My brother Riley is a little evil rascal. He’s dim-witted, always grumpy, pessimistic, disgusting, offensive, a bad sport, mean, and probably switched at birth. I don’t think my parents could have given birth to such a horrible little brother. I think that something a little unusual happened on the day he was born. I think my mom gave birth to a smart, kind, happy, optimistic, clean, non-offensive, good sport, and that my brother is someone else’s baby. Someone meaner with a worse agenda. At least Riley might become nicer because he’s in this family rather than in his probable birth family.
I don’t look forward to coming home from school, not when I have to deal with Riley. I hate it when I have to deal with the little bully, with an abnormally large head topped with perfect brown hair. There’s nothing that we agree on. We will always be different, and that is surely not a good thing.

“So...BORED!!!” I grumbled.
I was sitting in the dining room, slumped in a chair in front of my workbook, which I’d finished already. Out of longing, I looked at the clock. 9:30. Shoot. We wouldn’t go golfing for a few more hours. I know a lot of people agree with me that mornings are a little bit of a drag, and that is exactly how I felt. I just didn’t know how literal that philosophy would become that morning.
Getting even more bored by the second, I climbed up the stairs, then walked to my room and fell onto the bed. I glanced up at the ceiling, then decided that as long as I’m up here, I’ll make those hand-knitted scarves that I love to make so much. I grabbed the box of yarn and pulled it out of my closet and put it on the bed. Then I got out the dark red yarn and started knitting.
I was about halfway done when Riley burst into the room, looking for, yes, dark red yarn. Spying the ball of yarn, he snatched it off my bed, not realizing I was on the other end.
“RILEY!” I howled.

He pulled the yarn off my bed. But what he didn’t realize is that I was still attached to it. As he pulled the yarn behind him, I got yanked off the bed.
Then I remembered that I was upstairs, and one thought ran through my head: OH, NO.
He started going down the stairs, and I went down after him. Bang! Smack! “Ow! Ow!”
I could barely get out, “Riley! St—” before pain shot up my right ankle, more than I’d ever felt in one place before. Tears began to leak out of my eyelids, which were clenched closed in fear.
Finally, at the end of what seemed like a million years, we reached the bottom of the stairs. The cold hardwood felt weird against my skin, burning hot from crying. Then he kept dragging me to the kitchen, where I noticed that he had his LEGO cars set up.
“What the heck was that?”
“WELL, IT WASN’T MY FAULT!” Riley hollered back at me.
Suddenly, Dad came in, looking confused, but then he saw me on the floor with wet cheeks.
“Riley! What have you done to your sister? Now we’ve got to go to the emergency room!” he roared.
“Good idea. Ow! My leg! Owww!” I moaned with excruciating pain throbbing in my ankle.
My dad’s hand flew to his forehead as he rushed upstairs to grab his car keys.

It was just about 10:00 when we drove into the hospital parking garage, and as we drove by, I noticed a dark gray car with a very familiar license plate.
“Hey Dad,” I asked, “since when did you call Mom about what happened?”
“When I was upstairs,” he answered, “Come on, we’ve gotta get that leg checked on.”

We walked into the tan brick building, me slung over Dad’s shoulder. Riley walked next to us and made himself look completely innocent. Then we went to the counter and Dad talked to the lady behind it, who said she would have an appointment ready for us. Suddenly, Mom walked in and saw us at the counter.
“Ned!” she groaned to Dad, “Why didn’t you see what happened to Nikki?”
“Jeez! How could you NOT have heard, Dad? I was screaming,” I asked him.
“Maybe we need to give Daddy a hearing test,” Riley said innocently.

“You were the one that did it!” I said to him, “How would you WANT him to hear?”
“I told you!” he yelled, and everyone in the room stared at us, “I thought you were just sitting there playing with your hands.”
“Well, what a considerate brother you are!” I said, in an obviously sarcastic tone.
“Still, Riley,” said Mom, “You are grounded for a month.”
Then a lady in scrubs came out into the waiting room and said, “Nikki Watson? The doctor is ready for you.”
“All right,” said Mom, “I guess it’s our turn.”

