“Green one!”


“Ouch! Don’t take that so seriously. GEEZ. Gosh that really hurts.” Monday mornings are lame as is. The last thing I need is my dork sister slugging me in the arm every time she sees a stupid slug bug. “Grace, I’ve told you before, I hate that stupid game!”


“I’m sorry, but Maggie M. says that the game can teach alertness- RED ONE!- and self defense. Besides if you’re lucky enough-YELLOW ONE!- it gives you a great excuse to hit- BLUE ONE- hit you sister.”


I looked over at my sister in her little ear muffs and knee socks. Could she be any more of a loser? “Listen Grace, I don’t care about Maggie M. and quite frankly, I don’t care about her little com-“


“SILVER ONE!”.


“OH MY GOSH!!!!! That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. You are so annoying. You are the worst excuse for a sister.” I pulled a 20 dollar bill out of my back pack and handed it o her. “Here, take this and get yourself a taxi to school. Walking you is the worst thing about my day, and I’m tired of this stupid responsibility. So here, get lost!” When I get worked up, I get worked up. I didn’t care that tears were welling up in her eyes and I certainly didn’t care about the tantrum she was about to throw. I walked straight and kept my head forward. Tears mean absolutely nothing to me, especially when they’re coming from a second grade brat half a foot shorter than me.


“Gina, you know it’s -sniff- mean when you –sniff- you yell at me. I am –sniff- your little sister you know, and it hurts my –sniff- feelings when you act like a jerk.” She said it with such softness in her voice and a look on her face; it almost made me sick.


I really can’t stand cry babies. If there was anything I could do to stop the annoyingness I would. When I turned my head back forward, and saw that thing come around corner, I recognized a perfect opportunity. “BLACK ONE!!” I hollered. I turned to face my sister, clenched my fist, cocked back my arm, and swung. Head shot!


“OWWWW!” Grace groaned after falling on the concrete. “Owwww! Ow, Gina. Oww! Oh my gosh! I’m bleeding! No I’m not. Ouch, Gina that really hurt. You idiot. Ow, I never hit you that hard! Geez, you are such a jerk.”


I listened, completely satisfied with myself, to my sister cry. I didn’t regret it, I didn’t help her up, and for a while I didn’t look back. I got about half a block in front of her, and when her waling still hadn’t tuned out, I decided that I should probably stop for a second. I turned around to and saw her about an inch and a half tall squirm on her knees, yelling at me.


“I’m not moving until you come back here and apologize to me.” She said it to me as if I cared. Fine I thought, it’s not like I want you to walk with me anyway. I was about to turn around and continue my walk to school, when our curmudgeon of a neighbor walked out on that in need of a paint job porch of hers and saw my sister whining on the sidewalk.


“Grace? Grace Roswell, is that you? Well, why are you lying on the sidewalk? Get up from there, you’re gonna ruin your dress.” Mrs. Webber made her way down her crooked porch steps, slowly but surely.


“Shoot,” I muttered to myself. “She’s gonna ask Grace what happened tell my mother, and am going to be grounded… again. It’s a good thing Mrs. Webber was slow. I grabbed my backpack straps and sprinted over to my cry baby sister. When I got to her, her nose was completely out of place! Just kidding, but it was red, and not from blood. I swear, she sounded like someone was trying to murder her. Soon after I picked Grace up and she wiped herself off, Mrs. Webber finished making her way down the stairs… but she still had her whole yard to cross. Yep, that was gonna take another 5 minutes, perfect time to get away. I grabbed Grace’s hand and dragged her, at least I started to.


“Hey Gina and Grace,” Mrs. Webber called after us. “Come here for a sec. What seems to be the problem?”


“ Problem?” I asked, totally guilty. “What… what are you talking about? There isn’t a problem. Heh, what?”


“Really? So your sister has a bloody nose and is whining like a cow in labor and there’s no problem?”


“Listen, none of this is my fault. It isn’t what it looks like.” She wasn’t buying it at all, and after explaining this not so complicated situation three times and wasting 4 minutes of my life doing so, she decided to call my mother. My mother who is the least understating person next to Mrs. Webber.


