by Shady Grim
“If yeh think she’s bad, yeh should try livin’ with my mom.” Ethan’s mother was so overprotective that if he didn’t have so many younger siblings to keep her busy, she’d still have him in diapers. She was the middle sister which, of course, leaves my mother as the oldest sister. I had the dubious fortune of being the only child of an oldest child who was married to a youngest child. The situation was a psychologist’s dream, although I must admit that I’ve always felt that Ethan had it the worst as the oldest child of two very selfish middle children.
Dinner was a pleasant affair, as it always was for my family. It was the time when everyone talked about their day. Immediately after dinner was the time for storytelling and jokes if members of the older generation were present. We children would sit on the floor at their feet and listen with relish to their tall tales. My mother never ceased to be amazed by the amount of food that Ethan could eat, and remarked on it frequently during the meal. After dinner, we prepared ourselves for bed. Rachel and I shared the same bedroom, and Ethan was in the bedroom next to us...at least for a while. About an hour or so after we went to bed, there came a light knock on the bedroom door.
“Are yeh guys still awake?” whispered Ethan, poking his head around the door. I could just see the silhouette of his head and shoulder around the edge of the door. He didn’t wait for an answer as he entered and quietly closed the door behind him.
“What’s the matter?”
“Don’t let ‘im in. He’s not supposed to be in here.”
“You don’t care about rules any other time, Rachel.”
“Okay, fine! But yer takin’ the blame for this if we get in trouble.”
“Can I sleep in here tonight? I think my room’s haunted. I heard noises and stuff.” He laid his sleeping bag on the floor between our beds while he spoke. He didn’t wait for an answer as he plopped his pillow down and got himself settled.
“Sissy!” laughed Rachel.
“Shut up, Rae!” I said. “Yeah, you can sleep in here.” That was the start of a nightly ritual that was followed by an hour or two of Ethan asking, “What’s that sound?”; “Did yeh hear that too?”; “Did yeh see somethin’ move?”, and “What was that noise outside?”
All of which I patiently, but sleepily responded to with, “It’s just the house settling. Old houses are creaky.”; “No, I didn’t hear anything.”; “No, I didn’t see anything move.”; “There are no ghosts in here.”, and “It’s just a wild animal; please go to sleep.”
It was customary for me to help with yard work and cleaning up the house after it being empty for so many months. Since there were three of us this time, we all had to pitch in. It didn’t take long for the novelty of constant companionship to wear off. I was given to busying myself in the greenhouse with the plants my mother always brought with her and having privacy whenever I wanted it. Rachel was accustomed to being her own and everyone else’s boss. Although my parents were liberal in many ways, it’s difficult for a child whose only rule was to avoid her mother’s frequently changing moods to conform to even a few small restrictions. Ethan was accustomed to having chores to do and, as the oldest of eight children, was used to a noisy and crowded house. Being in the huge old house of ours with no babies crying or toddlers running around was a welcome change to him. My mother, fed up with our bickering, freed us from our servitude and sent us off to play a few hours before dinner. This was the beginning of our summer vacation. It would be an eternity before we would have to go back to school. We were as close to Nirvana as ten-year-olds could get. The only thing on our minds was adventure. The only problem was in agreeing on what that particular adventure would be. As usual, I was the mediator; the voice of reason trying to bring peace between my less pragmatic companions. It’s a thankless job and one which, over the course of my life, I have learned to avoid.
“Let’s go hikin’,” offered Ethan.
“Oh yeah, great! We can play in the dirt!” said Rachel with her customary biting mockery. “There’s nothin’ to do here. This town’s nothin’ but bucktoothed yokels. They don’t even have a mall.” Rachel was a first-class thief and would much rather spend her time shoplifting than being close to nature. She didn’t like to sweat, she hated bugs and snakes, and most of all she hated to walk or do anything that resembled work.
“We could go swimming,” I offered.
“We did that this morning!” she yelled, poking her face into mine.
“I wanna go hikin’,” repeated Ethan with growing impatience.
“Who cares what you want? We always do what you want.” Rachel would’ve poked her face into his as she had done to me but for the fact that he was bouncing around so much there was virtually no way to catch him.
“Do not!” he yelled back at her, which instantly started a fight. She shoved him, he shoved her back, and I tried to get between them. I got punched in the face and fat lip for my trouble, which immediately prompted a stunned apology from Ethan and a chuckle from Rae. “I’m sorry. Are yeh okay, Heather? Look what yeh did, Rae. Yeh could at least say yer sorry.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for ‘er help. Stay outta my way next time.”
“It’ll be getting dark soon,” I said. “Maybe we should stay close to the house.”
“All we’ve done is stay close to the house and fix it up for yer lazy parents. I think that’s why they brought us here...for slave labor.” She realized that her statements weren’t going to provoke any further arguments so she moved on to another tactic. “I’d like to do something before I die.”
“There’s still the hikin’,” repeated Ethan, his eyes twinkling with humor as they always did when he was in a devilish mood.
Rachel threw up her hands in defeat and shouted, “Oh, alright! We’ll go hikin’, yeh pain in the ass!”
