✅ My Sister's Problem

70. Turn it Around

I didn't know what to think as the beach was suddenly filled with the sound of brass and strings. The sound was tinny, projected from that small speaker, and the open space and the pounding surf didn't do it any favours. It took me two or three seconds to realise that I recognised the music coming from Mister Tunes. Barnum and Bailey's Favorite, an overpowering melody that we'd for some reason we'd had to learn in music class a couple of years before. I was probably the only person in my class who remembered the title now, but the percussion part was permanently burned into my memory. But why were we listening to it now?

At first I thought that Lindy had managed to show me how gullible I was being. She'd got another one of those players somewhere, and managed to convince me that it was the one I was so scared of. She would be laughing now, just from seeing my face. But then I realised that she was just as surprised as me. She was staring at the plastic stick in her hand as if she'd never seen it before, and another theory started to form.

I didn't let myself stop to think, and ran forward instead. I grabbed Mister Tunes from my sister's hand, and quickly pressed the 'stop' button. I was pretty sure that I knew why we'd been subjected to a high-volume circus march. Mum had guessed that Lindy might try to pull some kind of practical joke, and had put a new file on the device. That, presumably, was why she'd made sure that we saw where she was hiding it as we packed a bag for our walk this morning. But I still wasn't sure about the full contents of Mister Tunes's memory. It was entirely possible that the sleep meditation file was still on there, and I could end up with wet pants just by pressing the "next" button. I knew that this thing could play in order or shuffle, and that there was a way to program playlists into it, but I hadn't bothered to read those parts of the little instruction leaflet because I was only putting one track on it.

Getting it back out of Lindy's hands was the right option in any case. I didn't want to risk her pressing the buttons. And then I realised why Mum would have chosen a track with the gain turned right up; a tuneful monstrosity of noise that I hadn't been able to listen to while practising at home because the brass parts carried to every corner of the house. On this whole vacation, the little play area with the fort was probably the only place Lindy could possibly have pressed that button without Mum hearing the music. I was sure that it was a trap, and she'd been lucky not to get caught. That didn't tell me if there was still a particular sequence of wind chimes on there if she just pressed another button; but the distraction had given me a chance to win this round.

"One nil to me," I said with a smile. I might have been a little more excited than I should have been; I kind of did a twirl on the spot, before realising how childish the motion was. I realised as I turned to face her again that Lindy had her phone in her hand, raised in a way that made it quite clear she'd taken a photo of me dancing in a childish way. But so what? We were on the beach, and I really wouldn't mind that kind of teasing. It might make me blush for a second, but that wasn't blackmail material.

"So what's your defence?" I asked, gesturing with Mister Tunes. It wasn't a magic wand in my hands, but the cane habitually wielded by the overbearing Headmaster in That Boy. The show was going to be resuming after its mid-season break when we got home, synchronised with everyone going back to school, and it seemed the trailers had been enough to put it back in my mind. She looked blank. I couldn't believe that she wouldn't even have thought about it, but she really did seem confused. Could the genius hoping to dethrone Harper Eisen as prank queen really have missed something so obvious?

"This was in Mum's bag. When it's not there, she'll know right away you were trying to get me with it. You know what she said would happen, right? Ready to be the baby when I give this back to her?"

"How does she know you've not just taken it to get me in trouble?"

"Because I know what's on it. If I were framing you, there's no way I would have actually pressed the button." I glanced down at the 'play/pause' button under my thumb. I could give another blast of circus music to make my point; but I wasn't sure if it would play the right one after being stopped and started again. Would it skip to the second track? Not worth risking it anyway; Lindy had to understand what I was getting at, and the practical demonstration would be pure theatrics. Like I had said, there was no reason to press it unless I actually wanted to risk humiliation in front of my sister.

I nodded along with the first few chimes, automatically comparing them to the pattern I was so familiar with before I accepted them and let myself remember those scenes from the dream. My hand drifting in warm water, looking so cute as a baby. The first stream of pee running down my legs, letting the world know what a baby I was. Feeling so content, my eyes drifting closed. The knowledge that I was too little to fight it, that I had to give in to the siren song of the wind chimes and sink into the most restful, deepest possible sleep.

The sensation of falling jerked me awake again, and I quickly threw my left leg forward to catch myself, struggling with rubber muscles to regain my balance. It was okay; I could do this. I had dozed for a fraction of a second, but I was awake again before the last few music-box notes drifted away.

"Wow," Lindy gasped, a huge grin on her face. "You're really taking this thing seriously, aren't you? Trying so hard to frame me? But look, I got proof."

She turned her phone around so I could see the screen, and pulled her thumb away from the shutter button as she did so. I could see from the filmstrip on the screen what she meant. She had me posing with Mister Tunes like a cane. Telling her how much trouble she was going to be in when Mum found it missing. I replayed the words in my head, and I was sure it wouldn't sound good if she'd captured the audio. I'd told her that she would be in trouble. And I'd even said that Mum wouldn't believe she was innocent if I'd actually heard the tune, right before I pissed myself. There was no way Mum would believe she was guilty once that video was entered into evidence; and she pulled the phone away to return it to her pocket before I could grab and delete. The cell signal wasn't bad here, so it would probably only take twenty seconds for her clip to be on the cloud anyhow, available for parental review even if she deleted it.

"How?" I stammered, before looking down and stepping off the wet patch of sand. The rest of the beach was fine golden-white sand, hot and powdery. If I lay down, perhaps it would be able to dry my clothes off? It certainly seemed thirsty enough to suck up the puddle that would have been around my feet on any other terrain. But I had to give up on those thoughts when both our phones vibrated at the same time. Mum calling us in for dinner.

"You know when I used it last night?" Lindy said, setting off walking without even reading the message. "I copied the file onto my phone before I gave it back. Thought I could keep that up my sleeve until later, I just needed to let you get the pink thing back after I used it and snap a picture of you holding it. But with that weird music it worked out even better. Wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah. You got me this time."

"And you're not going to tell Mum anything. You're going to tell Mum it was an accident, like you nodded off in the fort or something. You have to make her believe you, if you don't want her to check the video. Because if she sees that, I think you get a whole week as a baby. Trying to frame your sweet, innocent sister? What a bad girl."

She was laughing as she skipped away; on top of the world, like every time she managed to complete a successful prank. It had become a staple of these beach trips, a special laugh that I heard from her at least once each year. I hadn't expected to hear it so soon, but to me it was a sign that family life was back to normal. And if I was completely honest with myself, I really didn't mind being dressed up in whatever childish swimsuit they'd picked out for me. Mum wouldn't let it go too far, I was sure. And Lindy would be overestimating the stress of convincing Mum that it was a genuine accident; because she was likely to assume I'd just decided I want to be babied. I could live with that, so long as I could tell her at the end of the trip that it had been Lindy's cleverness in reality.

"I'll get you next time," I called back as I ran after her. "You're the baby tomorrow." And I realised that right then, it would be hard to tell which of us was having more fun.