Things weren’t looking so good for me. Mom was already mad that Mrs. Webber had to call her down here and even more upset to hear that I had hit my sister. It’s been three days since I was last grounded, and now it’s three weeks until I’m un-grounded. Of all the hitting that went on today, I did one out of six. My sister got to stay home from school, and I got a tardy slip. This is my third one which means detention. Now, because of that, I’ll probably get even more grounded. By the way, my sister still has my twenty dollars. I hate her. Don’t even try that, “You don’t hate her, she’s your sister” stuff, because anything else would be an understatement.


I got home that night and I began my punishment. Being grounded means “no”. No TV, no computer, no friends, no iPod, no thing at all. Trying my hardest to avoid my mom and her other daughter (I’m not going to even call her my sister) , I went into my room and began my vast list of homework. I finish at about 9 with 2 hours left until bed. My mom must be psychic because after I finished packing my bag with books, she came in to “talk”. Funny, she started the conversation with, “Look honey, I just want to talk,” but ended up giving me a lecture about respecting my family. She’s a younger sister too, so it’s not like I can talk to her and expect to her to relate to me.


“Gina, I understand she can seem annoying, but did she really deserve a slap in the face? I mean, that’s-“


“Mom, maybe you haven’t heard the story all the way through, she was the one that hit me first. she hit me first five times in a row! Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Doesn’t it bother you that she was beating up on me first?” It’s always the babies that parents smother there love on, and the oldest one who get the leftovers. It just isn’t fair. I mean, if she could step into my shoes for a day or two she might actually give a care about me.


“Honey,lease treat her nicer. You haven’t a clue about what she is capable of.” My mom’s face was masked in fear. “There is nothing I can saw and there is nothing I can do to protect you if you sister gets mad at you. Trust me that is the last thing you would want.


“Whatever mom,” I continued. “You’re such a, a biased.”


She was done bothering wit h me. She knew that nothing she would say could change my opinion, and she probably knew I was right. On her way out of my room, I added a whispered to myself loud enough so she could hear.


“I wish I didn’t even have such a brat of a sister.” As I said this, I could see my mom’s pace slow down and her body ready to turn towards me. But she never went all the way. She was finished responding. Once she was finally out, I put on a pair of my comfiest pajamas, hoping they would feel as comforting as a mother should.


They didn’t come too far from it and I was tired. Bed sounded so perfect and so comforting. Once I climbed in it, I found out it was even better than I thought. I turned off the lamp next to my head, and drifted off into sleep.


I woke up at 1:43 by a tapping on the window. I was half asleep, and was ready to be all the way again, but as I squinted my eyes closer together, I saw something in the corner of my room shining. I was a tiny circle of white light, almost like one that comes from a laser pointer. The more I looked at it the more I realized that it was floating upward, and the circumference was expanding.


“Wow, I must be really tired if I’m hallucinating about growing snowflakes,” I whispered to myself, energy less. I was really tired and was ready to get back to sleep.


“Yeah, that would be funny,” an anonymous said. It sounded like a younger girl, but I had no idea where it was coming from. “It was be even crazier if you weren’t hallucinating don’t you think?”


Clearly this was dream, so I shut my eyes and continued my sleep. Then I could feel heat in front of my face, and a light past my eyelids. I opened my eyes once again to see a ghostly figure floating above me.


“Uh! Jesus, what are you?! Ohmigosh! I- I… what?


“I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. After all you were only 2 when I died.


“Who? What are you talking about?” I was lost in confusion. I couldn’t tell if this was real or if I was still dreaming, or what I was doing. All I knew was that a ghost, like in paranormal activity, was in front of me.


“I’m your sister.” And with that, no confusion went away. “Well, I was supposed to be your sister. I was going to born two days before your second birthday, but I never survived. You see, my umbilical cord was shriveled up and no food was passing to me. And a s you probably know nothing can survive without food.”


“Okay, well not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?” It’s not every day ghosts of sisters past give you a home visit. And when they do, it isn’t very normal.


“Well, according to your sister and your mother, it seems you’ve pulled the last string. I hear you hit your sister in the face?”


“Yeah but-“


“I’m not finished. Before that you’ve tormented her with fake spiders and her childhood monster. Not only have you put thoughts in her head about Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster, but you’ve scared her out of 6 sleepovers and 4 parties in the last two months. Not to mention you countless attempts and threats to “murder” her favorite dolly. What do you have to say about yourself?” She looked at me like I was the monster here. I bet if we took a look at Grace’s file, we would find triple the trouble maker out of her.


