I was having flashbacks about the frog’s tiny, unbeating heart while I did my homework: a diagram of the dissection, complete with labelled organs.
“Allison, come and set the table please,” called Mum, just as I finished the small intestine.
“I’m not hungry,” I yelled back. “I think I’ll skip dinner.”
“Stop shouting,” shouted Larrie through her closed bedroom door. “We’re trying to study.”
I closed my folder and headed for the kitchen, knowing Mum’d do her nut if Larrie complained twice.
“Set for five,” said Mum. “Beth’s staying for dinner.”
I groaned. It wasn’t that I minded Larrie’s geekgirl best friend (even though she was equally brilliant academically and twice as boring socially as my sister, Beth was nice enough in her quiet, supernerd way), but Larrie was ten times worse when she had an audience.
“I don’t see why I have to do everything around here,” I said, grabbing a fistful of knives and forks and slamming the cutlery drawer closed. “Larrie eats as much as I do and makes as much mess as I do.”
“You know how important your sister’s final exams are.” Mum was using her let’s-try-to-be-reasonable-and-if-that-doesn’t-work-I’m-going-to-lecture-you voice. “The marks to get into a Vet Science degree are very high, so we all need to let Larissa concentrate on studying.”
“You and Dad have been saying that all year! It’s as if I only exist to make Larrie’s life easier. I’m like one of those kids who’s born to have their organs harvested for a sick sibling.”
“Don’t be disgusting, Allison. I’m sure when Larissa’s finished her exams she’ll repay the favour and do some of your chores.”
Yeah, right. Like Larrie was going to clean our bathroom and take out the garbage and do my laundry. She had Mum and Dad as fooled as the teachers were.
It had been like this since the first day of the school year, when Larrie rushed home and stuck her class timetable and assorted extracurricular activity calendars over every square centimetre of the fridge, and announced that she wouldn’t have a minute to spare for anything else until after her final exams. When Mum and Dad asked what they could do to support her, she said that it would relieve a lot of her stress if she didn’t have to worry about “trivial things” like housework. So the weekly chore roster was amended and my name was written in every space that Larrie’s had occupied. I tried to protest, but Larrie burst into tears and told Mum that I wanted her to fail Year Twelve so she’d know how I felt at school.
Once she’d offloaded her chores, Larrie moved to part B of her plan to make my life suck. It was cunning in its simplicity: every time I did something she didn’t want me to – like listening to music in my room, talking to my friends on the phone or relaxing in the bath in our shared bathroom – she’d give me one chance to stop doing whatever it was, and if I didn’t, she’d call Mum or Dad to make me.
It was blatantly unfair, but our parents were so blinded by Larrie’s academic honours and glowing report cards and shiny trophies that they couldn’t see it. I clung to the hope that once the Year Twelve exams were over life at 59 Dixon Street, Kingston would return to some semblance of normality, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Larrie and Beth deigned to join us five minutes after dinner was on the table. Mum had been telling me about Mr Bishop from the Kingston deli coming into the medical centre she manages with a boil the size of an orange, but, as usual, once Larrie sat down the topic of conversation turned to her.
“I got top marks in the Biology assessment test,” she bragged, carefully selecting the crispiest roast potatoes before passing the bowl to Beth. “Ms Morales thinks I might make the state’s top ten for the final exam.”
“That’s my girl,” said Dad, beaming with pride. “They’ll be fighting over you when university offers come out.”
“We’re doing biology in Science at the moment,” I said to remind Dad that he had more than one “girl”. “Today we were dissecting frogs and Maz and Prad dropped theirs and its stomach exploded all over the floor.”
“Allison, that’s not an appropriate topic for the dinner table,” snapped Mum, who’s as fanatical as Brandy about being “appropriate” at all times. If she hadn’t trained as a nurse she’d have made an excellent etiquette teacher. It didn’t help that Mum reckoned Maz was part of the reason my marks weren’t better, since they began to drop around the time Maz started at Whitlam. If Mum had her way, I’d be best friends with a Beth-clone.
Larrie seized my dressing-down as an opportunity to turn the conversation back to her. “Beth and I made a new study timetable for the exams. We’re going to do six to eight hours every single day of the study break, with regular breaks for exercise, meditation and fun.”
Ugh. Only my sister could schedule “fun”. Mum and Dad beamed, offering each other silent congratulations on having such a studious elder daughter. If anyone noticed me spearing my peas with such force that a few flew off my plate, they didn’t let on.
After dinner Beth helped me clear the table (even though Mum told her not to worry about it) while Larrie performed her nightly ritual of crossing off another square on the calendar, counting down to her first exam. “Three weeks to go,” she announced.
I kept a countdown of my own – to when Larrie’s exams finished and she’d be out of my school life forever. Five weeks and three days. Thirty-eight days until Whitlam would stop seeing me as Larrie’s little sister and start appreciating the real Al Miller. I hoped I could last that long.
After I’d finished the dishes and taken out the garbage and put the vegie scraps on the compost, I went to my prison cell bedroom and logged on to Facebook to see what people who had a life outside of being their sister’s slave had been doing.
Maryanne Dekker found a bit of frog in her hair. Ack.
Simon Lutz is officially a learner driver.
Prad Chandarama is trying to explain to his parents that hot lead singers don’t need to finish high school.
Nicko Nickson beat Prad’s high score on Guitar Hero – w00t!
I mentally added the status update I would’ve posted if I didn’t think most of Whitlam High would see it:
Al Miller wishes she was an only child.