Chapter 3: 27th July 1991, Saturday: Part 3

30 minutes flew by as Ellie's utensil reserves started to dry up. Right as she was perfecting her comprehension of the aerodynamic properties of the ballpoint pen, her supply finally depleted. She reached down into her dressing gown pocket and couldn't find so much as a single paper clip remaining. The void where there once had been her entire collection of rainbow crayons came as quite a surprise.

It seemed that in all the excitement of steadily burying her brother alive in stationery, Ellie had lost track of time. She looked back and finally noticed the sheer quantity of paperclips, scrunched-up pieces of paper, pencils and pens encapsulating his head. And yet, after enduring such a bombardment, he was still fast asleep. It was a scientific marvel that anyone could sleep through that. She would have thought that he had slipped into a coma if it wasn't for the fact that he was like this every single morning before school. It would seem that Ellie's little game had failed to awaken her brother, luckily she had a backup plan.

Plan B came in the form of a comically massive rubber. She had purchased it a year ago on a school trip thinking it was the greatest thing to ever grace a gift shop's shelves. In practice, the pencil case-sized rubber was far too unwieldy, so it had been gathering dust in her school bag until this fateful day. Ellie pulled it out of the hood in her dressing gown like an archer reaching for her quiver and held it aloft. Maybe this was the rubber's ordained destiny, like true love's kiss except a hundred times more likely to give the recipient a black eye.

Ellie assumed a posture that vastly differed from her professional darts player stance, the rubber demanded a technique that maximised power over accuracy. Primed and ready to strike, Ellie aimed directly for his forehead. This ultimate wallop was going to wake him up, she did not doubt that.

But... was it too much? What if he actually got a black eye? How could she explain it to her mother and father? She briefly hesitated and began to properly think about the potential consequences of her actions. This was just a silly game after all and totally wasn't worth getting in trouble over. Also, her not-too-pleased parents might stop her from waking him up in the future which really would be bad. Them seeing his red eyes would be the worst-case scenario.

On the other hand, her brother wouldn't want that either. That meant he would be far less likely to snitch on her. They could always come up with some stupid excuse as to why he had a massive bruise in the middle of his face. Her brother usually had lots of mystery bruises around his body anyway, so one more shouldn't seem too out of place... right?

Ellie's motivation swiftly returned with full vigour, nothing was going to stop her now. Apprehension was for the weak-willed and simpletons of the world. Whereas she was smart and beyond such primitive human deficiencies. Just as her arm craned back to launch the projectile at full force, Ellie heard the faint sound of rustling coming from the opposite end of the bed.

It was so quiet that she initially brushed it off as her over-active imagination playing tricks on her but, a second later, another much louder rustling proceeded it. And then another, and another until the mound of utensils started to shift. Her brother's head began moving left and right causing dozens of pens and pencils to fall onto the floor. The subsequent clattering seemed to have been the final straw on the camel's back as her brother's crimson eyes shot open.

Those eyes void of all light locked onto the 12-inch-long ruler resting against her brother's forehead. His pupils went down the length of the ruler until he saw the huge pile of paperclips bent into the shape of darts beside his chin. His brows understandably furrowed as he scanned the rest of her school equipment all around his head. After surveilling the fruits of her labour, her brother looked directly at Ellie who happened to be still holding the rubber above her head.

Only then did she realise how her stance might have looked from an outside perspective, it was fair to say that it was quite incriminating. In a vain attempt to hide her malicious intentions, she hid the huge rubber behind her back and looked towards the ceiling. She would have started whistling if she could to complete the flawlessly innocent act, that always seemed to work in the cartoons. Sadly, there was nothing she could do to stop her cheeks from flushing red out of embarrassment.

As Ellie awaited her inevitable comeuppance, she heard a loud clatter accompanied by an equally noisy yawn. With a foreboding presence looming over her, she looked back down to see that her brother had leaned forward and was in the middle of stretching his arms out wide. Before she had the chance to plug her ears with her fingers, a harsh cracking that sounded like he had broken both of his arms simultaneously echoed through the room. Ellie gritted her teeth in disgust and didn't hesitate to finish covering her ears.

Her brother did this awful routine every morning where he systematically cracked every bone in his body. Nobody liked hearing it except him, Ellie couldn't count the number of times she had told him not to do it in front of her. Her brother said that he needed to do it or his joints would seize up, but she didn't believe him for one second. In her personal opinion, Ellie suspected that he only did it to wind her up.

Her brother eventually finish contorting his back at an unnatural angle and positioned himself to clamber out of bed. Ellie unplugged her ears at just the right time to hear the therapeutic sound of plastic breaking and her brother yelping. It seemed that he had forgotten to consider all of the sharp pencils and paper clips lining the floor and the soles of his feet had to pay the price.

A cheeky smile returned to Ellie's face as she considered this payment for his absolutely needless bone cracking. Her brother was left hopping on one leg whilst plucking the fragments of plastic out of his toes. She couldn't help but leak out a chuckle as she watched his one-legged dance performance. Ellie's giggling didn't go unnoticed as her brother stood back on two feet and turned to address her.

He gestured to all of her spent ammunition and asked, "I'm guessing that all of this is your doing."

