I Spy…

“I spy with my little eye something begins with ‘t’,” my six year old sister says happily, her short, blonde curls bouncing. I shoot her a withering stare. It’s only the first hour of a holiday car ride that will take eight times that. Car rides in general are not good. Car rides with family are worse. Eight hour car rides with family are unbearable. And yet here I am bearing it, with at least some degree of civility. I’m impressed with myself.

My sister clearly isn’t.

Her big, blue eyes fill with tears. “I’m just trying to make the car ride more fun! Don’t be mean to me!” she cries, breaking into noisy sobs. You’d think she was a toddler, the way she acts. Hello, I’m the angst-filled teenager here, I should be the one throwing tantrums. My jaw drops.

“How was I being mean to you?” I ask incredulously.

“You- you- you were looking at me,” she chokes out, lip quivering.

“Oh, I was looking at you, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise what I was doing,” I say sarcastically. While she hasn’t got the grasp of sarcasm herself yet, she can tell that I don’t mean what I say. She opens her mouth to reply, but only gets so far as taking a breath, before our mother turns around to snap at us.

“Jasmine,” she says, looking at my sister, “Will you stop behaving like a two-year old?” I grin smugly, but scowl as she turns angrily to me. “Sarah, try not to provoke her, your father and I are trying to concentrate.” I nod, still scowling. Our parents are reading a map, trying to navigate the streets of an unknown city. My dad is driving, and my Mum reading the map, but I think it’d be better if they swapped. My mother doesn’t experience road-rage nearly so much, and my father wouldn’t hold the map upside down. That’s parents for you.

My sister pokes her tongue out at me triumphantly, as if us both getting told off is a victory to her. I roll my eyes. Jasmine and I are as different as chalk and cheese. I suppose it comes from being ten years apart in age, but I’d really like to think that one of us was adopted.

Preferably her.

Where Jasmine has an exotic name, I’m just Sarah. Where she is a picture of perfection, I’m plain with brown hair, brown eyes. She wears girly frocks, and I’m the epitome of tom-boy. Like chalk and cheese, all we share is what we’re made up of. Chalk and cheese have calcium, we have DNA.

“I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘b’.” I exhale audibly at my sister.

I spy with my little eye an annoying Brat.

SSSSS

Hour three of our car ride sees little improvement. The one silver lining to my cloud is that Jasmine has stopped playing ‘I Spy’ with herself. I cast her a sideways glance, where she is debating what to play next.

“I can colour-in my Saddle Club colouring book, do the mazes, or sing.”

I feel dread settle in the bottom of my stomach. I decide this might be a good time to become religious. Dear omnipotent presence, if you really exist, can you please stop The Evil Incarnate from singing. If you do, I shall devoutly follow-

My mental thoughts are cut off by Jasmine reaching her decision. “I’ll sing,” she cries happily before breaking into the strains of ‘This Is The Song That Never Ends…’

I decide there is no God.

SSSSS

I lean over to glance at the clock, and am rewarded by my hair getting pulled. I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened in the past five hours.

“You’re invading my personal space,” Jasmine says, pulling my hair again. I’m partly surprised that she knows what this is, but then again, she is an incredibly precocious six-year-old. I choose not to reply to her, and instead lean back in my seat, staring out the window. It’s funny how much more interesting cows seem when you’re trying to ignore someone else. Jasmine doesn’t like being ignored, I can almost count down the seconds before she’ll speak to me again, in an attempt to get attention. Three, two, one…

“Play a game with me.” It isn’t so much a request, as a demand. I could say I want to, or I could say I don’t, but again I just don’t reply. I use my peripheral vision, and can see that she isn’t happy. She takes a huge breath, and-

“Please, please, please, please, please,” she says, whining. I still don’t respond.

“Please, please, please, PLEASE!” She takes another breath, but I’ve had enough.

“Hey,” I say brightly, turning to her, “I’ve got a fun game!” Her eyes light up, and she urges me to continue.

“It’s called the silent game. You sit in your seat, as still as possible…” I demonstrate and she mimics me. “Then you look out the window…” She nods expectantly. “And then you make no sound.” Jasmine looks at me, as if I’ve gone mad.

“That’s all?” she asks. I nod agreeably.

“It’s like a competition,” I add, to make it seem more appealing. “To see who can be the quietest.” Ever one to show me up in anything, Jasmine then pursues being quiet with determination. Her face is wrinkled with concentration. I smirk to myself.

Revenge is sweet.

SSSSS

I wake up groggily what seems like only a few minutes later. All that sitting still and being quiet must have put me to sleep. Jasmine is also asleep, looking peaceful. I continue to stare at her. She doesn’t seem that bad when she’s sleeping, her little face devoid of the usual evil. She seems almost human, really. I mean, it’s not her fault she’s so young, and we don’t get along. All young children are like that, right? She’s actually kind of sweet, most of the time. It’s only on car rides she gets annoying. And I’m the teenager here. Shouldn’t I be more tolerant? Shouldn’t I be helping her to grow in the world?

I make a vow with myself, then and there, that when Jasmine wakes up, I’ll play whatever game she wants with her. From now on, I’m going to be the responsible adult and not get annoyed by petty fights. I shall-

“We’re here!” my mother says, turning around to face us kids, beaming. Jasmine wakes up, her curls slightly bent askew.

“Good,” she mumbles, still half asleep. Her sight falls on where my arm is resting across the middle seat of the car between us. With quickness I didn’t think she possessed, she reaches out deftly and pinches my arm.

“Ow!” I yell, glowering. I clutch my arm to me protectively, and Jasmine smiles innocently.

“It was on my side of the car.” With that, she unbuckles her seatbelt, and hops out. I quickly forget all my vows made little more than a minute earlier.

I spy with my little eye a brat beginning with ‘j’.