They were going to move on soon….and there was nothing scary about that at all.
Dad said that they were nomads, which meant that they moved from place to place, and they were moving on soon. That meant having their things packed up again. That meant another plane ride. That meant their body's clocks getting all messed up again. That meant waking up in another strange country with strange food and a strange language and all of it would make them realize, again, how far from home they really were.
Really far.
And they would be going even farther, soon. Mob had no idea if they were ever going home. Dad only went back to the house because his family was there. Now mom was gone and she and Sho went on his trips with him….so they were probably never going back home. Back to the castle. If the castle even was home, now, without mom in it. Mob had no idea where mom was…but she knew that wherever mom was it was not where she needed to be.
She should have been better.
Dad said that mom was a traitor. She had run away because she was a traitor and then he hit her for asking about mom, which was the right thing to do because she knew the rules, but saying that mom was a traitor was not the right thing to say at all. Mom was not a traitor, she was a good person, and if she left she must have had a good reason. Mob knew the reason. The reason was because she just hadn't been good enough.
Sho was always saying that he was born wrong and she was born right but in Mob's opinion he got it backwards.
Dad said that she was born better than right. That made Mob sad. She didn't think that she was any better or worse than everyone else. She had powers but every single day it was a struggle to control her powers. That wasn't good. Mom knew how hard it was for her to control her powers. How bad it was. How she always messed up. Mom knew and she left because Mob just wasn't good enough and-
"What's with you?" asked Sho as he rolled onto his side. It was bedtime, well the time that they had been going to bed lately, but he wasn't tired. Well he was but he couldn't sleep. How could he? He still wasn't used to this bed and it was way too hot and big sis was letting her aura be all weird. Plus big sis was bad at tucking him in.
"Nothing." Said Mob. She had been thinking about mom and she could not tell Sho that she had been thinking about mom. Then Sho would think about mom and then they might start talking about mom and that was bad because then dad might hear them and then he would be mad. He was very sad about what happened to mom. That was why he called her a traitor and stuff. It was like when Sho was mad at her and called her things like 'annoying' and 'bossy' and stuff like that. Fukuda said that when people felt mad or sad or things like that the first thing they lost control of was their mouths. That made sense. Why else would the people she love say such mean things?
"Then stop making your aura all weird. It's hard enough to sleep here as it is." Said Sho. He turned around so he faced the wall. It was the wrong color. The walls in their bedroom at the castle were blue. The bed was wrong too. It was too hard and too skinny. How did people manage to sleep in these terrible beds? He hoped that he got used to it soon…or they moved again before he had to get used to it.
"I'm sorry, Sho, I didn't mean to keep you up." Said Mob. She wondered how he managed to sleep in this heat. There wasn't any air conditioning here. Dad said that whoever picked this place for them was dumb. Mob didn't want to think any mean thoughts about anyone…but it was very hot. It was hot so that she wasn't even sleeping with her blanket on and her night shirt was still stuck to her back with sweat.
"Whatever. Wake me up when it's time to go back to Disney Land." Said Sho. He tried to close his eyes and go to sleep. He couldn't. It was too hot. The bed was too wrong. Big sis hadn't tucked him in the right way. She hadn't kissed the top of his head and told him that she loved him….well she had but she had done it wrong. She had done it wrong just like she had told him his story wrong and had picked out his pajamas wrong and just like she had wished him goodnight wrong.
Mom would have done it right.
Mom knew just what to do. Mom was….mom was gone. She was gone and…and there was nothing that he could do about it. It was his fault, anyway, because he was just so….wrong. Big sis had been born right and he had been born wrong. Also dad was kind of a jerk and he would have run away, too, if he could have. He would have run away with her…and that was why this was about Sho, not about dad, because if she was just sick of dad she could have taken him and big sis with her….
Well not big sis because dad liked her best.
But if mom wanted him then she would have taken him with her. Now she was far, far, far away….or maybe he was the one that was far, far, far away from her. They were so far apart. Was she sitting in the heat trying to get comfortable on a strange bed in a strange place? Was she thinking about him, too? Or did she already have a new kid...
He turned around again.
His eyes met big sis'. She was awake, too, even though she was the one who told them that they had to go to bed. She was always bossing him around. She had the right to, dad had put her in charge after all, even though it wasn't fair. If anyone should have been in charge it should have been mom….but mom was gone….and he wished that there was some way he could stop thinking about her. Not like being able to forget her but being able to just…not think of her. If such a thing was even possible.
"Stop looking at me, it's creepy." Said Sho
"Sorry." Said Mob. She had been called creepy a few times before in her life. The kids at school, back when she had gone to school, thought that she was creepy. That the way she stared was creepy. That the way her hair hung in her face was creepy. It had hurt then and it hurt now. Maybe even more so because it came from her own little brother….
He was probably just bothered by something else.
And if not that was ok, too, because she loved him. When you loved someone then you didn't hold it against them when they were mean to you. She just wanted him to be happy, that was all, and if him being happy meant that she had to be unhappy then that was ok. It was like how mom said that one time when her slice of cake fell on the ground. She said that she wasn't going to eat a single bite of her or Sho's slices of cake because she was the mom and she had to sacrifice for her kids. When you loved someone you sacrificed for them.
And she loved Sho more than she even had the words for.
"You're still doing it." Said Sho. He felt himself picking a fight. He wanted to pick a fight. He didn't know why he wanted to pick a fight, just that he wanted to pick one.
