"Dip! Dip. DIP! DIP!" the little boy heard. His sister was on top of his bead, bouncing up and down on her knees right next to his chest. "Wh…wha…?" he stammered.
"YAY! You're awake! It's Christmas, goober!" she said, bouncing up and down again. There was a small gap in between her two front teeth-making it whistle when she talked. "I'm so excited. There's gonna be soo many TOYS! OOH…SANTA! I hope he brought me a Barbie car! I'M SO EXCITED!" Her little pink sleeves on her nightgown flew up and down as she bounced, and her brown hair-which was in tangled pigtails- followed suit.
"Wh…whaaa…?" he said again. He looked at the clock an read off "4:36 AM. MABEL, no person should be awake at this time. Go back to bed…" he grumbled.
"Yeesh. Seven and you've got a temper. I wanna see this at sevenTEEN." she said, sticking her bottom lip out as if to make a pouting face. "C'mon, it's Christmas! Don'tcha wanna see what you got?" A small piece of hair fell over her right eye-part of bangs that never grew out. She started blowing at it and tipped her head sideways. Her brother was asleep. She poked his face-multiple times- and opened his eyelids, blew in his ears, and got inspired. She ran across the room to their closet and pulled out her Barbie doctor kit-pulling out a stethoscope, a thermometer, and the coat. She put on the coat-maybe four sizes too big for the tiny girl-and began to give him a doctor checkup. She squinted her eyes. "Hmmmmm…..uhmhummmmm…oh, no. That's a big boo-boo. Gotta put some anti-chess-stick on that." she said, making sure to pronounce all the syllables as she had heard them a few days before when she had gone to get her flu shot. She went over to her drawer and pulled out a bottle of clear nail polish, and started putting it on his arm where she saw the scratch. She took a Band-Aid out of the doctor kit-it was big, pink, and had a Hello Kitty face on it-and put it on his arm. She gave the Band-Aid a large, slimy kiss and proclaimed, "All better!"
She pulled his sleeve back down, not wanting him to freeze, and climbed back in her own bed. She turned over and accidentally hit her head on the bedpost. She started crying, and despite her attempts to hold the tears back it was to no avail. First it was a little, and then she touched it and it became a lot. She heard shuffling of slipper feet on the carpet and then felt part of her bed go down a little. Her brother pulled the covers up and grabbed her hand.
"Are you okay?" he asked. She turned over. "It hurts." she said. He looked at her forehead and sure enough there was a large purple bruise. "Ouch." he said. "Hold on. Don't move."
He got out of the bed and promptly ran down the stairs. Maybe four minutes later he was back with a panda-shaped icepack. "Can Bamboo-boo bear help?" he asked. His little hand reached out to put the icepack onto her forehead. He grabbed her hand again. "Are you sure that it's gonna be okay? I can go call 911 if you want….or get Mommy and Daddy."
When he thought she was asleep, he took the big panda bear off of his sister's forehead and kissed the bruise. "All better." he said.