“What if it gets dark and we can’t find our way?” I said.
“We won’t be out that long and just in case we are, we can just keep the water to our right and follow it back out if we get lost.” Ethan shrugged his shoulders at me in the way that he always did when he thought I was being unusually dim. Who could argue with such ironclad logic? So off we went down the first trail we saw. We didn’t stop until we noticed a large amount of litter strewn across the ground. After looking around more closely, we noticed some used condoms and a large amount of empty beer cans circling what was once a campfire. This was obviously a favorite haunt of local miscreants.
Ethan stooped to pick up one of the condoms. “What’s this?”
“Gross! Put it down, Ethan!” I didn’t know what it was either, but I wasn’t willing to touch it. Rachel was our source for information about sex, and she was accurate most of the time.
“It’s a rubber, dumbass.” Rachel was never one to disappoint when it came to divulging forbidden information.
“Don’t call me that!” He picked up his fist in a mock threat. He turned to me and asked, “What’s a rubber?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think you should be touching it.”
Rachel laughed heartily at our ignorance and took the opportunity to show off her vast knowledge of the immoral. She explained, in detail, how and why condoms were used. I thought the explanation was thoroughly repulsive, but Ethan thought it was “cool.” Because of his profound interest in the ground litter, we decided to put some distance between us and the party site. We found our way back to a fork in the trail, but we couldn’t agree on which was the one we had followed. Before the argument became serious, we caught sight of some furry animal and went chasing after it. The anonymous woodland creature was, at first, somewhat tolerant of our attentions and was content to stay just beyond our reach. It lazily dodged our advances for a time, but eventually tired of the three rambunctious juveniles chasing behind it. It disappeared amongst the thorny brush when we lost sight of it and, once again, our way.
“I think it was a rabbit,” said Ethan.
“It was a skunk,” corrected Rachel.
“It was not!” he argued.
“It was!” she insisted.
“Heather, what do yeh think it was?”
“Oh right, ask her. She always has all the answers. It was a skunk, you moron!”
“It was not a skunk, they smell!” he yelled back at her.
“So do you, but yeh don’t hear me yellin’ about it.” Ethan’s impulsive streak emerged, and he punched her on the arm. She cried so piteously that he felt badly and apologized to her. She punched him back and ran away with Ethan close behind her. I followed at a short distance, anticipating the fight to end up in a patch of poison ivy. Rachel was the only one not allergic to it, so she made a point of steering us into it whenever she could. Miraculously, something caught their attention and the fight was forgotten. We stood looking down a steep sapling-lined slope and into the lake that had been right next to us only moments ago. It looked to our young minds to be miles away. We stood at the very edge looking down in awe.
“How big a drop do yeh think that is?”
“Why don’t yeh go find out?” spat Rachel as she lunged forward and slammed all of her weight into Ethan’s back. I rushed to grab him and missed as he lurched forward losing his footing. Thankfully, he was agile and managed to grab onto one of the many saplings that lined the slope. He swung his body around the tree and landed his feet safely on the ground, kicking Rachel in the thigh in the process. I swiftly turned and grabbed the front of her t-shirt and said through clenched teeth, “Pull something like that again, and I’ll throw you down there!”
“Oooo, I’m sooo scared!” She never liked to admit when she was intimidated, but I could see the fear in her eyes. She knew that I was stronger than her, and she was afraid to push me too far. Her defiance began to waver as she looked into my eyes. Her deflated tone and demeanor reflected her temporary subjugation. “I was only kidding. I didn’t mean to push so hard.”
“You shouldn’t have pushed him at all!” I snapped. “Why would you do something like that?”
She ignored me and spoke to Ethan. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.” He was too shaken to fight with her, and I thought it best not to push things. He stood bent over with his hand on his knee, breathing heavily. He clutched the front of his shirt with his other hand.
“It looks to be about fifty feet to me,” I said as I turned my attention back to him.
“Hey look, there’re some canoeists,” said Ethan and proceeded to shout and wave at them. The canoeists responded in kind, and Ethan and I hollered and waved until they were out of sight.
Rachel quickly tired of being friendly and moved to a safe distance away from the cliff’s edge and sat on the ground. She picked up a couple of sticks lying on the ground next to her and began rubbing them together. “Let’s use these sticks to make a fire.” She looked at the pair of sticks in her hands with a malevolent glint in her eyes. She was passionately fond of fire and could sit virtually immobile in front of a fireplace for hours. Whether the fireplace was light or not, it still held the same mesmerizing attraction for her. My parents often whispered about how abnormal it was, but we children paid no attention to it.
“No way,” I said.
“I don’t know how,” said Ethan, and I wanted to choke him for encouraging her.
“Just rub ‘em together. I saw it on TV.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said, trying to discourage her.
“Yeh know how?” said Ethan.
“Yeah, my dad showed me.”
“Then prove it,” demanded Rachel, slapping the sticks against my bare leg.
“Not a chance,” I said as I backed away from her and the sting of those heavy sticks.
