Everybody's Baby

Superstitions and Sibling Shenanigans

It was a well known fact that Rebecca Shelby was everybody’s favorite, it was one of those little perks of being the baby of the family. Tommy would quite happily let her get away with murder if she asked, and there was very little her other brothers wouldn’t do at the drop of a hat when their Becca was involved.

The one drawback to being the baby with so many brothers, is that brothers are relentless. And being the favorite, also meant being the preferred target for a lot of teasing as well…

John, it seemed, was in rare form today; and Becca was nearly at her wit’s end. With apparently nothing better at all to do, John had been following her around all day and doing any and everything he could think of to aggravate Becca and get in her way as much as possible.

The final straw came while she was washing potatoes for dinner, and John purposely knocked into her elbow, sending water and potatoes all over the floor.

“That is it, John Shelby!” She all but screamed, smacking the side of the sink and wheeling around to face him, “I’ve had it! If you don’t leave me alone, I swear I’ll-”

“You’ll what Becs?” The smirk on his face sent a hot, instantaneous bolt of rage straight through her, “You’ll what?”

With an exasperated yell, Becca turned on her heels, cursing as she went to start cleaning up the mess… when something caught her eye.

Without a second of hesitation, Rebecca grabbed the broom leaning against the wall and turned to take a swipe at her brother. The smirk was immediately wiped from John’s face as he jumped backwards.

“Hey! Now cut that out!” John cursed as he stumbled away from his sister, the girl taking another swing at him and only barely missing him by a hair’s breadth, “Becky that’s not funny! Stop!”

Becca only laughed loudly and lunged at him again, sending John tripping back into Michael and Arthur who’d come to see what all the noise was about.

“What’s going on- Shit!” Arthur shook his head, moving backwards as well and grabbing Michael by the front of his vest to pull him along when his cousin just stood there confused.

“What?” Michael looked around between the siblings as John tried to use him and Arthur as a shield while Becca continued to try and whack him with the broom.

“If she touches you with that thing,” John yelped as Arthur shoved Michael to one side and ducked in the other direction himself, leaving his younger brother exposed, “You’ll be in trouble with the coppers next!”

Still seemingly confused by the whole thing, but knowing better than to question the seemingly old superstition right now; Michael simply moved about half way up the staircase to keep out of the way, but still wanting to see how this played out.

Arthur managed to get behind Becca without getting hit, visibly relaxing once he was out of the line of fire. John made the mistake of letting Becca back him into a corner; and in a last ditch effort to avoid the broom, dove to the side, barely managing to get back on his feet before his baby sister brought the thing down.

With the pathway clear, John bolted for the door with Becca not far behind him, leaping off the porch and ducking as she chucked the broom at him.

It missed, sailing over his head and clattering to the ground in front of Tommy and Aunt Polly who both just stood there staring at the two siblings, seemingly in disbelief.

“John started it!”

“Hey!”