I always thought the relationship between Alex and her siblings was interesting, especially after the episode "Under Pressure", and in how it relates to her own self-image, particularly involving her academic achievements.

When Alex was little, bedtime was a fairytale. Each night, it was a different story-Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. And despite the fact that even at that age, Alex knew that stories weren't real and girls could do more than get married and that fairy tales were outdated (a word that she loved to use back then because it made her dad smile and her mom's eyes widen and because Haley never used words like that, and it meant Alex was different), she still listened to them each night.

In fairytales, frogs turned out to be handsome princes, who girls could save with a kiss, the people who were laughed at just had to wait for the right people to see how special they were, and ugly girls turned into princesses if they waited long enough. And then they all lived happily ever after.

(Alex's mom always told her she was pretty, she was her dad's beautiful princess, she was sweet, lovely, gorgeous-but she wasn't Haley, Haley with her long curls, and those big brown eyes, Haley, who used to get their parents stopped in shopping malls so she could be cooed over and they could listen to their parents be told over and over again how she should be a model, how she's got just the right looks, the right attitude, the right smile, and how they just had to stop and look at her.

They'd look at Alex too, for a moment and then, they'd blink and smile, as their eyes slid away, back to Haley's big brown eyes and dimple-cheeked grin.)

Alex still listened to fairytales, even when she got older and could read on her own and learnt that interspecies transformation was impossible and that you couldn't gain entrance into the monarchy with one kiss. She listened, her heart beating so hard it hurt sometimes, and told herself that she was just taking a literary interest.

(That was another word that made her parents smile and ruffle her hair and let her watch Haley's face scrunch into a scowl, brow furrowed as she tried to work out what it meant, and when she saw that, Alex felt herself smile at the stab of something small and hard and gleeful inside her chest.)

Then, Alex read so many books that the school library gave her a special award and she won a prize for her science project which she stayed up late three nights to finish, even when Haley threw a pillow at her, whining that "Shut up, dork, I'm trying to sleep." Her parents didn't check on them anymore, and she could stay up later and later, working at whatever extra-credit project she could find, working all the thoughts about curls and eyes and princesses out of her brain, working until she could feel that hard jab of pride when she brought home another A to put on the fridge or another trophy against kids three years older than she was.

The first time she beat a kid in Haley's grade in the school spelling bee, Haley shrugged and said "Whatever, just don't let that thing-" She'd flicked Alex's trophy with her finger, her perfectly polished nail letting the metal ring in the air. "Dork up the living room." Alex had glared at her for a second, her sister with her hair floating in perfect curls, fingers wrapped around her bright pink cell phone, their little brother running in between them, face wrapped in tinfoil as their dad chased him back and forth, yelling something about aliens or robots or something that didn't matter. It wasn't a trophy. It wasn't a grade. It wasn't important.

(That night, the only reason she slept curled up with her hands over her ears was because the crickets were loud and the only reason she could hear Haley sniffing every few moments was because she had hay fever and none of that was important either.)

That was the year Alex got glasses and when she put them on, she could see everything more clearly. She looked in the mirror and saw herself staring back, the ink still smudged on her fingers from where she'd spent an extra hour sketching out her art project again to make sure that every line was in place, the red crease in her arm where her book had been held so tight all day that it had left a mark, the jagged braces that she couldn't stop running her tongue over, even though she knew it was a perfectly acceptable part of adolescent development and lots of people wore braces and no-one, no-one was staring.

(Haley had never had to wear braces. She'd never had to wear glasses, either. Haley had blinked when Alex had walked through the door that day and almost shrieked "Mom, what did you do, take her to Nerd-Up Central?!")

Alex stared at herself for a long time. Then, she shook her head. This wasn't important. It wasn't a trophy, wasn't a grade. It wasn't necessary. And she needed to go over her extra-credit words. There was always, always something extra to do.

That night, her dad stuck his head round the door and asked if Alex-"Main brain, head of the class, think queen"-wanted to come and help him read a bedtime story to Luke. Alex had watched him for a long moment, thinking of pumpkins that turned into carriages and sisters whose feet got cut off and ugly, ugly girls who turned into princesses.

She shook her head and told him she was too busy, and let her hair fall over her books so she didn't have to see his face.

(She didn't see Haley's either, but she didn't need to. She put her head under her pillow whenever she heard those sniffles at night and she bent her head over her books whenever she heard their parents discuss whether or not Haley would have to spend another month in summer school, so she could look like she wasn't paying attention as she stored all of it up inside her chest, a hard, cold little nugget of glee that she was the only one of the three of them who nobody had ever suggested could do with a course of summer school or who'd had their teacher whisper gently that they weren't really keeping up with the rest of the class.)

