EREN

“Give me that breadstick or I’ll eat all your half of dessert.” I’d say as I tried to get my breadstick back from Eli. She always tries to get mine because she eats hers before we even sit down at the table. I snatch back from her and sit down. Mom sits down, setting down the extra food. Every night here is about the same, we all have dinner together, Ellie tries to steal my bread, we argue over who gets the last good piece of whatever dessert is left. 

“Eli, leave your poor brother alone, I’ll make another breadstick but you have to stop eating yours before you even sit down,” Mom broke her breadstick in two and gave half to Eli. “Now that that’s settled, why don’t you two tell me about your days at school?” She’d take a scoop of her rice as she waited.

“Oh! My first day was great!” Eli exclaimed, gobbling down a bit of her steak before continuing. “My first grade teacher, Ms. Jackie, she’s teaching us for all of this year! She also told us that we’re gonna have show and tell tomorrow so I’m bringing Snappy!”

“Elizabeth, you can’t bring Snappy.” My mom said.

“Aw, but why? He’ll be super good and I’ll watch him the whole time!”

“Eli, the last time you took Snappy out of the house, you stopped looking at him for two seconds and he ran around Aunt Diane’s entire house. She was mortified! You know she’s scared of reptiles!”

“Well, that wouldn’t happen this time! I didn’t mean to leave the cage open and Aunt Diane is just dramatic. She gets scared of seeing a person walk their dog!”

While these two argue over Snappy going to show and tell, I get a notification from Charlie. I unlock my phone and read it. 

“Need someone to talk to, kinda bored.”

I chuckle, eating my food and texting him back.

“Thought your parents were home, they bore you to death or smth?”

“No, it’s not that, but they have me watching this dumb romance movie with them and they fell asleep before the 30 min mark.”

“Omg, lol, I’m sorry, you can’t just go back to your room?”

“Nah, they’d hear me if I get up and be like, don’t gooo, the movie’s just getting good! Then if I said it’s boring, they’d say, but…family time, we wanna spend it with our favorite son.”

“Oh god, the parental guilt tripping, been there. Mom does it to me when she needs me to help her cook.”

We text back and forth for a bit before I hear mom and Eli stop arguing. Eli’s won the battle and she’s showing off Snappy at Show and Tell. Downside is, it can only be a picture of Snappy. If she takes Snappy out without mom’s permission, she’ll be grounded for a week.

We all finish dinner and it’s time for dessert. Mom always makes a mystery dessert as a surprise for us on special occasions. Tonight, it’s strawberry chocolate pudding parfaits. I’m surprised she manages to always keep these a secret with how good Eli’s nose is. Maybe it’s another mom thing. We eat but Eli’s eating slower because of her defeat with trying to bring her turtle to show and tell. By tomorrow, she should be over it.