Beloved Little Sister
by Channie Greenberg
A prequel to the Owmapow stories.
Jan. 4, 1986
Rachel:
You will never read these words, but I am writing them down because I need to. I can’t talk to you since you’re little and I can’t talk to Mom and Dad.
Anyway, Mom and Dad love you more. I’m not even sure that they love me. When they took us out for ice cream to celebrate your “A” in math, they said nothing about the fact that I got an “A,” too.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Jan. 11, 1986
Rachel:
I wonder if it matters if I keep making honor roll. You get paid for every “A” or “B.” I don’t, but I do have to pay our parents if I get “C.” I only gets Cs in gym.
Meanwhile, I’m considering trying out for our middle school chess club. I’m not as good as Frank Mills or as Janet Che, but Dad used to play chess as a boy, so, maybe, if I join, he’ll love me.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Jan. 30, 1986
Rachel:
Life is so unfair! Mom spent an entire twenty dollars on skirts for you and refused to give me a measly five to update my aquarium.
I’d run away, but leaving home looks poorly on college applications. Just two more years of middle school and four of high school and I can flee! I can fledge. Maybe I can tutor for money.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Feb. 15, 1986
Rachel:
Frank says I’m a lousy chess player, but when he came over to visit, he loved, and I mean loved, my aquarium. He also said his older brother needs help with algebra and that a whiz kid like me, who is also a friend, should get the first crack at tutoring him. He’s going to ask his parents to hire me.
Frank’s one of the only people who know that I know algebra and geometry. I haven’t told Mom and Dad, since I’m afraid they’d punish me if I scored less than 99+ on the next standardized test.
Anyway, Frank’s brother is scary. When I was visiting Frank and walked past his brother’s room, I saw a poster of a blonde lady in a tiny bathing suit on his wall. I can’t believe his parents let him own or display it. He’s also the only 9th-grader on the high school varsity wrestling team, and he’s in the 190-pound class! He’s huge!
Well, even if I don’t tutor him, Frank, who’s getting tired of his pet turtle, said he’d trade that sweet reptile to me for my Don Mattingly Donruss Rookie Card. I hope that’s okay since I’d be getting a live creature, and he’d just be getting a piece of cardboard.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Feb. 22, 1986
Rachel:
Sometimes, I wish you were a sneaky sibling. If you read my diary, my life wouldn’t feel so lonely. On the other hand, if you read it, then you’d know my secrets and that wouldn’t work too well, either.
In the end, I’m not going to tutor Frank’s brother. His parents were nice and Frank was happy, but his brother is a monster. That kid would rather talk to me about sports and girls than about equations, functions, real numbers, inequalities, exponents, polynomials, or radical and rational expressions.
Frank and I made the trade, though. He had a funny look on his face after taking my card and handing me his turtle. I hope this deal doesn’t count as my cheating him.
What’s more, his parents paid me even though I didn’t teach his brother a thing. On the way home, I used most of that money to buy a container and meal worms for my new critter. I wish you weren’t so squeamish; the turtle’s nice to hold. He doesn’t even have moss or slime growing on his back yet.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Mar. 3, 1986
Rachel:
Janet Che called me a “nitwit,” today. She cornered me after lunch and told me that the whole school knows that I’m willing to trade baseball cards for creepy-crawlies caught by other kids in cesspools, ponds, and so on.
I think she likes me. Usually, no one talks to me before, during, or after lunch. Maybe, she wants to be my friend. I know she’s a better chess player than me, that she’s good at math, and that she gets high marks in Language Arts and Social Sciences, too.
Do you think she’s jealous of my growing menagerie? Since all this started, I’ve traded my two boxes of baseball cards plus the handful of cards, which I think might have been Dad’s, that I found in the attic. Despite this successful business, though, none of my peers has yet produced a gumboot chiton, Cryptochiton stelleri. I really want one for my aquarium. It like really cold water, such as around Alaska, so I don’t think anyone local is going to offer me one.
On the other side of the ledger, if only you dared to come into my room and contend with “the stink,” as I put it, that my zoo makes, you’d see that I’ve now taken possession of one water dragon, one sail-fin lizard, two caiman lizards, a few minnows, a handful of algae-eaters, a gorgeous koi, and a baby allegator. Don’t tell Mom that the alligator is an alligator. She thinks it’s a lizard.
She also thinks, like you, that my room smells, and she wants me to move my collection to one-half of our garage. We’re still negotiating. The combination of car exhaust, cold, and darkness will probably kill my babies.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Mar. 4, 1986
Rachel:
Well, that was abrupt. It seems that Frank’s mom used to work in a pet store. When she came over to visit Mom, she said that she heard that I was fostering animals and asked to see them. Everything was great until she came upon my alligator and asked Mom if Mom knew what it was.
Mom shrugged and said, “A lizard.”
Frank’s mom corrected her.
Mom screamed. Dad, who had just gotten home from work, ran into my room and demanded, on the spot, that I release all my scaly friends at the local pond. He even made me dump my tank of tropical fish there despite my protest that tiny, tropical fish would get eaten or frozen within the day.
I demurred when Mom and Dad asked how I amassed my collection and mumbled something about tutoring. Frank’s mom admitted to having hired me but said nothing about how our agreement spoiled quickly. I guess Mom and Dad figured I had lots of clients. I said nothing about baseball trading cards.
