Challenge | Adam Banks

FIVE

"C'mon, Lanie! Let's go!" little twelve-year-old Jett called, teetering into the living room in his ice skates. His sister was sitting on the couch, a blanket wrapped around her little body. Her eyes were fixed intently on the cartoon that was playing on the tv. She didn't even acknowledge her older bother, which caused the little boy to wobble further into the room, directly blocking her line of sight. "I said come on!" he repeated, a scowl on his face.

The nine-year-old girl crossed her arms angrily. "Jett! I can't see Buggs!" she complained loudly, a mixture of anger and sadness in her tone.

Jett shook his head, standing his ground. "We're going to the pond!" he reminded, "Nigel and Zander are probably already waiting!"

"I'm not going," Delanie said sternly, her arms tightening over her chest, "I don't want to play hockey, and I don't want to hang out with your mean friends."

Jett rolled his eyes. She always gave him trouble when he was just trying to include her. "They aren't mean, you're just sensitive," he accused, clearly fed up with her resistance. When she still didn't budge, he sighed angrily, "You aren't going to get any better if you don't practice, you know."

Delanie still shook her head, her nose turned away in annoyance, "I don't want to get better!" she yelled, "Hockey is stupid! Mom and Dad always drag me to your dumb games, and all Dad ever does is talk about how good you are and how I should be that good too. Your friends are mean and you're mean whenever you're around them and it isn't fair!" She was on the verge of tears now, all of her anger coming out in one long rant.

Jett sighed, "Are you finished?"

She shook her head, but before she could swallow the lump in her throat, their mother appeared in the doorway. She looked between her two children, her hands on her hips, "What's going on down here? Jett, why is your sister shouting at you?"

Jett stared at his little sister, whose eyes were beginning to pool with held-back tears. He stepped away from the tv and turned to his mother with a guilty look. "I was teasing her and blocking the screen," he explained, turning his eyes to the ground.

Their mother sighed, shaking her head, "You two... Jett, aren't you going to practice with your friends?" When the little boy nodded, she waved a hand towards the door, "Go, then, and leave your sister alone. And Delanie, any more shouting from you and you'll be in big trouble, you hear? That isn't any way to fix a problem."

Delanie nodded, her stomach churning with the realization that her brother had just taken all of the blame for the whole argument. Their mother disappeared back to the laundry room, and before Delanie could thank Jett, he was gone as well. She tried to chase after him, but she heard the door slam before she could even get off of the couch. She fell backwards with a sigh, the tears pooling in her eyes finally slipping down onto her cheeks.

Everything she had shouted about was truly how she felt, but Jett didn't deserve to hear it like that. She knew that he was angry with her, and she was still plenty angry with him, but whenever an argument ended like that, the anger carried over for days. Delanie hated that, because she hated when he was mad at her. He was practically her best friend. All she wanted to do was be around him, but she supposed that Jett would rather play hockey with his friends than talk to her.

That was when she decided that she hated hockey.

She would never be as good as Jett, and that made her the least favorite child. Her brother's friends were all cruel, and that made her assume that all hockey players were like that. Jett spent more time playing hockey than he did playing with her, and that made her feel like she wasn't important to the one person she wanted to be just like.