✅ My Sister's Problem

22. Masterplan

I stumbled slightly on unfamiliar skates, allowing Alison Biers to dodge past me and take an easy shot. As the ball spun across the rough concrete surface, I stepped back and apologised to the others. But Harper came up and patted me on the back, thanking me for being there even if I could barely play. She didn't quite put it like that, but that's how it sounded in my mind. I knew I was probably the only one thinking like that; I was just more practised on inline skates, used to a faster game with different tactics.

It was only practice; and if the girls from the quad skating team trained on their own, there wouldn't be enough for two teams. Being able to play an actual game among themselves was useful, so I was being useful in a way. But I didn't like not winning. Still, with three interlopers from the inline team to fill up the numbers, it meant that Harper could check that everyone was working on the areas she'd said that she needed to improve.

The game was going well until the captain rapped me across the shins with her stick in retribution for an admittedly over-aggressive body check. I said I was sorry, but the referee told us both to take some time off the field. Well, that suited me fine.

"So what's all that about?" she asked, sitting on the park bench that we had nominated as the penalty box while I grabbed a coke from the vending machine.

"Sorry. Different habits, you know? Different rules." I took a swig of my drink, and I could tell from the silence that she knew there was more. "Okay, I was feeling frustrated. Sorry, I shouldn't take it out on you."

"And?"

"Just frustrated. Feeling like I'm not playing my best. Letting the team down. I just need a break to clear my head. I mean... I wanted to talk to you anyway, but not during practice."

"Yeah. Mad at me for testing your sister's gullibility?"

"Something..." I started, before my brain processed what she'd actually said. "Wait, what? She said you were helping her. Please, you have to tell me what's going on."

"Sure. I just... Well, I thought she needed to know she's not always in charge, you know? Tell me Willow didn't get too mad."

"Huh?" I said, then realised how dumb I must sound. Harper's parents were into this weird new-age thing, where they said it would build more trust to use names or whatever. All of Harper and Hugo's friends were expected to call their parents Greg and Chel, not just Mr and Mrs Eisen. That seemed kind of weird to me, and I'd often forget. But it was doubly weird when my friend called Mum by her first name. I knew it, of course, it just felt strange. "Wait, should Mum have found out? It didn't work like Lindy intended, I think. But I wouldn't tell Mum."

"Okay, maybe I better start at the beginning then. Remember we had a bunch of you over when I made captain? And of course there were pranks. It wouldn't be a party otherwise. No hard feelings, right?"

"Yeah. You put my hand in a bowl of water. But that's not the whole prank, is it? Because kids have been doing that since the dawn of time, and almost all of them found that it's not that simple."

"Right. Complete nonsense, your brain doesn't work like that. Even Mythbusters did a thing on it. Busted. The water's just a decoy."

"I thought so," I nodded. I didn't want to mention my own research into that prank. "But Lindy said you told her where to get drugs or something. That has me worried, because everything has side effects. That's not a good idea."

"Right," she smiled. "You saw through that one too. But let's start with the truth, right?"

She went on to explain. At a party, quite some time ago now. Before Dad was even diagnosed; it was hard for me to remember now what life had been like. But Harper had always acted older than her years would suggest, and she was a genius at certain kinds of research. I'd kind of looked up to her then, despite the age difference. And the amount of thought she'd put into pranking everybody at her party was incredible.