My Little Sister

My Little Sister

“This is all my fault. I'm sorry.”

How many times have I heard that line in the past nine years? Six hundred? Seven hundred? No, probably more.

Tracy Ann is my little sister. She's nine years old. Sometimes I swear though, she's at least a hundred years old She can be so sweet and so cute. And she can be as vicious as a 9.8 tornado.

This afternoon, after band practice, my Mom invited the entire woodwind section home for cake. We had been featured as a section at the State Band Competition. And today, after our usual Saturday practice, Mom invited all sixteen of us to come to our house for cake. Sort of a side celebration, you know. Our school is a rather small school I'd expect them to be really excited about our feature. The school didn't seem to value out new status as much as our director did. Mom thought that was a shame. How often does a section of a hifh school band receive recognition from State Band Judges? Never before.

The group came in several cars and literally flooded our back yard with enthusiasm. Mom and I went into the house to bring out the cake and Dad would bring the punch. Punch. This was a party - punch.

The minute I entered the kitchen I felt something was off. Mom stopped three feet from the counter. The cake she'd spent hours decorating in school colors with clarinets and oboes around the edges, had a large chunk missing. The cake was there but part of the wording and some of the oboes were gone.

“Tracy Ann, what is the meaning of this? Why did you cut into the cake? We're having a party.”

It had to be Tracy Ann. Dad would never cut a cake without permission – even his own birthday cake.

On cue, Tracy Ann clouded up and a tear ran down her cheek. “I was hungry and you guys were taking so long. “

“You knew it was a celebration. You knew the cake was special. What gave you the idea you could cut it?”

“I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I just wasn't thinking.”

Mom took the cake out to the table on the patio. “We had a bit of cake theft while we were gone. I hope

that you will still enjoy the cake.”

Of course, we did. But there was a lot of buzz. Mainly about Tracy Ann. She has pulled this kind of stunt

in front of some of these kids before. If she was looking for fame, she got infamy.

We all had a grand time. The cake was large enough to survive the butchery of my sister. Dad had taken a couple photos of it before Tracy got to it and he shared those on line. Almost all the band members had a bit of the party on their websites. But, Tracy got smeared, again. Dad believes she's looking for any kind of attention. Just so it's all hers.

Perhaps. But that cake was just the tip of the iceberg called Tracy Ann.

Last fall everyone in the neighborhood had raked the fallen leaves into piles. Do it every year. Every year the piles are then stuffed into bags and the City collects them on the last Friday of the month. The little kids all love to jump into the piles of leaves and play. It's tradition. I did it when I was five, six, maybe even seven. Even Mr. Jenlins keeps his leaves in piles until the day before they are to picked up by the City. But last fall, someone set fire to half the piles of leaves in the neighborhood. Fire. It was done very early morning fortunately, as the kids loved playing in the leaves just before bedtime. I say fortunately as the toys that were destroyed in that fire could have been kids if the timing was different.

It took several days to ferret out the culprit. Yep, it was Tracy Ann.

My Dad's cigarette lighter had gone missing the week before the fires. He doesn't smoke much anymore but keeps it on the mantle so Mom can light candles without fighting a match. That sort of thing. He had noticed it was moved and finally said something. Mom denied having moved it. I had forgotten we had a lighter. And Tracy Ann didn't offer any comment. The week after the fires, Mom found the lighter tucked under the mattress at the foot of Tracy's bed. She was changing the sheets as she usually does once a week.

At the dinner table, Mom held up the lighter. Dad asked where she had found it. Tracy Ann offered no comment. Finally Mom confronted her. “What was this lighter doing in your bed?”

“Well, I found it and didn't know what to do with it so I just tucked it where it wouldn't get lost.”

We don't get allowances, Tracy or I. Dad wanted to know how she planned to replace the toys that had been burned in her fire. She denied setting the fires. Three times. Finally, she admitted that she just wanted to see how the lighter worked. Once again, she was totally repentant. I left the table. I didn't want to hear how she was really going to work her way out of this.

But, Tracy's biggest problem is her mouth. She has hurt the feelings of so many little neighbor kids. So many, in fact, that she has no one left in the neighborhood to play with. She doesn't stop with calling them ugly. She calls them names, says they're trash, things I believe I'd never heard at age nine. Where does she

get this stuff? And, when one girl, who was 11, was called low life, poor and trash, she suggested to my Mom that she not let Tracy watch so many of those reels on Facebook. They all end badly for the nay-sayer but Tracy evidently doesn't watch them to the end. She told Tracy that she shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I wondered how many of those do-good reels she herself watches. Tracy Ann was nine and didn't have a friend in the neighborhood. A couple girls in school looked up to her thinking she was brave and bold talking bad to people. But they weren't really friends; they were disciples. They followed her around every where.

Her reputation did not precede her in the classroom however. She was sweet and innocent to all her teachers. Our school had just begun a program where the fourth grade actually had more than one basic teacher. She had them all buffaloed. Except the music teacher. He overheard her telling one of the other students that she, the other student, must be tone deaf to enjoy the music they were being taught. She belittled her sense of taste, hearing, and general being. And the showdown began. In the end the music teacher was called to the principal's office along with my parents. When my parents defended the music teacher, it must have been a terrible shock to those teachers she had buffaloed.

Anything that seems deliberate, thought out, and tragic around our house, our neighborhood, is now just automatically blamed on Tracy Ann. My parents have tried. She's missed going to some great venues because of her mouth. She's missed going out for dinner more than once. My grandparents still can't believe Tracy Ann could be all the thngs she is but they are beginning to get the message I think.

Grandma Stevens wore a new dress to dinner at our house last week. Without even thinking twice, Tracy opened her mouth. “Gosh, Granny, that dress makes you look ninety-five.” Grams was rather quiet, for her, the entire meal. And I believe Dad filed in the cracks for her later, after we had been sent off to bed. When Dad told us the next morning that Grams didn't feel welcomed the night before, Tracy Ann said, “This is all my fault. I am so sorry. But Granny needs to dress better.”

Yeah, Tracy just doesn't get it. The world doesn't run on Tracy rules.

Thank goodness.