Year 13 Bayfield High School
The TV plays a cartoon, set to an unnecessarily loud volume. It’s not like it’s a new episode or anything. In fact, this episode has already played.
Three times today. I’ve counted.
My sister isn’t even watching it right now. She’s bickering with my brother over something ridiculous. This is the daily routine.
Get home from school, study a physics equation I didn’t yet understand, and listen to utter hell break loose when the 4-year-old wants to hold on to the TV remote and the 13-year-old wants to play a video game.
As the eldest, I should mediate the childish argument, but I don’t bother.
Right now, I’m busy. Busy drawing the same character so many times, you’d think I’d tire of it.
Indifferent to the shriek of an angry 4-year-old wanting to watch the same episode of Peppa Pig over and over, the cat is curled up on one of the computer chairs.
She clearly wishes she could be outside but fears the light drizzle speckling the windows. It is enough to endure the constant jabber, squealing, and patting from her primate servants.
They give her food, and she gives them the golden opportunity to see her every day. And every day they pick her up and cradle her like she’s one of their putrid larvae, but in the end, the food is worth it.
In fact, all the thought of food has got to her, and with a graceful stretch, she leaps off her throne, padding her way into the kitchen to eat.
It’s almost time for our dinner too. The air smells of mushroom soup.
‘Dinner’s nearly ready,’ my mum said ... almost an hour ago.
I rise from my cushiony grey rocking recliner. My favourite spot.
There’s another one just like it on the other side of the lounge, and a whole couch between the two identical chairs, but this one is mine.
I don’t like to sit anywhere else. Not on the couch, not on the other chair. Sitting elsewhere feels like trying to write with my left hand. Crooked, uncomfortable, and just unfitting.
I make my way to the kitchen doorway and peek in. It’s being dished. I breathe a sigh of relief.
My parents are soon calling everyone to dinner. I perch eagerly on my chair, sitting on my knees, knowing in the back of my mind that I’d get wicked pins and needles from it later, but not caring.
Right now, I have more pressing matters on my mind. Matters such as the food in front of me, how hungry I am, and the fact that the call of dinnertime had broken apart the fight between my brother and my sister.
I hadn’t needed to mediate after all. Dinner solves everything.
