Six

I sense a disturbance in the force, Katie thinks before looking up from the story she’s reading on her computer. Her cousins are arguing, each making his or her case in front of Katie and her sister, trying to talk over each other. Her sister is trying to listen, but Katie had been unconsciously drowning them out. They’d just been upstairs cleaning their rooms, but they must have stopped long enough in order to get into a fight.

“Okay, okay. That will do! What the heck is this all about?” Katie says over the cacophony, snapping the laptop lid closed.

“She stole my car!” the little boy accused.

“It’s my car,” says the girl.

“No!”

“Yeeeees!”

“Stop! Enough. Both of you,” Katie adds as the girl starts to open her mouth in protest. The girl is holding the car, a red and black matchbox car. “Time to go all King Solomon on this thing. Dude, what did you name the car?”

The boy crosses his arms and glares at her, pouting. “Why would I name a car? That’s silly!”

“Are you kidding? That’s like the number one guy thing to do with cars.” Katie’s sister says, backing her up. Unfortunately, his expression does not change. The light-hearted tactic isn’t going to work today; it’s always a long shot.

“Did you name it?” Katie asks the girl.

“I’m not a guy.”

And yet you are fighting with your brother over Hotwheels. Katie is distracted from her snark as the two siblings start talking over each other again.

“ENOUGH!” Wrath of Katie time. “Give me the car,” The little girl starts to protest, but gives it to Katie after receiving a don’t-mess-with-me-or-else look. “Now, I think everyone is hungry right now, and I know everything is more dramatic when you’re hungry. So, I’m going to keep this car with me while I make lunch. We will deal with the car situation in two hours after everyone has been fed and started digesting. Okay?”

Both of the children protest, but the boy protests the loudest.

“Listen, the only way to be fair to both of you is for me to keep the car until we sort through this. I want to be fair, so neither can have the car right now. Okay, buddy?”

“Fine,” he grumbles.

“Good. Now, both of you go back to your rooms and clean. I’ll holler when lunch is ready.”

The boy does as she says, but the girl hangs back.

“Okay, you can give me the car back now,” she says in hushed tones, holding her hand out to Katie.

“No, sweetie. I meant it. I am going to be fair.”

The girl stares at her, hand still outstretched.

“Go clean. Now.”

The girl blinks, turns, and trudges back up the stairs to her room to digest what happened.

“Dang, you are mean,” says Katie’s sister.

“I know, but she doesn’t care about the car. She’s bored and trying to get a rise out of him. I’m not putting up with that. If she’s bored she can clean, that’s what I had to do when I was her age and tormenting you.”

Her sister nods.

“Besides, they aren’t going to remember that I’m supposed to fix this in two hours anyways.”

“Clever.”

Katie shrugs, hoping she’s right. She gets up and puts lunch on, two small frozen pizzas, before returning to her laptop. Facebook has three new notifications: a friend liking her status, a friend request, and a message. Katie ignores the like, notes that the friend request is from Him and pauses only a moment before confirming the “friendship.” She swallows down her emotions, turning her attention to the message. It’s a note from her best friend newly returned from a North Carolina Christmas trip. The message is sweet and supportive and Katie wishes her friend were sitting next to her on the couch so she could give her a giant hug.

“Is that from Esther?” Katie’s sister asks, leaning over her shoulder.

“Yep.”

“Did she survive her trip with the million children?”

“There aren’t a million,” Katie says automatically.

Esther does have several siblings, six to be specific, and only one of which is older. Katie wonders how Esther would have handled a squabbling eleven and nine year old. In becoming a mixed family, Katie has realized she is now a brand new older sister for her cousins. She’s used to bossing and being in charge of her own sister, but for years they’d been close to equals. Katie knows she doesn’t control her sister in most areas, so she doesn’t try. The age gap between her and her cousins is proving difficult. She is seven years the superior to the girl, and nine to the boy. I’m the Mr. Darcy to their Georgiana, she thinks. Discipline is a challenge because she wants to strike a balance between playmate and responsible party. Her performance has made the children meek as they clean their rooms, and her girl cousin is downright offended that her partner-in-crime didn’t take her side.

I need my Charlotte Lucas. Oh, but I’m Mr. Darcy. And Esther is way smarter than Charlotte anyways. She’s my Jane? Okay, I have to be Lizzy, this just isn’t going to work out otherwise. But Jane wasn’t awesome like Esther. Maybe this is Sense and Sensibilities instead and I’m Colonel Brandon, my cousins are Marianne, and Esther is Elinor. I always loved Elinor.

The parallel is nearer to correct, but still off, so Katie abandons the thought. Reaching into her pants pocket she pulls out the matchbox car, placing it on a shelf by the kitchen sink. After lunch the kids have all but forgotten “Mean Katie” and are begging her to play.

When Katie gets a glass of water before bed that night she sees the car on the shelf and smiles. Mission accomplished. The kids never once asked her about the toy again. Maybe Katie is ready to be a big sister again after all.