"Sorry." Said Mob. She made sure to close her eyes good and tight so she didn't make Sho upset. He seemed like he was starting to get upset. She could see his aura better than usual. That usually meant that he was getting upset.
"You said that already." Said Sho
"I did." Said Mob
"You're still looking at me, too." Said Sho
"No, my eyes are closed. It probably just looked like they're still opened because of how dark it is in here." Said Mob
"Turn around so I can be sure." Said Sho
"Ok." Said Mob. She faced the wall, now, so make Sho feel better. This part of the bed was kind of sticky from where she had been sweating. She didn't know where dad was taking them next but she hoped that it was somewhere cold. She wished that she had ice powers like Else. Eternal winter sounded pretty good right then.
Mob closed her eyes.
A true kingdom of ice and snow where it never, ever, ever got hot out. Sho would never get another sunburn again. They could play in the snow and stuff. They could build snowmen and igloos and snow forts and snow cities and snow airports and a snow Disney Land. Also there would be a snow maze, too, because the maze was the best part of Disney Land by far. Well that and the giant lollipops and also the teacups and also the fireworks and the castle.
But not the dragon under the castle.
This castle had a dragon under it. It was so scary even though Mob was mostly sure that there were no such things as dragons. Mostly sure because there were also supposed to be no such thing as psychic powers but she had them. The dragon under the castle wasn't real, though, just real scary. Not that she was allowed to be scared. Dad hated that feeling. He hated most feelings…but that dad. She hadn't been scared, she had been brave, and Sho had been scared so she should have had to be extra brave.
She had tried to be brave, anyway.
But she hadn't lost control of her powers….but what if she had? What if she had lost control of her powers and the dragon had been real and then Sho had gotten hurt and then she was all alone and everyone left her and they went to where mom was and she was all alone and she didn't understand anything and her powers wouldn't listen and the dragon was real and also she was in her underwear in public and also-
Something hit her on the head.
"Your aura is being all weird again. I can't sleep with your aura doing that, it's like a light show." Said Sho. He maybe threw his pillow a little too hard. He might have hurt her….but that was a dumb thing to think. Of course he hadn't hurt her. It was a pillow. It was full of feathers or something else that was soft and light and she was fine and it wasn't like the time with the scissors.
That had been a bad time.
It had been an accident.
"I'm sorry, little brother, I really am. I was just having a bad dream. I couldn't help it." Said Mob
"Oh…sorry. What was it about? I mean was it about…was it about dad?" asked Sho. Whenever he had bad dreams he dreamt of dad. Dad being mean to him, dad hitting him, dad leaving him all alone someplace and taking big sis with him and then leaving him all alone. He wondered if she was afraid of him, too, even though he hardly ever even punished her. He hoped that her bad dream was about dad and not him…even though he could be a real jerk to her…
"No. It was about me. Sho…if I ever lose control….I'm sorry. If I ever do anything to hurt you….I'm sorry, too. I'm just….I'm just sorry…." Said Mob. She knew that she hadn't hurt him but…but she just felt like she had. She loved him so much…she could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes….
"I know you'd never hurt me, big sis, don't be dumb." Said Sho. She could have hurt him really badly if she wanted to. She could have picked him up and threw him into the sky so far that he went into outer space. She could have hurt him…but she wasn't a jerk like that. She may have been bossy and annoying but she wasn't a jerk…
But he was the jerk.
Because she was crying. She was crying and it was making him feel bad…and also she had his pillow…so he had no other choice. He got out of bed, his skin stuck to his sheets and it felt gross getting up, and he stepped out onto the floor. It was made of wood and it creaked. He whipped his head towards the door. Dad…dad hadn't heard him. Dad hated it when they were loud and woke him up….but they hadn't. Or at least he wasn't at that door, not their real door, telling them to explain.
He wasn't.
So Sho did the thing that a good little brother was supposed to do. He told his big sister to scoot over and then he laid down next to her. Even though it was hot and even though he had been having enough trouble sleeping before. He laid down next to her and held her hand. That was what you were supposed to do. Even if everyone liked her better than you. Even if she was the bossiest person in the whole world. Even if she was a poor substitute for mom, like frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, or maybe something else because he kind of liked frozen yogurt better than ice cream…
Even if she could be so…her….he still loved her.
So he stayed with her because she had been scared. Mom had done this, slept in the bed with them, when they had been little and had bad dreams. Mom was always nice like that. Mom always cared about them like that. She had…and he hoped that she still did. He reached up and hugged big sis really tight. She wasn't mom but at least she was there…and she always would be no matter what. Because she couldn't run away because she was a kid just like he was.
He felt like such a little kid.
He shouldn't have been the one feeling bad. She should have been the one feeling bad. Well neither of them should have been feeling bad, dad hated all feelings, but she was the one who was less not allowed to feel bad. She was a girl and girls could be sad like this. That was just how girls worked. He was her brother and he had to be the one who was brave for her….even if she didn't think that he was brave. Like when they went under the castle to see the dragon. She told him over and over again that if he was scared they could turn back at any time.
He wasn't afraid of anything.
He wasn't afraid of dragons or dad or…or her, too, even though if she could have hurt him really bad…he was not afraid of her. He was not afraid of her just like he was not afraid of anything else in his life. Like how he would wake up and not realize, for a little bit, where he was. Waking up in a new place, a scary place, was not scary. Nothing scared him at all.
There was nothing scary, nothing at all scary, about any of this.