Greg woke up the next morning because he heard his brother jumping, stair by stair, down to breakfast. Blaine usually didn't wake up easy, but somehow his body always knew when it was Saturday and there were Saturday morning cartoons to watch.
Greg rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and stretched. He got up out of bed and started to the door, tripping over some books. He looked down, confused, and then remembered.
There was a knock and Mom opened the door. "Oh Greg, you are up!"
Greg's stomach had butterflies, wondering what she would say about all the books on the floor.
"You've got soccer this morning, you should get dressed."
Greg nodded.
"Daddy's making scrambled eggs, see you downstairs." Then she turned and headed back down herself.
Maybe she didn't notice?
Greg picked up a couple books and put them back on the shelf. If Daddy saw what he did he'd be real mad. He was probably real mad anyway. He'd said he hated everyone. He didn't know why he had to say that. I'm so stupid.
Greg pulled out his soccer clothes out of the drawer and started getting dressed. He remembered how he'd cried in the front yard yesterday. Like some little baby. It was embarrassing. He remembered Billy stopping on his bike when he was crying. Billy probably thinks I'm a baby. Or, like a girl or something. And he saw Daddy yelling at me. One of the reasons he decided to listen was that he thought if Daddy was mad enough, he might spank him right there in the front yard, and he didn't want Billy to see. He didn't want to get a spanking at all, but he really didn't want Billy watching. He'd been surprised when he ran into the house that Daddy didn't chase after him. It was super naughty to say something mean like he did. We're not supposed to act like that in our family.
Greg picked up a few more books. He wished he hadn't made this big mess. Cleaning up was annoying.
"Greg, your breakfast's ready! Come on, we have to leave soon!" Mom called.
Greg went into the hallway. Then he went back and closed his door, hoping that meant Daddy wouldn't see what was left of the mess. Maybe he could fix it later if Daddy played golf in the afternoon. He headed downstairs.
"There's Mr. Sleepyhead!" Daddy said.
"We have s'pise for you Greg!" Blaine bounced at the table.
"A what?"
"A s'pise!"
"A surprise." Mom explained. "But you have to eat your eggs first."
"Ice cream for breakfast!" Blaine yelled out gleefully.
Mom and Daddy laughed. "You ruined our surprise!" Mom said, giving Blaine a tickle.
Greg sat down at the table, confused. "What you mean?"
Daddy pulled the sundae they'd saved for him from the freezer. "You were so sleepy last night you missed your Fun Friday ice cream." He put it on the table by his plate of eggs. "Blaine thought it would be fun if you could eat for breakfast and we decided it'd be okay, just this once."
Greg's eyes widened, hardly containing his surprised smile.
"Eat your eggs Greg, I wanna watch you have ice cream for breakfast!"
Greg smirked. "You are the silliest brother ever," he teased.
Blaine shrugged happily.
Greg had a good morning. He was so happy it wasn't raining and his mom could drive him to soccer. He loved running around and kicking the ball into the goal with his friends. He couldn't believe he was going to get to play soccer this summer every day for a whole week at camp. It was going to be amazing.
Early on Jason West got hurt, skinning his knee on the sidewalk by the field. His coach sprayed Bactine over it and bandaged it up. Greg rubbed his back while he did that because he was crying a little. His coach said he was being a good team player. Greg just wished they weren't outside and Jason could go somewhere, then he wouldn't have to be crying in front of everybody. That's what he would want. Mostly everybody just wanted to see his knee before the bandage went on though, because the scrape was really cool and gross looking.
On the way back Rosalie asked about it. "I saw Jason had that big bandage on. He okay?"
"He scraped his knee but he's good. He's tough."
"Tough, huh?"
"Uh huh. Jason's my bestest friend."
"He is?"
"Yeah. Him and Billy. But Billy's just a neighbor friend," he dismissed. "Jason's my bestest soccer friend."
"I see."
Greg reached out to the seat in front of him to pull himself closer to Mom and tell her confidentially. "Jason was crying a little bit because it hurt lots."
"I'll bet."
"But nobody made fun of him."
"That's good. That's because you're all nice boys."
"Uh huh. And sometimes, even big kids cry a little bit."
"They do."
Greg leaned against the window as they passed the fire station. He wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. Firefighters were always good and they rescued people because they were super brave.
"So what you think you want to do with the rest of your day? Gonna go ride your bike?"
Greg thought about it. "Yeah. But I want to do some stuff in my room first."
Rosalie nodded. "Okay."
"It's got a little messy." Greg confessed.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, and I told Blaine, the best thing is to clean up a little bit every day. Then it's not so annoying to pick up."
Rosalie smiled. "That's good advice. He has to learn to clean his room better."
"Yeah. I'm teaching him."
That night, Blaine wanted to color and Mom gave him crayons and a few sheets of paper. Greg watched him for a minute.
"Can I color too?" he asked Blaine.
Blaine looked up. Greg never ever wanted to color. It was mostly for babies, he'd said. He shrugged. "Okay."
Greg sat down and took a little while, choosing each color carefully. Blaine got up on his knees leaning over the table to look. "Whatcha drawin'?"
"You."
Blaine tilted his head. "What I doin'?"
"Climbin' a big tree."
Blaine grinned, watching. "You good drawer Greg."
"I know."
Greg drew his whole family doing what they liked best. Daddy was watching the news, Mom was planting her flowers, and he was playing soccer. Then at the top he drew lots of hearts and American flags. He thought the flags made his picture look more grown up and serious.
"What's this? Greg, you coloring with Blaine?" Gabe asked. He didn't think he'd seen Greg with a crayon in his hand in over a year. He was too above the things Blaine liked to do.
"Uh huh." Greg's attention stayed on his picture.
Gabe looked at Rosalie, who shrugged.
"Done!" Greg tossed the yellow crayon down.
"Oh well let's see." Rosalie came over to look over his shoulder.
"I'm in it, Mama!"
"I see that."
"Wait, I need to write on it." Greg turned his page over and then jumped up and ran to the junk drawer. He pulled out a pen and then ran back to write.
Blaine leaned in, watching the letters form.
"What's it sayin'?" Blaine asked.
"Hold on..." Greg wrote in his best handwriting. When he was done, he announced. "Now it's really done."
"It is?" Gabe asked, smiling.
"I wanna know what's it sayin." Blaine whined.
Greg scooched his chair over next to Blaine's and pointed to each word. "It says: I love this family. FROM Gregory Joseph Anderson."
Blaine pointed to the last word. "That's Anderson?" It looked different.
"Uh huh. It's in cursive. When you're big you only write your name fancy like that."
Blaine admired the letters. "You good at writin', Greg."
"I know."
"Looks like you worked hard on this. We'll have to hang this up!" Rosalie said, taking it and showing it to Gabriel.
"We can put it on the frigerator, Mama!"
"That sounds like a great idea Monkey." Gabriel took some magnets out of the junk drawer and hung it up on the fridge, where it stayed for a long time. A couple years later, when Rosalie was feeling especially productive, she made a scrapbook, putting lots of pictures and art from Greg and Blaine's elementary years together, and she placed that drawing on the very first page.
