Chapter Thirty-Seven – Big Sister Still Loves You

“Oh, you’re finally up?” Athena said as Teddy stumbled out of the bedroom.

Athena liked being the first one up in the morning. Well, the first one up after Emily. She wasn’t about to sacrifice snuggle time just to get out of bed a little early. Teddy was the exact opposite. On some days, when they had nothing going on, she would only crawl out of bed hours after everyone else was up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Teddy said. She yawned so big that her jaw clicked. “Food?”

“Big Sister and I made breakfast,” Athena said. “There’s some left.”

Emily had made a plate for Teddy, then covered it with another, upside down, plate so that it would stay warmish for Teddy. That was pretty normal morning stuff, actually.

“Oh, cool,” Teddy said. She stretched her arms out, then scratched at her tummy. “Why does it smell weird in here?”

Athena glanced down the corridor. The door to Trinity’s bedroom was open, and a strong scent of detergents and soap was wafting out of it.

A dejected pair of Trinitys shuffled out of the room, one carrying a mop and the other a bucket full of dirty water. “Trinity made a mess,” Athena explained. “We helped her clean it. Then we discovered that her room was a mess so the Boss made her clean it properly.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Teddy said. “But she shouldn’t have let her room get so dirty.”

Athena gave her a look. Teddy’s room was hardly a bastion of cleanliness. It wasn’t that bad, especially not compared to Trinity’s room, but it was still messy. Teddy had about ten times as many blankets as everyone else, and they were all stacked onto her bed in a big mound.

Sometimes Teddy would squeeze her way into the pile, like a fat worm wriggling its way into a heap of dirt, then all that they’d see was Teddy’s feet sticking out of the blanket pile. “It’s whatever. Big Sister already gave her a talk. Trinity’s kinda down right now.”

“Hmm,” was all Teddy said as she rubbed her chin. “Sucks.”

“Yeah. I’m going to try to cheer her up a little. You go eat breakfast and then go take a shower.”

Teddy glared. “You’re not the Boss, you know.”

“You don’t want breakfast?” Athena asked.

“Of course I want breakfast. What I don’t want is you telling me what to do,” Teddy said.

Athena glared back. They were always butting heads, especially in the morning or when Athena tried to further her goals. It wasn’t either of their faults though. Athena knew that they were both fighting for the same thing, so of course they’d end up fight-fighting about it.

Athena wanted to be the best little sister so that Big Sister Emily would praise her, and tell her that she was the best, and so that she could get more pats and hugs and more attention. Teddy already thought that she was the best, and she did have a running start.

Teddy was the oldest, and maybe the strongest of her sisters. It meant that she had a lot more time to build up credit and stuff with the Boss.

It wasn’t fair, but that’s what it was.

Athena would catch up though, because she was the smartest of her sisters according to herself.

She had a plan. It was a simple plan, which was the best, because complicated plans had more ways to fail. The first step was to become invaluable to everyone else. That meant helping the Boss as much as possible, which Athena was already doing. The second part was helping her sisters, which was by far the most annoying part.

“Just take a shower,” Athena said. “Trinity did, and she’s usually the stinkiest, which means that now you’re the stinkiest.”

Teddy pouted. “I don’t like showers,” she said.

“Too bad,” Athena said. “Do you want the Boss to sniff-check you and tell you that you can’t get in the cuddle pile because you smell?”

Teddy grumbled, then stomped past Athena. “Fine. Whatever. What are we doing today anyway?”

Athena shrugged. “Nothing, I don’t think? Emily has stuff to do later, but we’re just staying at home.”

“Alright,” Teddy said as she continued on past and headed towards the kitchen. Athena watched her head out, then she turned back to her own work.

Her plan required that all of her sisters look up to her like the paragon of intelligence and smarts that she was, but that was really tricky with some of her sisters. Actually, it was kind of tricky with all of them, but especially Teddy. The two of them bumped heads more often than they agreed on stuff.

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She shrugged to herself and decided to take the little victory where she could.

Walking over to Trinity’s room, she poked her head in and found one of Trinity’s bodies on her bed. She was sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest and a big pout on her face. She wasn’t crying, but it looked like it wouldn’t take much to get her to start sniffling.

Trinity looked up for a moment and Athena caught her eyes. It was always strange reading her sister’s mind. Trinity was probably the most ‘normal’ of her sisters, except there was so much information coming in all at once since she had so many more eyes and ears and limbs than anyone else Athena had met.

She didn’t delve in deep, just a quick skim of the surface was enough to know that Trinity was upset.

“Hey,” Athena said.

“Are you going to tell me to clean the bathroom next?” Trinity asked. “Or will I have to… to take out the trash again.”

“No, nothing like that,” Athena said.

Emily had already told Trinity off for trying to bring every neat thing she found at the landfill home. Athena didn’t need to poke at Trinity any more than that. Instead she climbed up onto Trinity’s cover-free bed, then sat down next to Trinity. Their combined weight created a divot in the mattress that made her shoulder bump against her sister’s.

“That sucked,” Athena said.

Trinity pouted harder. “Yeah. I was really happy at the landfill. I thought it would be okay.”

“Yeah,” Athena said. “But you know why Big Sister made you throw it all away, yeah?”

Trinity nodded. “Yeah. She said that everyone else might get sick, and that you thought it was stinky, and that there were cockroaches. Well, she didn’t say that last part.”

There had been a lot of screaming at the discovery, actually. The Boss did not like cockroaches. At all. Athena could mostly understand, since they were small and crawly and hard to kill. Like heroes.

Emily had given Maple permission to turn the microwave into a cockroach killing machine, and ever since then Maple had disappeared. So had most of the cockroaches once they emptied all the trash out of Trinity’s room.

“Big Sister still loves you, you know,” Athena said.

It was even true. She’d seen in Emily’s eyes. She was annoyed with Trinity, even a little disgusted, but she still loved her.

Athena was working to make sure that she was the most loved, but she didn’t mind sharing some of that. A little bit of it, anyway.

“Come on,” Athena said. She leaned to the side and started rubbing circles into Trinity’s back. “You know, it’s not about being the kind of sister Emily expects us to be, it’s about being ourselves so good that she’ll like us anyway.”

“But I was being myself.”

“Well, yeah, but there’s being yourself, and there’s being your best self, and sometimes that means not killing us with the smell.”

Trinity hiccupped. “I just wanted to go to the landfill.”

“Ah, it’s okay. I’m sure Big Sis would love to go with you, but you know how she is, she needs to do things at her own pace. Sometimes we do things too quickly, and that ruins her villain plans. Plans in plans in plans.”

Trinity nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure she just wants the best for all of us. And once we rule the world, I bet you could get an entire super base hidden into a huge mountain of trash.”

Trinity smiled. “That would be cool.”

Athena nodded along, even if she wasn’t sure she agreed. She understood Trinity’s love for trash–it was hard not to understand people when she could peek behind their eyes–but it was still kind of weird. “Absolutely. But… yeah, you made a little mistake. Maybe if you’d ask the Boss about it, she wouldn’t have been as annoyed?”

“Okay,” Trinity said.

“Are you feeling better?”

Trinity let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I guess.” she grinned. “I got to help Maple though, so that’s nice.”

“Uh-huh,” Athena said with a nod. Of course, if anyone else asked, she was totally taking credit for that idea, as long as she didn’t hurt Trinity while doing so.

It was hard being the smartest of her little sisters, sometimes.

***

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