There are ants in my Lucky Green Boots Circulation: 175,178,063 Issue: 374 | 9th day of Sleeping, Y11
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My Little Sister


by sheyda_sheyda

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Ok, I’ve decided I’ll be completely honest with you.

     I’m weird. Yeah, I know I’ll probably end up boring you to death with my rambling, but hey, I’m not forcing you to read this. Anyway, yeah, back to how I’m weird. Like, in Neoschool last year, all my classmates would make the strangest faces at me every time I asked the teacher a question.

     “Mrs. Pierce, why don’t fortune tellers ever win the Neopian Lottery?”

     “Mrs. Pierce, what if someone was allergic to water?”

     “What if Neopia had no Kreludor?”

     She always seemed so pleased with my questions.

     She’d always say, “I don’t really know the answer to that question, but it’s wonderful that you ask them, Geoffrey!”

     What kind of answer is that, anyway? Teachers are supposed to know everything. My classmates thought it was annoying. They thought I talked too much, that I overanalyzed things. Once, a rather popular little royal Usul came up to me after class and bluntly told me that I was weird. I only shrugged.

     Then I said to her, “What if no one cared about how they were perceived by others?”

     She only laughed at me and said I was a show off for using big words too much. Perceive. That’s not even a big word.

     But it doesn’t really help that I’m weird looking, as well. I’m a blue Moehog. I’m pretty tall compared to most Moehogs I know, and that’s why I’m odd looking. My legs are too long, and my tusks are tiny. I look kind of goofy, to tell the truth.

     So anyway, yeah, I’m rambling again. Sorry about that. I do it a lot, obviously.

     I have a little sister, Patricia. Everyone just calls her Pat for short. She’s one of the most adorable little speckled Ixi you’ll ever meet, and she’s incredibly sharp for someone her age. Everyone likes her. She used to care a lot about how others see her. She would always be buying the most expensive outfits, the frilliest little dresses you’d ever see in your life.

     I remember on our way home from school, Pat asked me a question.

     “Geoffrey, why does no one like you?”

     “I’m weird,” I told her.

     “Why are you weird?”

     I stopped walking for a moment to ponder.

     “Well, for one thing, I ask too many questions.”

     “But I ask questions a lot too,” she said, looking unmoved.

     She did have a point there. Pat asked just as many questions as I did, but I don’t know... I think it was the way she asked it. Or maybe it was because she was so adorable that it was impossible to depict her as being weird.

     “Well, take into account that I don’t care what others think of me.”

     She sure did look really confused at that point. I don’t even think it registered in her brain for that moment that some of us genuinely don’t care about that sort of thing. I was actually really angry at her in that moment, how my own little sister cared so much about what others thought of her. It also made really sad. She shouldn’t have been worrying about that. She should’ve been out, playing Gormball or whatever little games Neopets her age played.

     The next day at Neoschool, she wore the ugliest outfit you could ever imagine. It was all mismatched, so uncoordinated. It was even worse than what I wear to school every day, and that’s really saying something. Everyone was shocked; she didn’t look adorable today. She actually looked like she could be my sister for once.

     It was hilarious to realize that half of her class didn’t know I was her bigger brother. They were mortified when they found out.

     “Ugh! Geoffrey is your brother? I feel so bad for you!”

     That’s what they said to her all day. She just shrugged her shoulders, and ate lunch with me, her odd older brother, that day. Everyone gawked. It took all my effort not to start cracking up at the looks on their faces. When we got home, she locked herself in her room for the rest of the day, upset because she wasn’t used to being made fun of. I did have to feel some sympathy for her, though.

     She’s so sensitive, I remember times when she would get a wrong answer in class, she’d come home sulking for the rest of the day because she felt so humiliated. Yeah, I know it sounds a little ridiculous for her to make a big deal out of something as small as that, but I think she’s growing out of it already. I’m not worried, to tell the truth.

     Then the next day, she continued wearing her new, uncoordinated wardrobe. She was practically being shunned at this point. She came home, telling me that her classmates told her she was weird. I laughed and told her that they didn’t know what they were talking about.

     Then something weird happened. While Pat and I were eating lunch together, this shy purple Gnorbu named Karl plopped down on the chair right next to me and started talking to us. I’d never seen Karl act this outgoing before. We had a conversation about a question I had asked in class a few days ago, about what would happen to Neopia if Kreludor disappeared or something like that.

     Then for the next few days, more and more of our classmates started joining us in lunch, and a few of them even spoke to us in class. Of course, these were all of our shier, quieter classmates who dared to speak to us. None of them were popular, but they weren’t considered weird, either.

     Eventually, our whole lunch table was filled up. Lunch was really fun; we always had the craziest and most interesting conversations, always asking the most insane hypothetical questions to each other.

     For the next month, all of us were deemed as being the “nerds.” None of us cared, though, and that angered some of our classmates. It confused them as to why we never wore the most stylish clothes, or why we asked such silly questions.

     Eventually, they stopped calling us nerds once they finally realized that we genuinely did not care. Everyone stopped giving me strange looks in class whenever I asked Mrs. Pierce a question with no definite answer. It was only expected of me.

     They’d just shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s Geoffrey for ya.”

     Now, no one at my Neoschool cares about how others see him or her. Some days, the most stylish Neopets will show up to school wearing mismatched clothes, or a blouse that is way too big. They’ll just make a joke about themselves and go on about their day, not caring about how they look. These are the same Neopets who wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing mismatched socks last year, for crying out loud.

     I’ll be done with Neoschool next year. I’m kind of sad about it, to tell the truth. I love going to school now; it’s like a second home to me. I mean, it’s because everyone’s so friendly, so goofy and good-spirited. And Pat is really happy. She’s genuinely happy, and she doesn’t care about what others think of her.

     I’m really proud of my little sister.

The End

 
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