Love,
Owen
* * *
Mar. 28, 1986
Sis:
From now on, you can call me “Owmapow.” That’s my superhero name. Do you like it? Frank was picking on Janet during science class, and I defended her. She told me I was a maladroit hero. I think she really does like me.
I picked out the name myself. Tomorrow, I’ll tell Janet my special name, after lunch. Maybe, I’ll make an eye mask and bring it to the cafeteria, too.
Love,
Owmapow
* * *
Apr. 14, 1986
Rachel:
I can’t believe you agreed to get your ears pierced. Ick! That’s so unnatural!
I’m not complaining that you’re a sister, not a brother. I certainly wouldn’t want to live with someone like Frank’s sibling and I certainly wouldn’t want to be an only child like Janet.
But still, why put holes your flesh? You’re not even ten.
Please don’t tell me that when you grow up, you’re going to become artificially colored and scented like Mom and her friends. Double ick!
In fairness, zebra fish and Aegean wall lizards, Podarcis erhardii, change color to attract mates, but you’re much too young to get married. Who would you marry? Where would you live? How would you finish fourth grade?
Do you still talk to Betty, Cousin Liam’s friend? She’s also Jeremy’s sister. Aren’t you two in the same class? Doesn’t Mom adore Betty’s mom? Did Betty get her ears pierced, too? Triple ick.
Love,
Owen
Owmapow
* * *
Apr. 27, 1986
Rachel:
As you know, my bringing my mask to school and showing it to Janet Che did not turn out well. She didn’t even sugarcoat her remarks by lovingly calling me a “nitwit.” She just made a face, spun, and walked away with a group of girls that was waiting for her. All of them, including Janet, pointed at me and giggled.
All of them had pierced ears! Ick. I hope you don’t grow up to be like them. It’s not nice to befriend a boy, and then, before he can even ask you to the school dance, dump him.
Mr. Kashis, the science teacher, said I could make an afterschool science club in the school lab. Unlike Mom and Dad, that adult understands the importance of making conjectures, deriving logical consequence-type predictions from them, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on prior predictions. He also said that I should take over his job feeding the fish in the tank outside the principal’s office and that I should enter our city’s science fair. Mr. Kashis thinks I should research estuaries.
I wish you weren’t grossed out by ambassadors of nature. You’re a smart little sister, and I could use someone to talk to.
Love,
Owen
Owmapow
* * *
May 4, 1986
Rachel:
I want to be able to represent our city in the state science fair! The denizens of brackish water are swell, and I think some grownups might think so, too. The state fair’s first prize, besides a thirty second slot on cable TV, is a hundred dollars’ worth of Chemcraft, Erector, and Glbert Lab supplies. I’ve heard rumors, too, that the winner will get to tour one of the labs at our state’s finest university. Wow!
Owmapow
* * *
May 6, 1986
Rachel: Frank’s brother is taking Janet Che to the Ninth Grade Dance. So weird! She’s my age, not a high-schooler, and her parents are letting her go.
When I stopped by the Chess Club, I heard Frank talking about their forthcoming date. He said something about Janet being more woman than most kids our age or his. I guess I never noticed. Now that I’ve noticed, I guess I don’t really care.
Meanwhile, during Chess Club, when Janet was about to checkmate a fellow, one of her blouse buttons flew open and everyone laughed. Janet buttoned back up, turned red, and left. The boys continued laughing.
Those fellows are so stupid! She’s the second-best player in our school. I wish I hadn’t seen her get embarrassed. Serves me right for skipping fish patrol just to play chess. After club hours, I had to ask the janitor to unlock the school’s front door to let me out since I was so late feeding the principal’s fish.
Owmapow
* * *
May 10, 1986
Rachel:
Did you ever have one of those days? Probably not. Mom and Dad love you.
Well, one of the principal’s favorite fish died over the weekend. Mr. Kashis was mad and muttered something about my not even being on the job for a month yet.
What can I say? I was the one who spotted that little body floating at the top of the tank. If I had hid my observation, the other fish, too, could have died from toxins leaking from their tankmate.
Anyway, Mr. Kashis and I got into a row. He wants me to replace the fish with my own money. However, I think he saw the tear drip from my eye since he and said he’d arrange a tutoring job, for pay, for me.
I thought about my limited experience with Frank’s brother. I thought about Janet Che going to the dance with Frank. I thought about my invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles getting dumped into the local waterway. I gave Mr. Kashis a polite “no.”
I also withdrew my entry in the city science fair. I’d love to have my own set of lab equipment and I would love to teach myself engineering via the Erector set. However, grownups, sometimes, seem worse than peers. Instead of designing a science project, I’ll just stay in my room and read the books on marine life I get from the library.
By the way, I’m also retiring my superhero mask. I’m not possessed of any special abilities, except, perhaps, the ability to learn math quickly. Nah, that’s not so special. Half of the chess team knows algebra.
As per helping the world, I couldn’t even save the scaly babies entrusted to my care. At least I don’t feel guilty about the trades I made, anymore.
Oh, and if you heard Dad yelling last night, that was because he had discovered that I had unboxed his baseball cards and had traded some of them for the very animals he made me part with. I guess he regrets making me abandon those innocent creatures.
Do you still want me to buy you silver-plated earrings for your birthday? It’s important to accept people for who they are, not to try to make them who we want them to be.
Love,
Owmapow
Copyright © 2021 by Channie Greenberg
