Brains and Brawn

'Don't you just HATE older brothers, always pushing you around and annoying you? I sure do sometimes, *sigh,* like now.' "What do you want now Devon?" I asked him after he started carrying me by the shirt to the point where I wasn't in my seat.

(Before you ask, it is NOT MY FAULT I'm so light and don't eat like a pig or my brother all the time!)

"You still owe me $5, so I me decided to be a 'nice brother' and let you know so that you could tell me where your wallet is, " my brother tried to sound sincere, but I could tell if I let him get the money himself he would likely leave $5 and take the rest of my savings. "Then I could then get the money myself so that you can keep working on, whatever that thing is you're working on."

"If you leave the room, I will get you your $4.95 from last week," I replied, giving him a 'seriously?' look. "Remember last time, I'd saved up $200 and you stole and spent all of it? YOU still haven't started paying for that, and I can't suddenly trust you a week after you do something that serious. Got it?"

"Awe come on sis, you can trust me. I'm in a trustworthy mood today!" He smiled at me, but I reaction didn't change. "Ugh, fine. I'll be outside."

"Thank you," I gave him a tiny smile letting him know I appreciated his 'cooperation' and got up from my cluttered desk's chair. Putting my journal away, I walked over towards my closet shortly before seeing the door open a crack. Of course there was my brother, watching me through it to find out where my money is. I'm glad I mislead him like that, the spot I've put my wallet under my mattress is ingenious!

After slamming the door, almost on his fingers, I got his $4.95 in change from the $20 I had and gave it to him. "$4.95, cheapskate," he muttered on his way back to his room. I then walked back to my desk, found my pencil underneath some other papers and kept on writing other stories all afternoon.

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"Hurry up Cece, it's nearly 8!" Yelled my brother at me through the bathroom door as I got out of the shower I had been in for 3 minutes.

"I'm going as fast as I can," I said back through the door, "it's not my fault I got up earlier then you to write and snagged the bathroom first."

"Why are you so obsessed with writing that stupid book anyways?" He dared say, making me furious with rage at his insulting comment!

"What do you MEAN stupid?! Books are not stupid, people who don't read them like you are! At least I have a hobby that will get me a job one day," I snapped, "unlike yours. I mean, wrestling? When will that ever help you in life unless some criminal tackles you?"

"I will have you know that wrestling is-"

He was cut off by my mother yelling from downstairs: "STOP THE YELLING YOU TWO, COME EAT BREAKFAST ALREADY!" I opened the bathroom door having brushed my teeth, showered and gotten dressed. Rolling my eyes at my brother, I headed down our white, carpet-soft stairs towards the dining room where we all always sat to eat.

About 10 minutes later, once we had all finished eating breakfast, Devon FINALLY decides to show up downstairs at the table. My mom got him a plate, put some eggs on it, and started his toast.

"What made you so late getting down here?"I asked.

(He was a night showerer, meaning he only had to brush his teeth in the bathroom for two minutes and get dressed in his room daily.)

"Somebody hid my toothbrush and I couldn't find it," he responded, looking at me like I was the one who did it. (It was me)

"In sorry to hear that," I lied, "where did you end up finding it?"

This brother of a wolf was ready to pounce, but my parents were still in the room. Thank gosh. "That's the thing, I didn't find it. So I just used yours..."

"WHAT?!" I loudly gasped in horror! "Mom, can I have a new toothbrush please?" My parents both chuckled, and my mom nodded her head. I managed to walk upstairs and retrieve my stuff without throwing up, but then I saw the time; 8:01. "WE'RE LATE!"

Nearly falling down the stairs, I straight up sprinted them taking three at a time! I grabbed my lunch from the fridge, put on my light blue runners and dashed outside, Devon close behind with his toast. The bus was there, as well as my best friend in the door. Jena usually starts to stall the bus driver after not seeing me onboard where we always sit by the back. Here she was doing it again so that I'd make it on!

"What was I talking about again?" She asked the bus driver, who looked slightly ticked off.

"For the past two minutes in the door way? Politics or something, I wasn't really listening." He glared at us behind Jena, accepting our money anyways and letting us on.

"Oh yeah, we can finish talking about that next time, thank you!" She said to him, walking with me towards he back of the bus where we usually sit. Once we'd sat down in 'our' seat second to the back, she wrote down 'politic stuff, look up later for bus driver' on a notepad covered in all of the other crazy things she's talked to this poor man about.

"Man, almost two years worth of ideas on there that you've stalled with for me. That's insane!" I laughed.

"I know right," she replied, "it's almost grade 8 and I haven't run out of room yet!"

"That too, but I meant all of the trouble you've been through just to save me from missing the bus. Thank you, it means a lot to me knowing you'd do that for me," if we weren't moving already, we definitely were now.

"Well, I know that you would do the sa-ahh-ame thing for me after all," she said over a speed bump.

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Once we finished getting our books from our lockers, we had 20 minutes until the 8:30 bell to do whatever we wanted.

"How about we write?" Jena and I said at the same time. We smiled, and Jena reached into her bag and pulled out two notebooks. She handed me mine, a sky blue book with violet, navy and yellow gems in the top left corner by my name written in sharpie. Hers was a lavender book with baby pink flowers by her sharpied name surrounded with glitter. We opened our books to stories we had started writing and handed them to each other to proofread.

"Mine is probably full of mistakes, I wrote half of it last night at 10PM. I was quite tired," Jena pointed out.

"That's ok," I assured her, "the new paragraph you're going to read today was written in around 5 minutes. I had time to after finishing a test early." We were about to take each other's books when someone else grabbed them instead. We looked up in shock and annoyance to see my brother holding our books above our heads. (Probably to impress his stupid friends.)

"Devon, give those back!" I jumped up to grab the books, but my brother was over half a foot taller then me. He raised his arm holding our books hostage a little higher, his friends snickering in the background.

"Why should I," he smirked, "you still owe me five cents." I was glad I forgot to take the receipt out of my pocket after my brother borrowed that money to get something at the store. I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to him, making him frown. "I'm still not giving it back."

By that time Jena had thought of a plan, which was in action. She had crouched down between my brother and I, so that I could use her back as a height boost. I stepped on her back, jumped up and just managed to grab our books from Devon's clutch.

"You should know this; steal stuff from me, I take it back." I turned around to start walking away when he pushed me hard from the back. I skidded across the hardwood flooring face first. Definitely not a good feeling. I don't remember much after that except seeing a blurred Jena bend over in front of me and say something. Then she dashed off with book-shaped blobs of colour, my brother close behind her.