Story: Zürich (chapter 5)

Authors: smfan

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Chapter 5

Title: Siblings

#5 - Zürich

It's sometimes hard to believe but my parents procreated before me. I have three older siblings and they all find me embarrassing. It's one thing to have a younger sibling four year your junior; it's another all around to have one twenty years younger than you. My siblings are named Alfred, Genevieve and Lance. My parents have a thing for order, as you can tell. It's rather obvious that I was the last one just from my name.

Alfred is forty-one, Genevieve is thirty-nine and Lance is thirty-five. They all look very much like our parents. Alfred has blunt features like Dad with Mom's coloring. Genevieve has Mom's features with Dad's aloofness and Lance is a carbon-copy of Mom. I am fifteen and the closest person that I look like is our former mailman.

Samuel finds it horribly amusing when my siblings come to visit and they bring their children. I have four nieces and nephews. My oldest niece, Taylor, is nineteen and adopted by Alfred and his wife Yolanda. My nephews, James and Phillip, are eleven.

It's very, very embarrassing to have your niece's work-ethic compared to your own. My kindergarten teacher was under the impression that my niece, Rose, and I were siblings because our birthday falls on the same day and we have the same last name.

We found out that she thought that when Rose was writing her name, and she has much better hand-writing than I do, and she said, “Now, Zürich,” And let it be said that they never pronounce my name correctly. Zürich is pronounced zu-rik, not Zur-itch.

Anyways, she said, “Now Zürich, why can't you write like your sister, Rose? Her handwriting is much neater.”

I looked up at her and said, in my innocent childish voice that I still have, “Ms. Gergenoff, Rose is my niece, not my sister.” She flushed darkly, muttered something, and scuttled off. Rose and I looked at each other, shrugged, and continued writing our names.

In hind-sight it was both funny and embarrassing and they continue to compare us, since she skipped a grade. We'd been in the same class every year in elementary school and they always said she worked harder than I did.

That was untrue.

They found out in sixth grade that I was dyslexic and dyscalculic, meaning I was impaired in learning both how to read and to do math. Once they diagnosed me and starting using different tactics to teach me, I starting acing school and I'd collected more academic awards in one year than my siblings combined.

My parents were very happy, or at least my father stopped calling me a waste of space which equaled a trip to Disney World in his books, and Lance occasionally took me with him on trips around the state. He doesn't have children and says that I'm enough for him. The fact that he can just drop me off at home when he gets tired of me is probably part of the appeal.

There was no such change in Alfred and Genevieve and I doubt there ever shall be.

Taylor, on the other hand, finds me delightfully adorable and treats me very much like a doll. If I try to suggest something else she simply giggles, twirls a lock of her cornsilk hair around her fingers, gives me a kiss on the cheek and tells me, “Oh, you silly thing. That could never happen. Let's go and get Rose to bring us something to drink, right, Zürich, my darling?”

Sometimes, I think something's wrong with Taylor. She doesn't mind embarrassing me at all, but she's over-protective of me if someone else tries it. She bullies me whenever she sees me but prefers to be psuedo-seductive when outdoors. Sometimes she gets angry and pushes me in the dirt and tries to beat me up, and others she'll hang all over me.

She calls me her 'little girlfriend' and she almost had a fit when I started tutoring. Nevermind that she strings boys along like dogs to a steak. Yolanda says it's a stage but I'll be damned if I end up like her last boyfriend. We still can't figure out how he got from here to Kentucky.

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