, it's six in the morning," I say and pull on a sweater that was thrown on my floor.

"So? That gives them plenty of time."

~

By the time they actually get here it's nearing twelve in the afternoon.

I'm clearing up the dishes from where we made pancakes and Sophie is up in her room, setting up her tea set and chirping on about how late Zeke and Uriah are and how princesses should never be late as the Disney soundtrack fills the entire house from her little pink stereo.

Once I've finished clearing up, I wander on upstairs to make sure that everything is okay with her because, for some reason, she is no longer singing along to Beauty and The Beast.

I get up to her room and see she's desperately searching through her closet of costumes and throwing a heap of different coloured sparkly materials onto her bed and she continues to search.

"Sophie, what are you doing?" I cautiously ask since a slight scowl currently sits on her face.

"Trying to find dresses for Zeke and Uriah," she says and turns to the pile that is spread out over her pink quilt. "I've already chosen yours and hung it up in your room so you need to go change but I can't find dresses for them.

"I've narrowed it down to the gold, green, silver and blue ones because Zeke wore the purple one last time and a princess shouldn't wear the same dress twice in a row but I can't decide which dresses they should wear."

"What about the pink?" I suggest and try to find it amongst all the other sparkly things in her room.

"Oh no, they can't wear the pink dress, because you're wearing the pink dress, Toby."

"But I wore that one yesterday, and every single other time before that."

"So?"

"You just said that-"

"The rule doesn't count for you, Tobias!" she shouts and drags her hands down her face.

"Why not?" I laugh slightly at her overly dramatic actions.

"Because pink's your favourite colour and you're my brother and I make the rules because I'm the Princess-Rule-Decider-Dress-Chooser-Crown-Wearing Official."

"Pink's not my favourite colour, Soph. Sorry..."

"But you always wear the pink dress, so that means it has to be your favourite colour, Toby."

"Well-" She quickly shushes me and drags me our of her room and into my room before thrusting a tiara into my hands.

"Pink suits you, Tobias, so you're gonna wear the pink dress."

"But-"

"Or you can wear my mermaid costume."

A pink sparkly dress or a tight bikini with a skirt that stops you from being able to walk properly?

"I'll go with the dress."

"Yay!" she cheered and ran out of my room, leaving behind a trail of glitter from the Snow White costume.