Nine years old. A June day. No school.
I was out in the front yard, the sprinkler spraying wildly as my sister jumped higher and higher, screaming in delight in her orange swimsuit. Towel wrapped around my shoulders, I slinked off, hair drenched, letting the sun soak into my skin. It felt so good.
Still, I knew soon Dad was going to come out shrieking about all the water we were wasting. The fun wouldn’t last. It never did.
I walked along the fence, a white fence with flaking paint. My nail scratched at one of the long, peeling strips, fascinated. I wondered how long of a strip I could get off. I picked at it with my fingernail as my sister, still laughing, dashed back and forth, back and forth.
I looked to the street, trying to avoid what I knew was coming – yelling father, crying sister, fun ruined.
It was pathetic-looking really, the mangy excuse for a dog. Its fur was dirty and matted. It shivered and shook, its tiny body violently quaking. It shook so much it could barely put one foot in front of the other on the empty street. It was pitiful.
Without thinking, I dashed out onto the road. The curly-haired dog stared at me, still shaking. I approached it gingerly.
‘Hey,’ I said, scooching down to the dog, noticing it didn’t have a collar. I thought maybe I could save it. Suddenly, I felt lifted somehow. At nine, I’d found my summer’s purpose. I was going to save the tiny dog.
It was good to feel needed.
In the middle of the street, the sound of my sister and the sprinkler still going on like an endless song on the radio, I reached my hand out, wanting to pet the dog, craving the instant connection with another being. I could already picture it, our days on the porch, our nights cuddled up in bed. But before I could seal the deal and stroke the cowering dog, a shooting, ripping pain shredded my hand. Its teeth sunk in. It was like a pain I’d never felt, a sawing, slashing pain. It burned.
It burned so much, I thought I was dying. I thought it was certainly what the end felt like.
The dog still attached, I shook my hand and kicked out of pain. My sister’s shrieks of laughter were replaced with my screams of horror and agony. She rushed over, the dog having now let go of my hand. Blood dripped, and I studied the creature, still crouched down on the road, in shock.
I heard the screen door fling open; Dad’s boots stomped on the faulty, rickety porch.
‘What the hell?’ he bellowed, and suddenly it wasn’t my hurting hand that terrified me so much.
‘Get out of here,’ I screamed at the dog, who scampered off in the opposite distance. I wanted it gone, needed all evidence of it to disappear before he got to me.
I clutched my hand to my chest, warm, sticky blood slapping against my skin as I watched the creature scuttle off. Tears welled in my eyes, but I wiped them away, getting blood on my face.
Dad dashed over. ‘What were you thinking? You can’t just pet a goddamn random dog,’ he gruffly announced, grabbing my shoulder to take a closer look at the damage to my hand.
My sister stood nearby in her swimsuit, her hair still soaking wet. The sprinkler was still running, I noted. He was going to be mad.
‘I told her not to pet the doggy, Daddy. She didn’t listen,’ my sister sweetly offered, that sickeningly sugary smile I’d come to hate flashing up at my dad. Two years youngers. The baby of the family. The treasure of the family.
‘You did not,’ I argued.
My sister cried as my hand continued to pulse. Her tears were huge, cascading from her gorgeous blue eyes.
My dad pulled her in closer, in comfort.
‘Daddy, it’s so scary. Why did she do this? I’m scared now. I don’t ever want to go outside again,’ she whimpered through tears.
Her tears were fake; I could tell. She knew even then how to be an actress, how to manipulate, even at her age.
I grasped my hand to my chest, the blood still warm. I felt woozy now, standing on the street and watching everything flicker in and out.
‘Look what you’ve done,’ he announced, his words chillingly calm and quiet. He glared at me, his gaze stabbing into me as his chest heaved in anger. ‘You moron. Look what you’ve done. Your sister’s traumatised. Is that what you wanted? To scare her? To torture her? You’re supposed to be the older sister, the smart one. But you’re nothing but a worthless dumbass. Do you know how much we’re going to have to pay for this? Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? Get the hell in the truck.’
I shivered, both from the pain and from the terror of Dad’s words.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered through tears. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Get the hell in the truck, now,’ he roared, his arm still wrapped around my sister as he led her into the house. I watched for a long moment as they walked around the water of the sprinkler. I glanced at the blood dripping onto the pavement, at the peeling white fence, at my mangled hand.
There was no one to put an arm around my shoulders, no one to dry my tears.
As my dad led my sister into the house to get his keys, she turned back to me, gave me that smug seven-year-old smile. She grinned so wide, the grin that said she always got the attention, always got what she wanted.
I inhaled wildly, the pain nothing against the feeling bubbling in my chest. I didn’t know what it was, but I recognised it as an angry, churning sensation I’d felt before. And then, like an epiphany, the word came to me, blood smeared on my shirt as I stomped towards the truck: hate.
I hated her with everything that I was. And I knew that she had to be taught a lesson.
I just needed to wait for the right moment.