“Have a seat on the bed, young lady,” said the woman.
I sat down onto the bed that they have in those doctor’s offices and all of a sudden, pain shot up my leg again.
The lady left, and our arguing began once more.
“Why do I have to be grounded? It was an accident!” whined Riley.
“This is serious, Riley. There is no getting off easy on this one,” said Mom sternly.
“I HATE HER! I HATE HER! I HATE HER!”
“You know I can hear you, right?” I asked him.
“YER SHO SCHTUPID!” Riley shouted at me through clenched teeth.
“Riley!” my mom shouted, “Enough!”

Then a woman wearing scrubs, but not the lady that had come in before, walked hurriedly throughthe door as it violently swung open.
“I thought I heard screaming in here,” she said.
“Yes,” said my mom, “You did.”
“Well, anyways, I am Doctor Chen.”
They shook hands, and then Dr. Chen turned to face me.
“Well, we’re going to get an X-ray of that leg, just to make sure you haven’t broken it.”
I listened with horror. If the little rascal had broken my leg, I would never forgive him.
Dr. Chen had my dad lift me into a wheelchair, and then she pushed me to the x-ray room.
“Now, you’re going to have to keep your leg very still while I take the x-ray,” said the doctor.
“Okay,” I told her.
I laid my leg under the machine, and it turned on, whirring as it went.
Finally, about 3 minutes later, the machine stopped whirring, and Dr. Chen came in, holding her pen and her worn-out clipboard with papers held in place only by the metallic clip clinging onto the papers, which would otherwise be flying everywhere because the air conditioning was turned all the way up to its highest setting.
“Okay,” she said, “You can get up now.”
I rose up off the bed slowly to avoid hurting my now stiff joints. The room was loud with the roar of the HVAC system.Then Dr. Chen put me back into the soft, flexible seat of the wheelchair.
“Guess what?” she said, with a slight smile on her face.

“What?” I asked her, although I had a feeling of knowing what would come next. She would tell me there was a fracture, and I would have to wear a cast for a few weeks and everybody would gawk and then laugh at me because I’d broken my ankle. But none of that happened.

“No fracture!” said the doctor excitedly. I noticed a dimple in her smile, similar to the one in mine when I smile.
“Oh,” I said, “Uh, yeah, that’s sweet.” I wasn’t smiling. I was still worried that something else that had to be treated had happened.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her lips slowly curling from a smile into a frown.
“Do I still have to wear a cast?”

“You have to wear almost like a half of a cast. It is a hard covering, but it’s not a cast. Issomething wrong with that?”
“I’m just afraid that everyone at school will laugh at me.”
“They might. When I sprained my ankle in third grade, everyone did.”
“Wait,” I said, getting a little worried again, “I sprained my ankle?”
“You did, unfortunately. But you’re lucky that that’s all that happened.”
“Wow.”
We sat there in awkward silence as the HVAC roared seemingly more loudly in my ears. Then I started to suddenly miss the times when before Riley was born, not that I can really remember that time period, although I’ve heard stories. Then when he was born, they spoiled him rotten and made me give in to him every time.
“Can I go back to my parents?” I asked Dr. Chen. I didn’t mention Riley for an obvious reason.
“Sure,” she replied.
She put her bony hands onto the handles of my wheelchair and started to push me across the tile. I settled down a little bit. Then she turned into the hallway, and as we passed a hospital bed being hurriedly pushed in the other direction, I remembered what she had said when we were still in the x-ray room. But you’re lucky that that’s all that happened. Sitting in that chair, I realized that I was lucky. It could have been a lot worse. Then we went into the room where my mom and dad and Riley were waiting, and Dr. Chen left the room, leaving us to ourselves, where the arguments would surely start again.