Unspoken Promise

“Helping one another is part of the religion of sisterhood.” -Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

“Marty, how many times have I told you to stop touching my stuff!” Samantha yelled from the bathroom. Six-year-old Marty cautiously peeked around the open bathroom door to see how she had bothered her older sister, Samantha, this time. Samantha was rustling through the bathroom cupboards frantically looking for something. Marty could see that her sister’s long brown hair, usually in a delicate braid, was messy, with loose strands falling out in chestnut wisps. And as she continued to watch, Marty noticed her electric green eyes were dashing back and forth like a tennis ball in play as they searched for whatever it was she was blaming Marty to have touched.

“What are you looking for, Sam?” Marty asked. Samantha looked at Marty and then back in the cupboards before she froze. When she turned back, Marty thought she saw Samantha’s eyes spark with anger. Samantha pointed at Marty’s hair.

 “Those,” she said through clenched teeth. “Those are mine. Those are my hairclips, Marty!” she shouted. Marty pouted as her eyes began to water.

 “I, I just wanted to look more grown up . . . they’re really really pretty and I was going to put them back before you knew they were missing, honest I was.” Marty began to sniff as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.  Samantha rolled her eyes.

 “I don’t care. You can’t just go around touching other people’s stuff. I wanted to wear them to school. Now what am I supposed to wear? Hair clips that everyone will have seen my stupid little sister wear? Oh yeah, I bet I’ll look really cool then.” Samantha fumed. From downstairs the girls’ mother called for them to hurry so they wouldn’t be late for school. Samantha held out her hand for the clips, which Marty sadly passed over.

“Do me a favour and stop touching my stuff.” Samantha glared down at her teary-eyed sister. “And stop your crying because it makes you look like a baby.”

During lunch the sisters stayed on opposite ends of the school yard. They did not talk, they did not wave. They did nothing to show to anyone else that they were related. They simply treated each other as if they were any other kid on the playground.

At 10 minutes left in their lunch hour, Samantha sat under one of the two major trees in the school yard talking with a group of her closest friends.

As the girls were talking, a small girl about Marty’s age walked shyly up to the older girls and waited for one of them to notice her. When they did, she said, “Sorry, you’re Marty’s sister right?” Samantha rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, why, what does she want?”

“Well, it’s just; there are a bunch of fifth graders picking on her over by the other tree because we were playing duck, duck, goose and . . .”

Samantha didn’t let the girl finish her story. The fifth graders were notorious in their school for picking on people much younger than them. When she arrived at the other tree it was to find them pulling at her sister’s hair.

“Nice hair clips baby, where’d you get them from, your mommy’s jewellery box?” One of them said, a girl with shiny blonde hair and freckles splashed across her face. “You look a little young to be wearing such pretty clips.”

“Stop, that hurts!” Marty cried as the girl attempted to pull the clips from her hair. Samantha ignored the fact that the girl was in a higher grade than herself and that she would probably get in a lot of trouble for what she was about to do and ran up to the girl, shoving her away from her little sister. The older girl won their fight leaving Samantha to be picked up by her mother with a bloody nose and bruised shins. By the time Marty got home she found her sister in her room reading a book.

“You okay?” Samantha looked up and rolled her eyes.

“Of course I’m okay,” she said, “it takes more than a stupid kid like that to bother me,” before going back to her book. Marty simply stood at the door, not sure what she should do. Samantha looked up from her book once more to see that Marty was still there, so she patted a hand down beside her, gesturing for Marty to take a seat. The little girl walked quickly into the room and sat carefully down beside her older sister. Soon Samantha began to read aloud the story she had been reading so Marty would understand it too.

“Helping one another is part of the religion of sisterhood...” She read.