I stand by the window and watch the school bus pull up and stop in front of our house.
The last Tuesday of the year . . . the day the students clean out their desks.
Maj gets off the bus, and her arms are laden with belongings. She carries a backpack, a large plastic Tupperware container, her sweater draped over one arm, and a bulging paper grocery bag of school-related treasures that she holds by its paper handles. She walks awkwardly across the street in front of the bus and then up our driveway. She stops at about the halfway point and turns to stare back at the bus.
There is a commotion on the bus. I can’t make out words, but I hear yelling voices and I see students standing and waving their arms. The bus sits, a huge hulking yellow in front of our house . . . waiting . . . lights flashing.
Where is Kallan, anyway?
I watch.
Kallan finally gets off the bus, and she is also laden down. She is carrying her backpack and a sweater and a plastic Tupperware container and a bulging paper bag of school-related treasures. She is hugging the bag to her chest, and she looks upset and overwhelmed.
The bag slips from her hands and falls to the ground as she starts across the street.
Poor Kallan.
Maj stands in our driveway and stares at her sister.
Kallan stands helplessly, the ground below her littered with papers.
I slip on my shoes and am about to head out when another girl leaps from the bus and helps Kallan collect the bag and the belongings that have fallen out. She presses the bag into Kallan’s chest so that Kallan can carry it. She adjusts Kallan’s backpack on Kallan’s shoulders so that she is better able to transport everything.
The bus driver uses the intercom system to call for this girl to get back on the bus, but the girl waves off the request. She stands and watches as Kallan crosses the street.
Kallan crosses the street carefully, with small steps and the paper bag hugged messily to her body.
The girl who helped Kallan yells something and Kallan turns. The girl smiles and waves and leaps back onto the bus.
Maj is still standing in the middle of the driveway, just staring at her sister.
The bus is still sitting there, lights flashing, holding up our neighborhood traffic.
Sigh.
I feel Kallan’s humiliation, but I pause for a moment longer, knowing that she would not want me to come out to rescue her while the busload of children watch.
And she appears to have things under control.
Kallan makes it to where Maj is standing in the driveway.
She says something to Maj and gestures with her hand back at the bus.
As she gestures, the bag rips completely apart.
Everything falls.
Kallan collapses to the ground to try to keep the papers from escaping.
Her hands reach and scrabble.
Maj just stands there.
The bus is still sitting in the road in front of our house, lights flashing, and I realize the bus driver is waiting for someone to help Kallan.
Maj just stands there.
Poor Kallan . . . she is going to hate that I have to come out and help her in front of her friends.
I reach for the doorknob, and I try to will Maj to bend and kneel to help her sister.
But Maj stands tall and oblivious as Kallan crouches and grabs for papers at her feet.
Really, Maj?
Sigh.
I walk out and wave the bus driver along.
I crouch beside Kallan as cars pass by, the drivers curious about the cause of the delay.
Kallan is crying and shaking and unable to speak.
Maj says nothing.
She just stands there.
I help Kallan collect her belongings. Handfuls of paper and school supplies and artwork and pencils and glue and assignments. I work with her to gather everything into a jumbled pile, and then I reach to hug her, “It’s OK, babe. Nothing is ruined; it’s just a little scrambled.”
Kallan weeps into my shoulder with big wracking sobs.
Poor baby.
Kallan and I sit together in the driveway. She scooches into my lap and I rock her. She wraps her arms around my neck and just cries . . . big wet sobbing tears of humiliation.
And maybe? Something else . . .
Maj stands over us and finally speaks, her voice cold and annoyed, “I don’t know why she’s so upset. I ask her to do one little thing. I ask her to carry one of my bags of stuff and look what happens. She can’t do anything right.”
Wait.
I turn incredulously to Maj, “This huge extra bag of stuff your sister was carrying belongs to you?”
Maj stares at me in challenge, “So what?”
Kallan finally finds words, “I said I would help, but then she gave me the bag with the ripped handles.”
Maj snorts, “I needed help. Why would I give you the bag that doesn’t have a problem? That’s ridiculous.”
Kallan looks at me, “Do you see how she is? She knew I wouldn’t be able to carry it and she just left me on the bus. Everybody yelled at me to hurry up and then the bag dropped and then Maj’s friend had to come and help me and then it fell apart and everyone was laughing at me and Maj didn’t even move. Do you see how she is?”
“Yes, I see.”
I reach to pick up Kallan’s backpack as we stand and work out how best to get everything in the house, “Oh my god, Kallan! What’s in your backpack? It weighs like a million pounds!”
Kallan sighs, “I didn’t want to have to carry extra bags, so I shoved everything in my backpack and left the rest at school to get tomorrow.”
Maj turns and runs suddenly to the end of the driveway and crouches to retrieve something.
Holding this something in her hands, she comes stomping back up to where Kallan and I stand.
She extends her hands so Kallan and I can see the small broken fragments of a generic yellow pencil, “Pencil wreckage, Kallan. I ask you to do one small thing and you mess it up and now a car has run over my favorite pencil and I have pencil wreckage. Thank you very much.”
Kallan wails and throws herself into my arms.
“Hey, Maj?”
“Yes, Mother?”
“You know how I am always telling you that being a big sister is an important job? How you need to look out for your sister and be kind to your sister? How she is your one and only sister, and you just get this one shot at getting it right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in this moment right here? I would like to inform you that you SUCK. You totally suck.”
Maj stares at me angrily, her pencil wreckage clenched in her hand.
Kallan is weeping into my chest.
Maj is furious, “I do not suck.”
“Yes, babe. You do. Not all the time. But this moment right here? You totally suck.”
Kallan sniffles, “You totally do, Maj. I love you, but you suck.”
The two girls stare at one another for a few seconds.
The three of us walk together into the house.
We dump the armloads of belongings onto the dining room table.
We talk.
Maj starts the conversation, “So I just want to be clear that this is the summer in which I am allowed to point out when things suck. Suck is a word I thought we were not supposed to use, but apparently? This is the summer of suck.”
Geez.
I hope not.
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A reminder that comments are closed for the summer . . . but that does not mean that you can’t talk about me.
Hint . . . hint.
Snort!
