Friday
"WAKE UP!"
Brian pulled his pillow over his head. "Go away."
"It's morning!" Eric pulled the pillow away.
"I don't want to go to school!"
"At least you've got it easy!"
"If you want it, you be the little brother! You be better off than me, 'cause I'd be nicer about waking you up, too."
"As if that were an option."
"Well, we can pretend for the morning. You'll at least get the benefit of being woken up nicely."
"Sure, if it'll get you up."
"So, you lie down, and I'll wake you up."
Rolling his eyes, Eric lay on the bed and pretended to be asleep.
Brian gently shook him. "Eric, it's time to get up."
"I don' wanna!"
"Well, Eric, you have to."
"Besides, don't you like first grade."
"I like sleep better."
"Come on, Eric, up you go." Brian pulled him up. "Do you need some help getting dressed?"
"Help me get dressed? Are you nuts?"
"Well, most SIX year olds don't know how to dress themselves"
"But I'm not...."
"We're pretending, remember?" Brian whispered.
"Fine," snapped Eric, adding his trademark eye-roll.
"How about your favorite digimon underwear?" And, to Eric's surprise, he pulled a pair of digimon underwear out of Eric's drawer.
"Those aren't gonna fit me!" This didn't see right.
"Sure they will. They're your favorites. You wear them all the time." Brian helped Eric out of the PE uniform he wore to bed and into the underwear.
"How'd you do that?"
"Shh! Pretend!"
Brian then helped him put on a t-shirt and shorts to match the underwear.
"We're gonna do subt'acion today!"
"Wow. Subtraction is tough. But I bet you'll be really good at it. We'd better go downstairs for breakfast. Let me just change first."
As they walked downstairs, Eric kept talking. "You really think I'll be good?"
"Yeah. You were good at addition, remember?"
"Yeah but this is different!"
"Don't worry about it. You'll do fine. Ooh! Pancakes. And Mom made ones with chocolate chips for you." Brian helped Eric into his chair.
"My favorite! Why don't you have chocolate chips Brian?"
"Mom says I'm too old for them, and they're not healthy."
"But...that's not fair!"
"She only makes them for you because you won't eat pancakes without them."
"Well...they taste better this way." Eric smiled and started pouring maple syrup. Brian grabbed at the bottle when it began pouring all over the plate and threatening to spill onto the table.
"That's too much. You poured half the bottle!"
"Did not!"
"Just...be more careful. Are you finished?"
"Yeah...'m done."
Brian washed the place while Eric got his backpack.
"Um, Eric, you have chocolate all over your mouth. You'd think at 15 you'd be too old for chocolate pancakes."
Eric looked startled. "You can never be too old for cholate pancakes."
"Whatever. What's in your backpack?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"All those lumps. What are they?"
"Oh...nothing."
As Eric turned to walk out, Brian managed to unzip if far enough to see the teddy bear underneath.