Laugh Until You Cry

10 Thanksgiving- 2

We get a break between lunch and dinner, thank God. After our grandma made the announcement that we have until five to do whatever we want (she hopes that we’ll spend it with family) while we wait for dinner, everybody begins to disperse out of the dining hall for the four hour wait. I haven’t felt so happy all day.

“We should go up to our room to create a comparison table,” One of the twins tells me and Anthony before we can make it out of the room without being noticed. “The differences that you two experienced are quite strange.”

“Yes. So strange,” The other one agrees. “We must make a comparison table.”

“That really sounds like so much fun,” Anthony agrees with them jokingly but I know that they don’t hear the sarcasm in his voice. “But we have something else to do.”

“But it’s for science,” The first one says as if that means that we have to drop everything and go help them create a comparison table or whatever they want to do. I have a strong feeling that the experiments they want to put me and Anthony through have to do with probes.

“Yeah, and we love science so much,” I pipe. “But this thing that we have to do is really important so we’ll see you guys at dinner.”

Before they can remind us again that we must do this for science, I grab Anthony’s elbow and drag him out of the room, towards the stairs so that we can hide out in our room until dinner or maybe find a cool hidden room somewhere that is empty from anybody else.

“Stella,” I hear my mom call my name before we get far enough to be considered safe.

I reluctantly turn around to see her coming in our direction, her long brown hair swaying around her shoulders (Anthony and I get our blond hair from our dad although his hair is now gray). “Yes, Mother?” I wonder with an exhausted sigh. Anthony stops with me, thankfully not leaving me alone with our mom. She’s not so bad to talk to or anything, I just don’t want to be left alone with this family- especially when the twins can creep up at any second.

“I need to talk to you about what happened at tea. And I’ve been getting some complaints about your behavior at lunch,” She explains. “Let’s go sit.”

“No, I don’t need to sit,” I shake my head at her. “I know that if somebody ‘complained’ to you about me during lunch then it was Aunt Georgie. She’s just mad because I’m going to Julliard instead of Yale or something. Which makes no sense because nobody in this family has ever made it into an Ivy League school.”

“Anthony, do you mind giving us a moment?” She wonders, glancing over at Anthony.

“He can hear whatever you have to say,” I assure her and when she gives me a slightly annoyed look, I just shrug. “That’s what you get for having twins.”

“Fine,” She sighs. “We are having a family day, so I’d appreciate it if you honored that and didn’t disrespect members of said family, okay? Georgie has very unique standards and I understand that but you still need to respect her.”

“I did respect her,” I assure my mother. “I snapped at her just a little bit but in my defense, she was talking to me like I was going to school to become a prostitute or something. She was the one disrespecting me.”

“She’s a total whack job,” Anthony adds.

“She’s my sister,” My mother snaps, sending an offended glare towards him.

“Okay, well your sister is a whack job,” Anthony rephrases and I have to stifle a laugh. “It’s a miracle that we didn’t actually disrespect her. That would make for an awkward dinner.”