Meg had always hated her sister Julia. They were twins, but total opposites. Meg was an introvert. She was very private and no one, including her parents Jan and Maxwell, ever knew what she was thinking.
Julia however, you always knew what she was thinking. She never shut up. Being a sucker for all the latest trends, she always spoke about fashion and the newest, coolest toys and dolls. She was Eight, but wanted to spend like a teenager. And did.
Meg’s private personality meant that she didn’t have many (SEE: None) friends. She spent all of her time either at school or at home with her head in a book. She was a bright little thing.
Julia was Miss Popularity of the Third Grade. Everyone loved her because she had all the latest things and knew so much about everything “cool”. She too was clever; she just applied her smarts to different things than Meg.
Maxwell and Jan had never understood poor Meg. Her complete contrast to her sister’s bubbly, loud personality worried them, and they (by Jan’s request) regularly had her checked by the local GP to see if everything with her was right.
“She’s a healthy girl.” Doctor Johnson would say. “She just likes to keep to herself.”
Maxwell basically accepted this. Jan just couldn’t understand. She tried to talk with her daughter, to make her different.
“Come on honey, stop reading that book. Come shopping with your sister and me.” Jan would say.
“I don’t like shopping.” Meg replied, her head still buried in a book.
“But your sister loves it!” Jan would plead, trying to make her daughter see sense. Meg remained silent.
Gradually Jan stopped trying to change her daughter. She just gave up on her. Left her to her own devices and instead focused on raising her “normal” daughter. Maxwell, though disappointed that Meg was so hard to understand, did not give up on her. Every now and then he would pay some attention to her, and it seemed, to him, to be well received.
Love of shopping was something that Julia and her mother had in common. This of course meant that Julia got a LOT of stuff. Meg, who never went shopping, got nothing. And although she never wanted nor needed any of the stuff they bought, Meg could not help but feel a burning hatred when she watched her mother and sister fawning over their newest acquisitions.
This hatred which used to rear its head only sparingly had become a more frequent feeling for Meg. When she saw Julia laughing and playing with her friends, it burned. When she saw her mother adjusting the family budget to accommodate Julia’s purchases, it burned. It burned especially however, when she saw her sister watching the football with her father.
Julia hated football, which is what made Meg so angry. Her father was the one person in the family that Meg actually liked. He was the only one who hadn’t given up on her. He was a kind, generous person and he had never stopped trying to involve Meg in family affairs. He loved and was upset that he could not fully comprehend her. For this, she loved him.
Julia enjoyed the sibling rivalry. She liked to make her sister angry and knew that Meg loved Maxwell, so she began to steal his attention. She started watching football with him, speaking about cars (which she also had no interest in) and listening to the music he listened to. She was stealing him away from Meg, and for this Meg loathed her.
Meg was reading one day, lying down on her bed, wearing shorts, when she felt something on her leg. She looked and saw a Red-Back Spider. Not being one to panic, she slowly tore the back (blank) page out of the novel and moved it toward the creature. Keeping a firm grasp of the page, she placed it on her leg, in front of the spider and waited for it to climb onto the piece of paper. The red-back, after a short pause, stepped onto the page. Carefully, Meg walked to the kitchen with page and spider in hand. Making sure the spider didn’t crawl onto her hand as she walked, Meg approached the pantry. With her free hand she opened the pantry door and grabbed an empty jar from the bottom shelf.
To free her other hand so she could open the jar, Meg placed the page on the kitchen bench. She then quickly opened the jar then picked up the torn piece of paper and shook the creature off it and into the jar. Hastily the lid was back on and Meg had captured herself a poisonous spider.
Looking at the creature, crawling around manically in the jar, Meg was immensely proud. Her father loved creepy-crawlies and this find would make him happy, she thought.
Knowing her father was outside in his garage, working on his car, she headed there. In her imaginative little mind she envisioned a scene where she showed her father the spider. He would smile, she would smile. He would pick up his daughter and hug her and she would bathe in pride and be held. It would be a happy moment.
But it was not to be.
As she approached the garage, she saw her father with his head in the hood of his car, looking over the engine. The imaginary scene of happiness playing inside her head caused her to smile. She was almost at the garage when…
“DADDY!” It was Julia, back from a shopping spree with Jan.
“Daddy! Look at this new sweater I got!”
She raced past Meg, wearing a whole new wardrobe. Meg watched on in horror as Julia modeled her new clothes for her father. Maxwell smiled. He picked up his daughter and hugged her. She bathed in her father’s love and was held.
Meg seethed. Her perfect moment had been ruined by her materialistic little bitch sister. The hatred burned hotter than ever before. She glared demonically at her sister, in her father’s arms, and went back inside.
“I’m making some ice-cream for Julia.” Jan said as Meg walked through the kitchen, jar still in hand. “Do you want some?”
“No.” Meg replied somberly and then stopped dead. “But I’ll take Julia’s to her in the garage. I think she’s going to stay there and watch Dad work on his car.”
Jan smiled. Meg had never offered to do something for Julia before. Maybe she was becoming normal?
“Sure. That would be nice. I’ve got to put some clothes on the line, so it will save me time. Thanks darling.” Jan said happily, patting Meg on the head as she exited the kitchen, leaving Meg alone with Julia’s ice-cream and the jar.
A couple of minutes later, Meg brought the bowl of ice-cream to her sister.