“If yeh know how, then why don’t yeh prove it?”
“Because I’m not a pyro like you. Besides there are dry leaves and twigs all over the place. We could start a forest fire.”
“Fine! You guys go play some baby game while I practice.”
Rachel sat on the ground with her sticks in hand, trying very hard to create some friction. Ethan and I decided to move well away from her and discussed what we would do next. Hide-and-seek was Ethan’s favorite game. I suppose it gave him an excuse to be in almost constant motion while still using his imagination, which is why “tag” wasn’t the top game on his list of fun things to do. Although he could run free while playing tag, the game became rather monotonous after a while with kids just running in circles trying to avoid each other. In hide-and-seek, one could make use of explosive spontaneity and then calm down enough to use some deductive abilities, which was generally a plan that perfectly suited Ethan’s temperament. The only drawback to this endlessly entertaining game was deciding who would go first. I felt that drawing lots and such was a shameful waste of time, so I was more than happy to go first for just about anything. Ethan, however, would never simply accept a volunteer as there were rules to follow and traditions to be adhered to. After several minutes of, “Let’s flip a coin,” and “Best two out of three,” and “Does rock beat paper? Because it’s heavy and should be able to sit on the paper,” I demanded to go first. He was a bad-tempered loser and became furious when he couldn’t find me, so I coughed and he gloated over his win. He hid next and I found him easily because he was sniffing his eternally runny nose. He was angry that I found him in less time than it took for him to find me. Thankfully, I had a reprieve from his temper as he decided to quit the game. He busied himself with throwing rocks to see if he could hit the water down below. As I was amusing myself with studying some colorful caterpillar, I suddenly realized that Rachel had disappeared.
“Hey, Ethan!” I called.
“What?” he mumbled back, without taking his attention away from his solitary game.
“Did you see where Rachel went?”
He turned to me and shrugged his shoulders in that all too familiar way of his and answered, “Like I care where she went.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I didn’t see ‘er. Wow! Did yeh see how far that one went?” He pointed at the splashes down below.
“We better look for her.”
“Why?”
“You’re not funny, Ethan,” I said a little too snappishly. I was fed-up with the banter.
“Just leave ‘er. She wouldn’t go lookin’ for yeh.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s getting dark and we should be going home.”
“Alright, I’ll look for ‘er!” He threw the remainder of his rocks on the ground in disgust and stamped past me to search through some shrubbery. He quickly tired of searching and took to smacking the same set of bushes with a small stick while blankly staring to space. I really wasn’t in any great hurry to find her either, so I absentmindedly stared up at the canopy thinking how beautiful it looked and wishing I’d brought a camera with me. I suddenly realized how quiet it had become, and it made my back tingle. The birds had stopped singing, and the squirrels that had been chasing each other up and down an old maple tree only moments ago were now gone from sight. Twilight was coming on and the animals should have been noisily bedding down for the evening and the next shift preparing to take over. The stillness was supernatural. It felt like a cemetery at midnight.
“Do you hear that?” I whispered.
“Nope, don’t hear nothin’,” he answered mechanically, still smacking the bushes.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” I said with a swallow. Already I was attempting to scan the woodland in front of me for any signs of danger. I attempted to retain my relaxed position so as not to alarm a would-be stalker of my shift in attention.
“What?” he said, screwing up his face in bewilderment.
“The birds aren’t chirping and the squirrels are gone,” I said softly, thinking he’d get the message.
“Well, we probbly scared ‘em away.”
“All the noise we made didn’t bother them. Why would being quiet suddenly scare them?” My nervousness was beginning to show and, finally, he understood. Ethan stopped beating the bushes and moved closer to me, letting the stick fall to the grou
nd.
“Maybe some big animal scared ‘em off.” He was trying to be reasonable, but it just wasn’t his area of expertise. He relied on me to be the observant one. I always had the honor of bearing all the bad news. I had to be the one to think of all the reasons why something was impossible or irrational, and I always had the burden of thinking up an alternative solution. Ethan was the bearer of light. He claimed the rights to all the positives, whether real or imagined. He would inflate his over-sized imagination, and I had the task of making it bulletproof.
“Why would another animal make the birds stop singing? That doesn’t make any sense,” I replied, still looking for any sign of movement.
“Yeh know what?” he said with a relieved smile. “It’s probbly Rachel pullin’ somethin’.”
“Even Rachel couldn’t scare away everything.” We both stood motionless, looking for any sign of movement and trying to find a logical explanation for the suddenly silent wildlife. Then we heard a twig snap.
“It doesn’t sound too close,” he whispered–another crunch.
“Whoever it is, is moving toward us,” I whispered back. For a few seconds we froze in our spots, I was thinking, and he was panicking. He was by no means a coward. Ethan was completely incapable of independent thinking during a crisis, but had the amazing ability to follow any given instructions to the letter, even if following those instructions put him in the path of danger. When given a task, all that was in his mind was to complete that task and all other information was extraneous. He was quite capable of facing something that terrified him. The problem was how to face it while still maintaining a margin of safety. That was the domain of the thinker, my domain.