My brother was the center of attention right from the moment he came into the world. His pre-teen years are ones for the history books. Wherever he went, he made everyone his slave. His chubby cheeks, button eyes, and cute smile could make the most stone-cold of hearts turn into mush. That strong was his charisma and adorableness.
He could do the most insane things and get away with them. I'm surprised I didn't get mad at him despite the countless stuff he did that would drive the average person absolutely nuts. I was certainly more understanding then than I am now. Talk about maturation.
I vividly remember him throwing my prized Hot Wheels collection from the balcony. A few kids celebrated as toy cars rained into their hands from the sky. Thankfully, those kids happened to be none other than my friends. Their cheers alerted my mother and me, who were all the way up on the eighth floor of the building. Even more thankfully, the cars surprisingly didn't receive much damage.
Then there was the time we went to a shop to purchase whatever. My mother carried my naughty brother ever so tightly because she knew he would cause trouble. However, he was already a step ahead. As my mother was busy talking to the shopkeeper with my father, my brother reached out his adorably cute hand and held onto a box of glass items on a nearby shelf as he was being carried. He then pushed it, breaking some of the glass crockery in it. There wasn't too much breakage, but we were forced to buy the set, and understandably so. We still use bowls and tumblers from that very set to this day, so maybe my brother was on to something.
When my brother was in the first grade, he moved to my school. I was expected to take care of him as I was his older brother after all. My brother did not have any of it. During the lunch break, he waddled into my classroom like an angry Adelie penguin and asked my class teacher where I was. When she told him that I had gone out somewhere, my brother aggressively told her to tell me that he had been there to say hi. My teacher heartily laughed as she recounted to me what had taken place during my absence. She considered it an honor to be scolded by a cute kid who wanted to check on his older brother.
Things weren't always flowers and unicorns, though. I remember doing my math homework one day, which already conveys the huge amount of stress I was under. My brother wanted to tell me something while I was solving a difficult problem. I got angry at him and hit his head with a plastic pen cap. Nothing out of the ordinary considering the kind of violence we used to inflict on each other, like getting punched by my baby brother and bleeding from my lip.
After a brief moment of calm, I heard a furious call of rage from nearby. My eyes nearly fell out of my sockets. There he was, my little brother, charging at me with a huge knife he had pulled out from the kitchen drawer. I somehow was able to grab the knife from him and alert my mother, who was oblivious to everything that was going on despite sitting on a sofa near us.
She was shocked, to say the least. She scolded my brother and hid the knives. Knives that still remain hidden in some cupboard today.
My brother has changed a lot since then. He's definitely matured in a way. I don't have to worry about possibly being killed by my very own brother anymore.
Still, his childhood tales will always occupy a big space in my congested brain. I still giggle at the fact that he used to hit my eleven-year-old friend when he was just two. That friend was so understanding. He did not say anything to my brother, knowing that he was just a baby. However, it was obvious that he feared my brother.
I still wonder about that friend from time to time. He eventually moved to Norway. People say that it was because of his father's job, but I'd like to think that my brother scared him off to another country.
Comments
Post a Comment