As I sat with my little, knobby knees twisted into my usual Indian style formation, in my backyard by the big oak tree, I began to recall having a similar feeling to the one I was having now. I always got this tight, knot in the very depths of my tummy whenever I was considering being less than truthful. Little puddles of sweat were beginning to form on my forehead all along my distinctive widow’s peak hairline. I knew it was going to be bad.

Only a few hours ago life was wonderful. It was like a day at your own private amusement park with no long lines to wait in. However, now this day just plain sucked. I knew I couldn’t get away with what I had done, but I just couldn’t find the strength to fuss up about it quite yet either. To tell the God honest truth, I blame my brother for this whole mess. He is the older one after all, and should therefore be held responsible for this catastrophe.

My brother is only twenty-two months older than me, but he’s always been bigger than me. He has brown hair, blue eyes, and the most annoyingly perfect teeth a person could have. He could break big, thick sticks in half from a very young age. This skill came in handy whenever we wanted to pretend to be knights and have wooded swords to fence with. I was always too scared I would get hit in the face to try and break sticks on my own. So, in more than one way I relied on my brother. He is the one person I looked up to for what is right, or in this case wrong.

It all started with a stupid cup. A stupid, hot pink monster of a cup ruined this day. It was small, completely covered in plastic nodes, and filled to the brim with evil. This cup must have been possessed. That is the only explanation. So, to be quite honest it was neither my fault nor my brother’s. It was that ungodly, trouble-seeking cup’s! I wonder if my parents would buy that load of crap or not…?

Anyway, this all started with a cup. My brother and I were in our living room having a fairly average argument over which was better Batman or Robin. One might wonder why this fight would occur. Well it’s easy to fight with your butthead of a brother when he always insists on making you the Robin to his Batman. It is impossible to convince anyone Batman isn’t the best, and therefore I wanted to be Batman in our game. My brother, once again thinking the world revolves around him, wanted to be the main character. He was even wearing a blanket around his neck to symbolize his Batman cape. This is when the real dramatics began.

“I want to be Batman! I’m the oldest and that makes me the boss!” shouted my brother in a way that almost made me believe his self-righteous authority.

“I’m little you should be nice to me or I’ll cry and get you in trouble!” I retorted in my snottiest, spoiled brat voice.

“You can’t just always get what you want because you’re the youngest. Just do what I tell you do and we can start to play. Ok?” My brother was attempting to reason with me, but I was having none of it.

“I’m never playing a dumb game with you again. You’re a meanie!” I said swiftly before resorting to the worst decision of my life.

Our living room is small with obnoxious, orange carpet. On one side of the room is a wall of windows with a couch underneath them. Opposite of the windows is our TV console, which is massive to say the least. It eats the entire space with its presence. To the left of the TV, is a couch and to the right is my mother’s China case. Really, who puts a China case in a living room? She was simply asking for trouble, in my opinion.

The cup seamlessly began to slip from my hand and flew through the air at a pace a turtle could’ve passed in its sleep. All the air in the room suddenly seemed to gasp along with my brother and me. We both watched the cup move from high to low across the room until it ended its journey smack in the middle of my mother’s China case. My brother’s strikingly gray-blue eyes seemed to explode with panic the same instant this occurred.

Though I didn’t know a lot of swear words at this age, I had picked up enough from my time with my old-fashioned grandmother to know that this was definitely an “Oh Shit!” kind of moment. So that’s exactly what came out of my mouth.

“Oh shit!” I said without even thinking.

“What did you just say?” inquired my brother with disbelief igniting behind his eyes.

“Never mind that, what are we going to do?” I frantically scrambled in my own brain for ideas as I asked him.

So the damage had been done. The entire glass front of the case was shattered. Little glass droplets were already burying their little bodies into the carpet awaiting a bare foot to subject to a little bit of torturous fun. Thankfully none of the China itself was broken, but the fact that all of the glass was now all over the floor wasn’t exactly a good thing.

“I’m going to go get mom”, my brother said with defeat in his voice.

“No! We can fix this. Just don’t get her. She’ll be super mad at me”, I said with pure fear dripping off of my every word.

“Do you really know how to clean up glass?” my brother inquired.

“No”, I said admitting defeat myself.

So that is why I am now sitting calmly in my backyard awaiting my fate. Picking at the delicate grass just beginning to grow this season. Staring at the clouds and attempting to form pictures with the fluffy clouds as they slowly drift by. Time seemed to be moving at a slug’s pace. I only wish I could force myself to go in that house and see what was going on. But then I would have to gain the courage to be braver than a newborn kitten and that was never going to happen.

“Falicia, come inside please”, I heard my mother say softly from the backdoor.

“Oh shit, here it comes”, I barely whispered for fear of being heard on top of this mess.

My mother is a tall, skinny woman that could beat up just about anyone. She acts like she’s super tough, and though she is she also seems to have two instinctive soft spots. One being her children and the other being cats. I don’t know why cats are one of the two things, but that’s my mother for you. As I walked up to the house I looked into her green eyes, eyes that were only slightly lighter than my own. I sensed no anger in them, but it must have been there under the surface of those nurturing, mothering eyes, right?

“Let me see your hands, sweetie”, my mother said with a face absent of a smile.

“Are you ok?” she inquired. “You didn’t get cut, did you?”

“No, I’m fine”, I said with confusion all over my youthful features.

“Please be more careful, honey. I was worried you had hurt yourself. I’m having your dad put plexi-glass in the cabinet now. I’m sorry I was so careless and put you guys around something that could break like that and could hurt you. I love you. Now go on outside and keep playing”, said my mother.

Was this really happening? Did I really just get off the hook so easily?

“Okay mom, I love you too”, I said still in disbelief.

I took a few steps out into the trees that lined the edge of my backyard and began to smile. For once in my life, I wasn’t in trouble for breaking something. This day so didn’t suck. I felt loved and like I could do anything. I felt like for once in my life as long as I told the truth everything would be okay. I understood how scary it could be awaiting your fate, but in the end the truth really is the only thing that can cure a little girl’s guilty tummy ache.

But just to be sure I don’t think I should touch that pink cup again. Maybe it really is possessed, and it worked its powers on my mother? No, that can’t be true. Or maybe it could be…