SMART REMARK

BY JEAN LITTLE  


When my older sister Marilyn came for a visit,
She spent most of her time trying to make us over
Into some other kind of family.
The kind you see on TV who get all excited and beam
Because they're have Lipton's Chicken Noodle soup
__ For supper.
The kind who pick to spend the whole day in the new Mall.
The kind who love to do things together and talk nonstop.
The kind we aren't.

When she said, for the fifteenth time,
"Kate, must you always have your head in a book?"
The worm turned and I snapped, "Yes. I must.
It's better than having no head
-Like you!"

Dad laughed.
Mother sent me to my room.

Afterward, she said,
"It was clever, Kate. It may even have been true.
But you didn't have to hurt her."

"She hurt me!" I complained.
"Did she really?" Mother asked, looking me in the eye.
"Oh, I guess not," I said, thinking back over the visit.
"But she drove me crazy, picking at me…and…"

"You wanted to swat her," Mother finished for me
"So did we all. But you don't swat butterflies, Kate."
"If she's a butterfly, what am I?" I demanded.
"A mosquito," my father joined in.
"But Marilyn's not exactly a butterfly, April.
She's more like a …tent caterpillar."

Mother laughed.
Why didn't she send him to his room?

I know why.
He said it when Marilyn couldn't hear.
In other words, behind her back.
Which makes him a spider?

And Mother…a…a…
Queen Bee, I suppose.