Not Having Fun

002

"Daaad! Chris won't give me the jam for my toast!" I run into the living room.

"Give Max the jam, Chris," Dad groans.

I go back to the kitchen where Chris is standing by the counter with the jam. "You're a tattle, you don't have to tell on me for everything. Learn to take a joke sometimes, Jesus,"

"Chris! Are you being nice to Max?" Dad calls from the living room.

"Ugh, yes!"

He tosses me the butterknife and I spread jam on my toast.

After watching an episode of Gormitti, it's time to go.  Mum comes down with the baby and gives me my school bag. "Right guys, off you go,"

Chris rises from the couch slowly with a sigh. He hates walking me to school. "Come on then,"

"Bye mum! Bye dad!" I hug both of them before chasing after Chris on the way out the door.

I'm so much smaller than him! It's hard to follow when he doesn't even talk to me. He just walks far ahead and pretends I'm not even his brother. He probably wouldn't notice if I got taken or something. When we reach the school gates, my friend Jemima runs over and pulls me into a hug. "Hi!" 

"Y'alright?" I nod to her. We both start walking around the playground and her dress, the same white and blue colours that make up my school uniform, flounces with every step.

"My dad hit me wiv a belt cause I didn't do my homework!" She tells me.

"Woah!" I gasp. "Does it really hurt?" I've never had the belt but Chris has.

"Yeah it does," she pouts indignantly. "D'you wanna play hopscotch?"

"Okay,"

The start bell rings way too early. We've barely played! We hang out playing hopscotch while everyone else lines up to go inside.

Our teacher, Mrs Woods, walks over. "Jemima, Max, the bell rang,"

"We know," Jemima shrugs and keeps playing. I hesitantly do too.

"Well, come to the line," we reluctantly do so, realising it's not worth it for another trip to the office. 

"Sorry Mrs Woods," I look down.

"That's alright," she leads me inside.

When I get home today, Mum and I sing the Friday song. That's because the weekend is here - which means no school and no work for her!

🎵 "It's Friday, it's Friday!" 🎵 Mum and I sing along. We started singing that when I was only one and she went back to work after having me. We celebrate every Friday with a song!

"Remember, if you're good we can still go to sea world," Dad ruffles my hair.

"Yeah dad,"

I rush upstairs. I sit down in my squishy, inflatable chair and put The Little Mermaid 2. The sequel is just better, okay?

I can't concentrate on my movie! Chris is getting into a fight with Mum. He always does this because he wants to play his game even though he's grounded.

"It's not fair that Max gets to go to sea world when he's grounded and I can't do anything!"

"You're older, and you're grounded for longer than Max is," she explains.

"But mum-"

"I don't want to hear another word!"

"Chris, go to your room,"

"It's not fair!" I hear the door slam. I thought he'd get a spanking for sure.

At dinner time, we watch The Simpsons again.

"We've seen this one a million times!" Chris groans

"We have," Dad admits. "Are you guys good with me watching the news?"

Chris nods and I do too. The news is so boring but we watched our shows yesterday and this morning so Dad should get a turn to pick what we watch. The man on the news starts talking about the weather. At least that's kind of interesting. Mum says the weather man is always wrong. One time, he said it would snow but it was sunny all day!

"Gay," Chris jeers at the weatherman. Dad rolls his eyes. Chris looks at him and sees he isn't getting a reaction.

"He's bloody wrong all the time...." No reaction from dad. Chris keeps going. "What a twat... bloody twat, they much have shit empl-"

"Thats your first warning," Dad glares at him. "Say that again and you can forget your pocket money for the month too,"

"Whatever," he looks away, sulking.