“You’re like her lawyer aren’t you? You’re her to interrogate me and side with my sister and tell me I always mess up and that I need to treat her nicer because she’s my sister. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?!”


“No, I’m just trying to find a solution for you. I am here to help you and your relationship with your sister. Now it would help and go a lot faster if you cooperate.”


“Fine. Fine, I don’t even care. Ask any question you want, I answer it as truthfully as I can.” It was late and I was tired. I mean, 1am is the best time for her to come?


“Why do you pick on your sister?”


It seemed like a pretty broad and obvious question, but I was sworn into this so I had to answer. “Well, she’s my sister. I get on her nerves and she get on mine. It’s called “sisterly love”, ever heard of it?”


“Hmm, okay next question. What causes you to act in these outrageous manners?”


“Excuse me? I don’t think that a little joke here and there is so outrageous when she annoys me to death every single day of my life! I mean, come on, it’s not like I have nothing better to do than pick on little girls. I have my reasons!” Who did she think she was trying to tell me how to act. She hasn’t actually lived, she wouldn’t know a thing about my life.


“Okay then, what are those reasons?”


Finally! A question in my favor. “Well,” I began. It was harder to think of stuff she actually annoys me with. When I had to sit there and think of the endless list of ways she tortures me, I realized the list was endless because it doesn’t even start. “Well, you know. She’s my sister and she’s just annoying. Like, well, you know.”


“No,” she said clueless. “I”I don’t know. That’s what you’re supposed to tell me.”


After sitting up in my bed speechless, I realized that this was harder than I thought. Is the only real hardcore evidence that I have is that she annoys me. Man, that’s really unfair.


“Well, I’m also gonna be your ghost of sisters present and future, here we go. I’m gonna take you through everything that happened yesterday. Don’t interrupt. In your file, it says you woke in a grumpy mood because you didn’t finish homework until 12:30 and you had to wake up at 6. Not only that, but when you took your shower all the hot water was gone. By the way, that was your mother’s fault. After that, your cereal was soggy and you couldn’t find you history book for the longest amount of time. Plus you still had to walk your sister to school. Already we can tell you weren’t going to be the happiest camper. DO you something here that could be the possible problem?”


“Well, I umm… no.”


“Okay. Is it possible that you act towards your sister the way you do because of emotions you’re feeling? You might act out yet it has nothing to o with her?”


“Oh my gosh, I see it now! Well, how can I fix it? I feel really bad and I don’t want to end up apart from her.” I can understand what everyone was trying to tell me about loving my sister. I really did, and I always knew that in my heart no matter what I felt. I mean of course I love her she is my sister and now I need to prove it.


“Well, let me take you into the future. It’s a really sad hard to deal with future and I would hate for you to go through it.” The ghost grabbed my arm and snapped her fingers. It was amazing, I didn’t even feel anything and all of a sudden we were in a hospital.


“What are we doing here? Is someone hurt, dying, what?”


“This is 23 years into the future. Your sister was diagnosed with leukemia last fall. Everyone comes to visit her once or twice a day, except you that is.”


“You mean, my sister is dying the hospital, and I’m not even there to support her?” Tears were welling up in my eyes. Cancer is serious and I didn’t even visit my sister in her time of need because of something that happened when we were kids? “Well where am I?”


“No one really knows. You hardly ever call or keep in tou-“


“No, STOP! This isn’t like me. We aren’t a broken up family. I should be there! This isn’t right!” I was furious at this ghost accusing me of “not seeing my family”. It was awful to watch. How could I ever just avoid my family… my sister.


“Look, there is still time. Go home and finish your sleep. When you wake up, you won’t quite remember me but you will feel how you want to now.” Again she grabbed my arm and within seconds I was fast asleep.


“I woke up early to my alarm clock. It was 6 am, as usually and my mom and sister were already getting dressed. Here we go, time to start a bright, new day I tried to convince myself. When I stumbled out of my room and saw Grace down the hallway, I smiled and something in side of me, kind of a warmth, flooded me. I think they call that love.


On our walk to school, I wasn’t annoyed or bothered, like normal. Instead, was peaceful and I tried to appreciate the time I had with Grace. As we were walking, a car turned around, a familiar car It was the black slug bug. I looked at Grace with a smile on my face and said, “Go ahead, hit me.”