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Tim was a terrible brother.
He was always messing things up with his happy-go-lucky attitude.
I don’t think he even knew what the word ‘responsibility’ meant.
To be fair, he was seven. But that didn’t mean that he was any less
of a pain.
Like just last week when we were at the supermarket:
‘Tim, could you grab the eggs?’
Crash. Something small and oily hit the back of my leg.
‘Sur-re, in a second.’
I turned around from the shelf to see whatever was currently
taking up his short attention span, not expecting something great. I
wasn’t disappointed.
‘Tim,’ I said carefully. ‘Whatcha doin’?’
‘Nothing.’ He was hiding the majority of the mess with his small
back. I waited.
He turned around and with the most earnest look he couldmanage
he said: ‘I’ll clean it up, I swear! Don’t worry, brother.’ To anyone else,
the puppy-eyed look may have worked, but I knew better.
Inspecting the scene, three things caught my eye: olives flung in
every corner of the aisle; Tim mopping up the mess with the jumper
I bought him yesterday; and shards of a broken glass jar just laying
haphazardly in the general wreckage zone. His favourite stuffed frog
was tucked safely under his arm.
After calling staff, cleaning him up and apologising profusely to
anyone who passed, I asked him what on earth he was doing with
the olive jar.
He simply replied, ‘George McFroggy wanted olives for dinner,’
as if that was perfectly sound reasoning.
He was always doing stuff like that.
Even though I understood the reason why I needed to take him
everywhere, I didn’t understand why he had to always make life so
hard for me. My father tells me that he doesn’t have time to deal
with us, but even so, he doesn’t realise the pain I go through everyday
by having Tim around.
Like when I’m trying to study, Tim barges into my room and
starts singing obnoxiously loudly about whatever he thinks will help
me finish my work. Which usually means Taylor Swift or food.
He jumps on my back at the most inopportune times, like when
I’m serving someone at my waiting job, or chucks his frog in my face
and asks me to play with him.
Olive Jars,
Guinea Pigs &
Taylor Swift
Adeline Trieu
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