section two

Andrew picked himself up off the ground and ran towards the house, it was only across the street but Andrew wasn’t smart enough to look both ways to make sure that there weren’t any cars coming down the road. “Andrew, stop!” I screamed out to him. Miraculously, he stopped, but only for a second. That second was enough for me to catch up to him though, when you had an autistic sibling you worked on a different time scale. You could run faster and longer, jump higher, hear better. Don’t be fooled, the super powers didn’t make it any better. It sucked.

I grabbed Andrew’s hand. “You don’t cross the street by yourself. You’ll get hit by a car.”

“No thank you,” Andrew said politely. Except he wasn’t trying to be polite, it was what his therapist called a “learned response.” In other words, it meant very little. Notebook and little brother in hand I went home to find Mom dragging groceries out of the car in a frustrated manner, as if she had had to deal with an autistic kid for the past hour when she had way more important things to do. Things like complete homework for a mandatory class that would get her the hell out of this hellhole. No, she got to be in the peace and quiet of a grocery store. What a terrible life to lead. Boo hoo.

She noted Andrew’s wrinkled and red face. “Why is he upset?” After nine years of this I should have ceased to be surprised that she still asked these questions, but I really wasn’t.

“I don’t know, Mom, I don’t speak autistic. I’m working on it.” I passed his hand off to hers and picked up two bags of groceries glad to be free of my charge until I was contracted again. I shoved the food in to the pantry and fridge, Andrew’s medicine in to the drawer next to the sink.

“You know, Brigitte, you don’t need to give me attitude. I asked you to watch your brother, that’s not too much to ask for.”

“I have homework and Kendra wanted to go to the mall to find something for her date on Friday night and I couldn’t do that with her. I don’t know how you expect me to turn out normal, I deserve a social life.”

“You’re brother is autistic,” oh, pulling the autism card, Mom, how original, “your father and I both work, it is not to much to expect you to help out a little.”

“So, my life is just supposed to suck because we got loaded with the gift basket of weird?”

Mom pursed her lips together and did something that removed all the wrinkles in her; if she would let go of her breath steam would come out of her ears. It happened once. And then she said the words that had had little effect on me since the age of eight, “Go. To. Your. Room.”

I managed to turn around before rolling my eyes, which was really an improvement on my part. I silently patted myself on the back, picked up my homework and went to my room. Clean and free of any sign that Andrew was Mr. Autism thanks to the heavy lock that I had had to beg my parents for, I had to get my therapist involved before they relented though.

“Andrew just wants to hang around his cool older sister, lovebug,” Dad said in a weak attempt to soothe me after Andrew decimated my science project.

“Andrew,” I started slowly, “wants to ruin my life,” I clearly enunciated each and every word because they obviously weren’t grasping the problem. “He wrecked my universe.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Mom sighed exasperatedly.

I looked down at the styrofoam balls that were once Jupiter and Venus, “I’m not.”

The therapist explained that it was important for me to feel like there was a place where I “could get away from everything, a place where Brigitte could just be Brigitte teenage girl and not Brigitte older sister to Andrew.” He spouted more therapeutical nonsense and I got the lock on the inside of my door. You would have thought I asked for clearance passes to Area 51.

“Channel Five at 7:30,” Andrew continued repeating. It wasn’t like he really needed to be doubtful, he watched Wheel every night at 7:30 without fail. We even had episodes on the TiVo just in case there was a game or a speech of some sort on. When you have an autistic brother you know how to make backup plans.

I threw myself on to my bed and pulled out my basket of food from under my bed; bread, crunchy peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. The dinner of champions and fifteen-year-old girls. I looked down at the nearly empty page for my essay. It was due in a month so I had plenty of time, but when it came to fabricating what your family was you needed to take all the time you could.

“WE DON’T EAT APPLES!” Andrew’s screaming knew no boundaries.

I picked up my pencil and finished my sentence from earlier.

My family is screwed up.

word count: 870 (124 words short)

grand total: 1,876