Alex got put in advanced classes and she won a few national trophies and her debate team got to the live-televised finals and she pretended not to mind that her family were the only ones not watching. She was going to tell them but Haley got caught skipping school to make out with some pot-smoking senior in the back of his car and Mom got called into school for another conversation about Luke thinking all humans were part-dinosaur. Alex had thought about opening her mouth and telling her dad but then she looked at him sitting with the phone to his ear, papers spread out in front of him, and decided she really didn't need to bother him after all.

Cinderella would have had a fairy godmother slide a dress over her shoulders. Snow White would have had the dwarves crowd round her to brush her hair. Alex pushed her glasses onto her nose, clutched her debate cards so tight the edges carved lines into her hands, and headed off for the ball alone.

Alex read the books on the school reading list and encyclopaedias and early college admission guides. She read about figures and science and how to stay awake for longer and longer hours. She read about numbers and when x=y and what colleges were looking for in select students. She didn't read stories anymore. They weren't important.

It was the year that she heard one of the boys from the grade above (one of the loud, stupid jock morons who she didn't even like) point out that there'd be no point in him getting his hand up her shirt because there was nothing there anyway-

( -Even if anyone wanted to get near Dunphy-

Haley Dunphy? Dude, you serious-

What? No, no way, Haley Dunphy's a nice piece of ass, I'm talking about her sister.

Oh, right. The four eyes?

Yeah, the one who's always got those cards and the braces, the little dweeby one-)

and the year that Haley had to attend summer school (for the third summer running) and Luke had to stay back a year in algebra and they had to buy a new shelf for all of Alex's trophies-

(Honey, we should show her we're proud of her achievements-

I am proud of her, I just don't want Haley and Luke to feel like we're, you know-

Oh honey, I am as proud of Haley and Luke as you are, but let's face it-

Let's face what?

Well, Alex is-she's on a different level. And Haley and Luke, they might be better-socially, but Alex, you see how fast she is, she's-this is her thing, you know-

So Haley and Luke aren't?

No! No, I wasn't saying that-well, they're all special in different ways, is what I mean-and you know, they have-experiences that Alex doesn't and she has-I just think we should show her that we support her, you know? Where she shines-)

and the year that Alex pushed every report card and grade and certificate in front of her parents for them to gasp at and sneak little glances at each other that whispered of so proud and how did we get her while Haley stared at her phone and Luke ran around the table, wearing a tinfoil helmet-

(Speaking of report cards, Haley, what happened to yours'?

Oh, they sent them out a bit later-

Really? That's strange, because Oscar's in your year-you know, the year you're actually supposed to be in classes for-

Alex-

And the classes we're in together, he said they went out the same day as mine-

Only you would seriously be dorky enough to know the exact day that report cards come out!

Haley, don't call your sister-

Robot, returning to other planet-

Luke, buddy-

At least I've got some concept of time, if you've figured out that October comes after September yet-

Alex, it's not your sister's fault-

You know, seriously, Mom and Dad should have stopped after me-

They already knew they needed one with a brain!)

That was the year that Alex gathered up all those old fairy story books where they'd lived under her bed for the last few years, where she could still stare at those old dust-covered pages from time to time, just to laugh at herself, at the things she'd once read and thought and believed, and carried them down to the basement. She left them wedged there, out of sight under a cardboard box and hoped that the rats Luke swore had once crept in through the floorboards and tried to eat his brain were still down there. And then she headed upstairs, stuck on her torch and read almost three-quarters of an encyclopaedia for her extra-credit science project until she woke up with her eyes pressed against the words and a burning ache in her neck and her hair sticking damply to her cheeks, her nose running and her eyes still damp, no matter how hard she wiped them, those fairy stories still whispering behind her eyes and little wishes still catching in her throat, trickled out in hot, salt tears under the sheets where no one could hear.

Alex didn't read fairy tales anymore. Because frogs just stayed frogs forever and the only way to make someone see you was to show them over and over again until you ached from trying and no matter how much they cared or tried or loved, ugly girls never ever turned into princesses. Because sisters were two people who happened to be jammed together in the same family and princes' eyes skated over braces and glasses and the only thing that made you smile was the same thing that left you empty and aching and hollow in between your ribs.

Because stories were stories, and they weren't important and in real life, nobody lived happily ever after.

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