My sister is so stubborn!

“No!” my sister complains.  My sister does not want to go to gymnastics for her first day!  It’s so frustrating!  She is too shy and nervous, and uses it as anger instead.  She is sitting at the kitchen table coloring a Minnie Mouse picture, which she wants to finish as well.

               “Chloe!  I am gonna count to three!  One… two… three!” I shout at her.  Oh, man, that trick doesn’t work anymore, I think.

               “Just let me finish coloring my picture!” my sister hollers.

               “Chloe, you just started, when do you think you’re gonna be done?” I ask in a loud, strict voice.

               “Just give me ten minutes!” she says.

               “We have to be there in ten minutes!” I argue.

               “Angie-e,” she whines.

               “Do you want to be late for your first day?!” I yell. Jeez, I think in my head, she really wants to set a bad impression on the first day, doesn’t she?”

               “I don’t even want to go!  You can go, and I will stay home,” she says with a humph in her voice and face.

               “Nobody will be home to watch you.  And besides, mom already paid for it.  You have to go!” I say with anger and frustration rising in my voice.

               “No!” Chloe says plainly and firmly.

               “Yes!” I say back to her.

               “No!”

               “Yes!”

               “NOOOOOO!”

               “YEEEEEEEES!  Chloe, you have to go, and besides if you don’t want to go, I do.  I love gymnastics, and I have already missed so many practices.  And now I’m gonna miss some more!  And it’s all because of you!  Humph!  You ruin everything!”  I shout back at her.  My arguing isn’t working out so well.  Even though I have many reasons for making my sister go to gymnastics, she is really stubborn and will probably win the argument, and make me stay home with her.  I am almost twelve, so I babysit my little sister, and we walk to gymnastics together.  Today will be her first day on team, so she does not want to go.  She makes the excuse of wanting to finish coloring her picture.  She thinks team is not fun.   During classes she gets to play rather than do real gymnastics.  During team practice, she has to work hard.

               My sister is quiet.  The house is suddenly silent.  I hear a nearby clock ticking away our time.  We have to be there soon!

               “Chloe, are you coming or are you not?  I need to know, so I can call mom to tell her you don’t want to come,” I say suddenly quieter.

               Chloe does not reply.  She looks down, and all I can see is her black, but orange on ends—from swimming— hair covering her face.

               “Are you okay?” I ask.

               “I don’t like it when you shout at me,” she says with her lips jutting out, almost as much as a mountain jutting out of the earth.

               “Chloe, I have to shout or you won’t listen, and it seems like now, when I shout you still don’t listen.  So tell me a way for you to listen to me,” I say.

               “Just talk quietly, and I will listen,” she says.

               “Fine,” I whisper, “is this quiet enough?”

               “No,” she laughs.

               “Is this quiet enough?” I say even quieter.

               “Angie, I meant that’s too quiet,” my sister giggles.

               “Oh, well, how about we go to gymnastics now?” I try to get her to go.

               “No!” she says. Her giggle was now gone.  It was replaced by her old stubborn, frustrated, and unwilling to go to gymnastics face.

               Oops, guess I tried a little too early, I think.  I glance at the clock.  Gymnastics starts in five minutes!  I hope my sister will go, I dream hopefully.

               “Chloe, you better come, or I’m gonna flush Lazy Sheep”—Lazy Sheep is her favorite toy, because he has small eyes, and he’s lazy—“down the toilet!”

               “I know you’re not going to,” my sister says, picking up her crayons and resuming her coloring.  She has a trying-to-be-a-big-girl look on her face, which I personally think looks really silly.  She keeps that face on, until I start laughing.

               “Why are you laughing Angie?  Ugh, you’re such a silly little girl,” she says, rolling her brownish-black eyes way back in her head.

               I laugh some more.

               “Angie, you are the silliest little girl I have ever seen.”

               I figure we will never get to gymnastics if she keeps talking like that, and I keep laughing, so I decide to get Chloe’s toy, which is lying on the couch.

               I walked over to the couch where Chloe’s toy, Lazy Sheep, was.  I gave her many seconds to retrieve her toy back, but she didn’t.  So I sprinted over to the bathroom, hid him in the closet by the bathroom, and flushed the toilet.   This way my sister would think I really did flush him down the toilet—which she did, according to her scream.

               “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  ANGIE!  Did you really flush him down the toilet?” she screams.

               “Yep, I did the right thing—I followed through what I said,” I say calmly.

               “Oh, no!  Lazy Sheep’s gone forever!” she says realizing the “truth.”

               “If you get ready for gymnastics, and we are there twenty minutes from now, then Santa Claus will give you Lazy Sheep,” I say.

               “Okay!” Chloe says with a nod of excitement.  She runs upstairs, and puts on her leotard.  She grabs a water bottle and says, “I’m ready!”

               “But you’ll have to wait till Christmas to get Lazy Sheep,” I say.

               “WHAT?  But I want him NOW!” she shouts.

               “Okay, okay,” I say.  I sprint over to the bathroom and bring her the toy.

               “You had him the whole time?” she asks.

               “No… Santa flushed him back up the toilet,” I say.

               “Really?” she asks, “how come he’s not wet?”

               “He has magic powers that made him instantly dry,” I pretend.  I am a good “pretender,” at least for little kids.

               “Angie, but I don’t want to go to gymnastics, because I am scared that everybody will make fun of me, because I will be the youngest one there, and everyone else will know more gymnastics than me,” Chloe said with a sigh.

               “Chloe, why didn’t you just tell me so?” I ask, surprised.

               “Because… I just didn’t want to,” Chloe said.

               “Well, I have to tell you something.  Team can still be fun, even though we work harder.  You can make new friends, and learn new skills that are a lot harder and cooler than the skills you already know.  And I thought you were a big girl.  Big girls get in team, not in classes.  Plus, you have to try new things, so you don’t spend your whole entire life doing one boring thing.  You have to explore new things as well,” I said, with a much kinder, and gentler voice than before—when I was shouting. 

               “Okay…” my sister sighs, “but I still don’t want to go, because what if the other kids make fun of me?”

               “Chloe, they won’t, and if they do, then I will tell them to stop.  Actually, you know what?  You can tell them to stop yourself.  If people are being mean to you, then tell them to stop being so mean,” I said.

               “No!  Angie.  You do it.  I’m too scared,” Chloe said hugging my arm with a very, very tight squeeze.

               “Chloe, you can’t always be a little girl.  You have to grow up, and be a big girl.  Big girls talk for themselves,” I said.

               “Fine,” Chloe said putting on a brave face.

               My sister, Chloe, and I walked to gymnastics together, and she wears an upside down happy face.  But soon I saw that she was happy, and had a right side up happy face.