“Tell me another story.”
“Another one?” Lisa brushes a stray curl out of her sister’s smiling face, only for it to spring back. Lata wriggles under the covers until her star-spangled duvet the tip of her nose.
“Just one more,” Lata replies, as she did after stories one, two, and three.
“Okay, okay,” her older sister concedes. “Once upon a time, there was—”
“Wait,” Lata springs up in bed. “Can I get a glass of water first?”
Lisa puts a hand against her shoulder and squeezes, “I’ll get you some water. If you get up again you’ll never go to sleep.”
Lisa shuffles along the burgundy carpet in the hallway in her fuzzy gray socks, wondering what story she’d tell this time. She digs through the kitchen cupboard trying to find Lata’s favourite mug— the overpriced, premade one she painted at Crock A Doodle for Minnie Jones’ ninth birthday party. Finally, she finds it behind a plastic water bottle. She curls her fingers around the spiral handle that her sister decorated with sprinkles as the tap runs.
When she returns, her sister’s eyes are closed. Lisa sets the mug on the dresser and slips a coaster underneath for good measure. She grabs her, turns off the overhead light, and turns to leave.
“Lisa?”
She was this close.
Lisa swivels back and falls back into the beanbag chair, still molded to her frame from the hour she spent sitting in it before she got up to get water.
“I’m not asleep,” Lata murmurs, a smile creeping into her voice.
Lisa rolls her eyes but can’t fight her smile. “I can tell.” She looks over at the Hello Kitty-shaped clock on her sister’s dresser which reads 8:45 P.M. She’s been waiting for the new season of Euphoria to drop for months and her friends are spamming her name in the group chat, asking when she’ll be ready to start their virtual watch party. Still, making her younger sister happy is gratifying and she gets brownie points with her mom, so she texts back quickly and tells them she’ll be free in fifteen minutes.
“About that story,” her sister probes.
“Once upon a time, there was a girl who was…” Lisa taps her index finger against her chin, struggling to choose the perfect word. She settles on, “Mischievous. Yes, this girl was crafty, conniving, and creative.”
Lata mumbles to indicate she is still listening, still awake.
“What does conniving mean?” She asks.
“Sneaky, illegal, bad,” Lisa replies, trying to hide her amusement as her best friend’s name pops into her mind.
“Anyway, this girl had dreams of world domination. She knew that she had to start small. The world runs on money, unfortunately, Lata,” her older sister said, placing a hand on her arm. Lisa knew this more than anyone. When their parents got divorced, she and their mother had to work overtime to keep up with the rent and utilities payments. In addition to working at the local grocery store, Lisa picked up a few other side hustles.
“The girl started on her journey to freedom and power by perfecting her lockpicking skills,” Lisa continued. “At the age of 13, she spent hours watching YouTube videos on how to open and break all different types of locks. She started practicing on her peers’ lockers at school. Usually the ones in the basement, in a dimly lit hallway on the South side of the building, where no one could see her on the security tapes.”
Lata rolls over onto her side to face the wall but insists, “Keep talking.”
“This girl got so good at picking locks that she moved on to buildings. The library, a coffee shop, and the school on Saturday nights. But of course, to do this, she also had to learn how to disable cameras and alarm systems.”
“What was there to do at the school on a Saturday night?” Lata’s curiosity was cute and annoying at the same time.
“Lots of stuff. Schools are pretty well supplied, so a teacher won’t notice if they’re missing a few pens or if the printer paper is lower than the day before. And a janitor wouldn’t be able to even register a few missing paper towel rolls or cleaning supplies,” Lisa explains. She closes her eyes and thinks back to how she spent her Saturday nights. In the company of her friend group, they’d eat Wagonwheels and drink too many Red Bulls, run around late into the hours of the night or into the early morning.
Lata sits up and points to the mug on the dresser. “Can you pass me my water, please?” She tilts her head to each side, a loud crack following the release of tension. “So satisfying,” she says, and she’s referring both to the sound, as well as the fact that she knows how much it bugs Lisa.
Lisa shivers and gives her sister a look that says ‘Knock it off’ before she hands over the mug. Lata grins back at her and proceeds to take noisy gulps, like a dehydrated puppy who has just come back from a long walk on a sweltering summer day.
Lisa rushes to continue the story, feeling antsy as the clock turns from 9:15 to 9:16 and her phone vibrates incessantly in her back pocket. “Like I said, this girl was incredibly smart but she did come close to being caught. Just once. One night, she was walking through the woods, a shortcut to get to the school, and an old man and his scrappy, loud dog were passing by just as she was about to start tampering with the lock.”
Lata leans in a bit closer, clutching the mug with both hands, her hazel eyes wide and anticipating the next part of the story.
“To avoid being seen by the man and his dog, she crouched behind the salt bin. She held her breath and her heart pounded as the stupid dog went up to sniff her. This rat-looking dog put its paws up on her knee and sniffed her for a whole minute.” Lisa pauses, for suspense.
“Ok, and then what?” Lata urges.
“She was sure it would start barking at her, any minute, but instead, it moved over to pee on the corner of the bin. and moved on after its owner tugged on the leash a few times. The girl had to hop over a few times to avoid stepping in the pee puddle.”
Lata breaks out into laughter, and water shoots out of her left nostril which is gross but makes Lisa laugh too. She gently pulls the mug from her sister’s hands and gives her a few firm pats on the back. When her breathing no longer sounds strained, Lisa finishes the story.
“After that, the girl managed to get into the school and everything else went according to plan.”
“But what exactly did the girl do while she was in the school? Did she steal stuff or throw a party? Or both?” Lata asks.
Lisa makes sure her sister isn’t holding any more water in her mouth before replying, “She waited for a few of her friends to arrive, let them in through an entrance at the side of the building, and then they filled the school swimming pool with instant mashed potatoes.”
“No way!”
“Yes, way!” Lisa gestures for her sister to get settled under the covers once more and leans down to kiss the top of her sister’s head.
“Lisa, how do you come up with such weird and funny stories?”
She smiles, “I don’t know. They just come to me, I guess.”
Lisa closes the door as quietly as possible, even though she has to give it an extra pull because of how old it is. She creeps down the hall again and into her room.
There’s a lot Lisa opts to leave out about her heroine in her tales of thievery. In the real story, she didn’t move in time and had to scrub the dog pee off the soles of her white Air Forces with a mixture of toothpaste and baking when she got home. She also left out that she mixed some packets of Jell-O in with the mashed potatoes; the janitors must have had a blast cleaning out that mess. Lisa also hasn’t gotten to any of the stories that involve the more grotesque details yet, her sister is only just 13, after all. And she’s not sure she ever will, some things are best kept between her and her friends. No need to involve anyone else.
