Playing games with your sibling is a delicate thing. At any moment someone could snap and accuse the other of the most heinous crime that can be committed while imagining up new worlds—cheating. Most of the time, a game that you made up won't last more than twenty minutes, while a game with predetermined rules is lucky to last more than half an hour. However, every once in a while, something will stick, and you both love it so much that you drag it out. Sometimes for so long that by the end, you are both too sick of it to enjoy anything closely resembling the once adored game for a long time.
A well-orchestrated game of hide-and-seek is probably one of the most controversial for anyone to decide to play. On one hand, it gives you the chance to show up your brother in a game of pure hiding skill, and on the other, while you are sitting in the closet or lying in the dusty crevice between the bottom of the bed and the floor, who knows if he is even looking for you anymore? You have a sneaking suspicion that he is not, in fact, looking for you. That instead, he is downstairs, eating the last of the apple pie your grandma brought over. The very pie that you had been coveting for tonight's dessert.
Still, you sit there, under the bed, your hair increasingly soaking up dust, because as long as you stay hidden, you win, whether he’s looking for you or not. You stay there, in the dark, until your joints are aching from being cramped and unused. Only when it becomes unbearable do you crawl tentatively out of your obviously brilliant hiding spot and out onto the carpet. You squint your eyes as the light hits them. After being surrounded by musty darkness for so long, you are unaccustomed to the sudden brightness. As you lie there, absorbing the newfound warmth of the sun, you strain your ears, listening for any hint that your brother is actually looking for you and not, as you suspected, gorging himself on baked apple confectionaries. Unfortunately, the only sound you hear is the scraping of a fork on a plate downstairs. Looks like you won't be having that pie. You’re pretty sure it was slightly stale anyways.
You stomp down the hallway and down the stairs, making as much noise as possible, and above the muffled clomping of your sock feet on the hardwood stairs, you can hear your brother frantically scrambling to hide the evidence of his latest betrayal. In response you slow down your footfalls, giving him time to cover his tracks. Even though you are already on to him, doesn’t mean you can't tease him for a bit longer. In a way, he deserves it. He ate your pie!
As you turn the corner, allowing your self to see into the kitchen, you see your brother closing the trashcan. He smiles guiltily up at you, although he is clearly trying to be nonchalant, you can read him easily. You’ve only lived with him for your entire life - you should know what his face looks like when he lies. You lean on the cold marble that makes up the counter, and he tries to make a break for the door. “Hey! Wait a minute!” you call after him. He doesn’t wait. No surprise there.
Sweet Revenge
By Ella K-L.