The days waiting for Dad’s flight flew by pretty uneventfully. I took Mel on what she laughingly refers to as our “date night” to the Magic Shack and I watched her team win yet another soccer game. I’d never tell her, but I really hated sitting through all her endless games. The only things I really enjoyed were her gymnastics and dance recitals and that’s was just to watch her and her friends parade around in tight cute little outfits. At the moment she was only doing soccer and gymnastics, but she also played basketball, softball, and field hockey just to name a very few. She never seemed to slow down. Being the good big brother I was I never missed a game and always made sure to cheer loud enough that she could hear me in the stands.
Dad’s plane was scheduled to land about two hours after breakfast on Friday morning so in order to maintain peace in the house as well as my sanity I decided to wait and drop the news on Mel over waffles that morning. She was thrilled Dad was coming home and never even thought to ask me how long I’d known he was coming. I’m pretty sure in Mel’s mind people just jumped on planes and traveled clear from one side of the planet to the other without any sort of planning all the time anyway.
Mel begged me to let her take the day off from school so we could meet Dad’s plane. I tried to play the part of the stern authority figure and reminded her of the importance of her education, but after a few minutes of begging she caught on to the fact that I had always intended to take her to the airport and was just teasing her. After she hit me in the arm and finished pouting we set off to the bus stop.
It was no surprise that Dad’s plane was late. I waited with Mel at the airport for over four hours. I can’t express in words how painful that was. Honestly it was like waiting with a frigging six year old hopped up on sugar. I love my sister. She’s the most important person in the world to me, but when she gets that excited it can be difficult to be around her. She was simply unable to sit still. All I wanted to do was sit back and relax, but instead I had to constantly hear her ask me how much longer until the plane got there (like I was flying the fucking plane.) Earlier I had overheard a mother joking to her friend about how she had given her toddler some special “airplane juice” to help her sleep through the flight. That lady definitely had the right idea. Right about then I was wishing I had a little of that juice to slip Mel.
I understood her excitement though, I tried to play it cool, but I couldn’t wait to see Dad either. I practically jumped when I heard Mel yell “Daddy!!!” I almost fell out of my chair as she took off like a rocket. The little fool almost knocked over a few unfortunate people who were caught in her path. She flew into Dad’s arms with so much force that she almost knocked him and an elderly couple next to him over. I casually followed her path of destruction and scanned the faces of the people watching Mel make a scene. She voice was much louder than it needed to be and she was talking a mile a minute as she darted around Dad jumping up and down. She was talking so fast Dad barely got the chance to say hi. It was almost as if she had so much energy she could barely contain it.
As I approached the scene Dad reached out his hand and shook mine. He thanked me for taking care of things while he was away and for looking after Mel. That was always the first thing he said to me when he came home and it meant a lot to me. I knew it wasn’t bull shit either. I knew that he really was counting on me to look after Mel and the house. It was a responsibility that I took seriously.
On the way home Dad gave in to Mel’s request that we stop and pick up a pizza for lunch. That’s another thing about Mel, that girl is always hungry. As Dad and I sat waiting for the food she took off to check out the arcade games lined up on the far end of the restaurant. “Still can’t sit still for longer than two minutes I see,” Dad commented as he glanced over at Mel and laughed. She was now jumping around playing some hunting simulation game. She was shooting birds with a big orange gun and no doubt yelling Bang while doing so; completely unaware of people staring in her direction.
“Nope, she’ll never change,” I laughed.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. It looks to me like some things have definitely changed around here.”
I didn’t get his meaning, but hoped he didn’t realize it. We continued to talk about Mel and his work while we waited for almost another ten minutes while the pizza was being cooked. I went to go let Mel know it was time to leave while Dad paid. As I started towards her I realized for the first time that there were two boys about her age standing with her watching her shoot.
I just watched them for a second. They were acting like typical idiot kids trying to impress a pretty girl all right. I had never known any boy to take notice of Mel before, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I was certain that Mel, being the ultimate tomboy she was had no clue as to the real reason the boys where hovering around her, but my big brother instincts still made me feel unnerved about the whole thing a bit. I knew she wouldn’t stay oblivious to the opposite sex forever and that scared me a bit. With Dad always so much I had no idea how I was going to handle things when she wanted to start dating.
Mel spotted me watching her so I waved towards the door and without so much as a goodbye to the boys she bolted towards Dad. It was still a bit of a drive until we got home so I decided to take a quick piss. While I was washing my hands the two clowns who were talking to Mel came in and I got a good look at them in the mirror. They were just a couple dumb kids about Mel’s age alright, totally harmless. As they stood at the urinals I could hear them talking to each other.
“Damn that girl was hot and you could tell she totally wanted me.”
I almost choked holding back my laughter. Mel was far from being boy crazy and unless either of those two idiots knew magic or were part elf they couldn’t possibly keep her attention. In fact odds were with her attention span she’d already forgotten talking to those two fools. As I headed for the door they were still deluding themselves.
“Nah, man did you hear the way she laughed at my jokes. That girl was coming on to me. I was just about to make my move when…”
“Dude, you don’t have any moves to make and you wouldn’t even know what to do with a girl like that in the first place.”
Again visions of boys at the door waiting to pick up an older more feminine version of my sister haunted me. I knew it was inevitable and it made me feel queasy even thinking about it. With Dad always away on business how was I supposed to deal with a maturing sister. I quickly put it behind me as I climbed into the car. I couldn’t wait to get home and have a nice family dinner, just the three of us.