Her smile broadened as she obviously felt pride in her accomplishments, this game had taken a lot of her valuable time and effort to arrange after all. Her mother had always told her to be proud of her work and Ellie was sure that it applied to this as well.

Her brother must have been equally as impressed since he started smiling whilst clearly admiring the extent of her creation. He then leaned over his bed and picked up a bright blue ballpoint pen sandwiched between his pillows.

He held the pen up as if he was trying to gauge its weight whilst murmuring, "did it really take all this to wake me up?"

"Pretty much. Well.. actually, it nearly wasn't enough. I almost had to... err... shake you awake?" Ellie's voice trailed off towards the end.

Her enthusiasm to show off nearly resulted in a verbal confession. 'Pride comes before a fall', that's something her father had taught her. Maybe it was for the best if she kept her mouth shut in regard to the whole 'rubber bullet' plan.

Whilst Ellie was getting her story straight, her brother had dropped the pen and was intensely staring at the ground. She hadn't seen him look so serious before, other than when she had learnt about his secret.

"Is something wrong?"

Her voice appeared to have snapped her brother out of whatever trance he was in since his expression instantly turned back to normal. With a carefree and somewhat benevolent smile, he looked back at Ellie and made an outrageous conjecture.

"You wouldn't have been so bold as to plant all this around my head while I was asleep, would you?" he suggested with a raised eyebrow.

The audacity, how dare he make such a ridiculous accusation? All that precision aiming and perfect form to create this masterpiece and he dared suggest it was all a fabrication. Any remaining innocence on Ellie's face all but vanished as she stood at a loss for words. The rubber behind her back had turned into a makeshift stress ball as she tried to regulate her turbulent emotions. Nevertheless, her brother kept besmirching her good name.

"Because I would be dreadfully disappointed if that turned out to be true. To sink so low as to lie to your own brother..." he was laying it on thick.

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Ellie couldn't take it anymore. Her brother had gone too far this time.

She brandished the rubber at him like it was a dagger and cut off his nonsensical yammerings, "I am not a liar!"

Her brother looked down at the 'weapon' and snorted, "really? If that's true then..."

He gently prodded the tip of the rubber, "care tell dear sister of mine, what did you bring that for?"

Ellie didn't know what to say. Revealing the rubber yet again had been yet another emotionally-driven slip-up on her part. Still, she didn't want to give up so easily. There might be some way of talking her way out of this, she just had to work it out. Surely this battle of wits was within her brilliant mind's capabilities to defeat.

Ellie ended up shrugging her shoulders and stating matter-of-factly, "to rub stuff out. Isn't that what rubbers are made for? It's literally in the name."

Her brother acted exaggeratedly surprised by this revelation, he wasn't even trying to hide his insincerity. He placed his hand on the back of his head and looked at the ground like he was having an existential crisis.

"Oh. My. God. All this time... I could have been... How could I have not seen this earlier!?"

He then slowly raised his head to reveal that his expression had gone back to being infuriatingly smug. That whole dramatic performance was just to make fun of her less-than-adequate excuse. She realised that the game was rigged from the start, he already knew what the rubber was for.

The feeling of defeat washed over Ellie as she lowered the rubber dejectedly, she had nothing else to say in her defence. Her brother took this as her act of formal surrender and started to head towards the bedroom door. Ellie heard the sound of him turning the handle to leave and suddenly remembered the whole reason she was in his room in the first place.

"Wait! Your eyes... They've changed again."

Her brother froze in place before releasing the door handle a second later.

He rested his head against the door as he said self-deprecatingly, "wow, that was a close one. Thanks for reminding me, I'm so groggy today that I'm surprised I didn't leave my head in bed. It's a good thing you were here to look after me."

Her brother then shuffled his hands around in front of his chest in a way that Ellie couldn't see. This naturally cheered her up since she knew what was coming next. He then turned around and revealed Ellie's favourite purple sweet in his right hand like a magician concluding a magic act. And for all intensive purposes, this was magic to Ellie. She had seen him do this trick before many times and could never find out where he was hiding the sweets. Even now, her brother was wearing a pair of plain pyjamas without any pockets. The only thing he would tell her is 'a good magician never reveals his secrets' which was as good as not saying anything at all. In the end, she didn't really care because she got a sweet either way.

Her brother proceeded to toss the sweet into the air, only for it to land in her open palm. Ellie licked her lips and shoved it into her open mouth with about as much grace as a starved wild animal. The fruity and sweet flavours overwhelmed her taste buds as she frantically chewed it until there was nothing left. Once she had finished her treat, she looked back at her brother and saw that his eyes were back to normal.

Her not-so-subtle reaction seemed to have been enough for him to realize what had happened. He grabbed the door handle yet again except this time he straitened his back whilst elegantly holding his spare arm out towards her.

"Would Lady Ellie care to join me in the living room for a tea party until mother and father have awoken?" He said in a posh accent.

Having seen her brother put on this act for her before, Ellie assumed a similar posture and daintily grabbed his outstretched arm.

"Of course Sir George. It would be a pleasure to drink tea with you".

Upon hearing her eloquent response, George opened the bedroom door with one swift movement and guided Ellie to the living room.

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Authors note:

This chapter will mark the end of Ellie's POV.

Readers should expect the rest of the story to be from George's POV.

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