A Sister is a Useful Thing.

My mother is of the opinion that an only child has a higher chance of becoming a genius. ‘It’s the adult to child ratio,” she explained once.

It’s certainly a compelling idea. And I do know one only child who supports this theory by behaving like a genius. Only one, mind you. The world has never been accused of producing a bumper crop of genius fruit.

But there’s an intellectual advantage to having siblings too. When you are a child, there are a lot of things you want to know. What does used mop water taste like? for instance. And sometimes, children want to know these things without actually tasting the mop water themselves.

 I was one of these children. Fortunately, I have a sister. I also have brothers, but they weren’t nearly as helpful as the sister.

One day, I was annoyed at the sister. I do not recall what grievous crime Rachel had committed, (possibly she’d refused to taste the mop water), but I do recall that my sulks took me on a little walk down the side of the house. And there, growing right up against the wall, almost as tall I as I was, was an enormous Scottish thistle.

It had bloomed and its pineapple shaped head was topped of with a magnificent tuft of deep purple.  But it was not the beauty of the weed that drew me.

 Oh no.

 It was the huge, spiky leaves, right at the bottom of the thistle. They were as long as my head and bejewelled with impressive, silvery spikes.

 I got an idea.

I went into the house and returned carrying a pair of scissors.  With great care, I cut one of the huge, prickly leaves from the base of the thistle.

Then, with an application of brain power that would have astonished my mother, I very gently picked up the thistle leaf with the blades of the scissors. I found they made excellent tongs, provided you didn’t clamp down too hard.

Cautiously, I crept into the house, towards the bedroom that Rachel and I shared.

No one was about, which was good. Even at that tender age, I suspected that carrying about a large, spiky thistle leaf would provoke a lot of questions.

Questions I had no intention of answering.

I could hear Mum at the other end of the house, absorbed in a telephone conversation, “oh we’d love to come for the day! I’ll find out from Ian if we’re doing anything else, but I think he’d be keen to spend a day in Dargaville. What fun!”

Once in the bedroom I headed straight to Rachel’s bed. I flicked back the top of a patchwork quilt to reveal a crisp, white pillow slip.

The pillow slip was generous and with a delicate little shake, it sat up above the pillow, leaving an excellent space between the pillow and the pillow slip.

With a precision approaching the surgical, I inserted my excellent thistle leaf into Rachel’s pillow slip. I flipped the edge of the quilt back over the pillow.

A warm glow encompassed me.

 The warm glow continued to encompass me, all the way to the swing in the front garden. It would be so good-I thought dreamily-so good to watch Rachel fling her head down on her pillow tonight.

It would also be interesting, what exactly did a person do when they expected a feather pillow and got a gigantic thistle leaf instead?

I began to smile widely.

Then quite suddenly, I stopped smiling. A shot of irritation passed through me. A realization hit me.

Rachel wouldn’t take the experiment quietly and graciously.

Rachel wouldn’t sweetly flick the thistle leaf out from her pillow and go to sleep.

Oh no.

She would scream.

 She would howl and sob.

Mum and Dad would come rushing in, all worried. They had a bizarrely high opinion of Rachel as a human being, (they also had a high opinion of me as a human being, but that was not bizarre to me).

Mum would scoop Rachel up and cuddle her and Dad….Oh gosh DAD.

Dad would make investigations. Within minutes he would find the thistle leaf. In fact, he’d probably lose a bit of blood finding it. He was always sitting on any needle Mum lost.

And he would…..gulp…..want to know HOW the thistle leaf got into Rachel’s pillow.

I stopped swinging and considered the odds at convincing my parents that Rachel had inserted an enormous, prickly thistle leaf into her own pillow and then deliberately flung her head down upon it.  

Not very good, I decided. Rachel had no sporting spirit whatsoever. She’d never back me up. Just howl and moan and dramatically hold her cheek and go on like slapping your head down on a Scottish thistle was the worst thing that ever happened to anyone anywhere.

I got off the swing and went and removed the thistle leaf from Rachel’s pillow. It gave me a pang to do it, but I was pretty sure the ‘pang’ I’d get if I left it there would be much, much worse.

As I crept out of the house with my extracted thistle leaf, I heard Mum on the phone. This time to Dad. “So I said I thought it would be alright, because I don’t think we have anything else planned, do we?”

That weekend, we drove to Dargaville. This is a coast-to-coast drive. Which takes all of 45 minutes in New Zealand.

Dargaville is a small town on the west coast of New Zealand. It’s a legendary place. So legendary in fact it has its own special pet name among Kiwis. We call it, The Armpit of New Zealand.

It has a hideous, grey river, a lot of tractor stores and a chicken & chips shop, adorned with signage depicting grinning chickens.

This particular day in Dargaville there was a garage sale. One of those large, impressive affairs held in a hall. Naturally, Mum and Dad stopped.

And among other things, they brought a bike. Then we drove over the huge and horrible river to visit our friends. They lived in a pink vintage bus, set among a tall stand of pine trees and an infestation of calla lilies.

To reach the buss, you had to drive up a very, very steep drive. And suddenly, I wanted to know what it would be like to ride a bike down that very, very steep drive.  

Was it MY fault someone had shut the gate? There was one horrible, awful CRASH and then Rachel went one way, and the bike went the other. Of course, Mum and Dad came tearing out, attracted by the terrible shrieks that Rachel was sending up into the air.

I slunk behind a stand of calla lilies and listened gloomily to the unfolding conversation.

“Why did you ride a bike down such a steep drive?”

“Boo hoo! Because Ruth told me too!”

I glowered behind my calla lily stand. What a snitch! She had liked the idea.  I hadn’t forced her to do anything. 

More loud sobbing.

I slunk down and sourly awaited to be subpoenaed to the bottom of the drive.

“Oh HER?” snarled Mum, and there is really no way to convey how venomous Mum managed to make the word ‘her’ sound. “What’d you want to go and listen to HER for?”

Behind my lilies, I stiffened.

Mum was just getting started, “you KNOW what SHE’S like!”

Well really, I thought coldly. I pushed deeper into the lily stand.

“Ruth is NOT the boss of you, Rachel! You don’t have to do every fool thing she tells you to do!”

More sobbing.

The party was slowly moving up the drive. Mum was still lecturing Rachel on the folly of listening to “all the stupid ideas your sister comes up with”.

Being held up as a standard of feckless idiocy was a novel experience.

I didn’t like it and I didn’t think it was fair. I was not always coming up with ‘fool ideas’ for Rachel.

Mum’s clear voice continued to pour forth scorn on both her daughters. Me for coming up with such ‘tom-foolery’ and Rachel for going along with it.

“Would you do every stupid, idiotic thing your sister tells you to do?” demanded Mum as they passed my lily bush.

I glared at Mum from the protection of my leafy lair. I did NOT come up with stupid, idiotic ideas.

“WOULD YOU JUMP OFF A CLIFF IF RUTH TOLD YOU TO DO IT?”

Loud sniffling from Rachel suggested she’d consider it.

Deep within the folds of my lily stand, I was electrified. A cliff? Grandma and Granddad had a cliff! Quite a nice little cliff. In the old quarry. About as high as a house.

If I could sneak a bedsheet from the linen press, I could make a jolly good parachute for Rachel.

And if we got a windy day…oh wow.

But I couldn’t live in a stand of lilies forever if I wanted to watch Rachel parachute off a cliff. So, with a set face, I emerged from my lair and grimly attached myself to the lecture as it trailed up the drive.