A/N: Since the last two chapters of My Brother's War were kind of intense I decided to take a break and publish this completely plotless vignette:


Darry is what you call a "football prodigy," at least according to the football coaches at Eli Whitney Junior High, and they recommended he take a gymnastics class over the summer. I didn't see how doing a bunch of tumbling was supposed to help him play football, but it turned out Darry was also a "gymnastics prodigy."

When he wasn't helping Dad around the house, Darry was playing football and when he wasn't playing football he was performing his new acrobatic tricks in our front yard. He flipped, twisted and cartwheeled his way across our yard that summer. As he did with his football plays, he named each of his gymnastic tricks.

My favorite was the "fake tornado"-Darry would start out doing a half-twist, but just as he got in the air turned it into a regular flip.

I thought I would be cool if he did the opposite move: start out doing a regular flip and end up doing a half-twist instead. But Darry crossed his arms and told me in a whispered voice that he couldn't.

It was the first time my brother ever admitted to me that there was something he couldn't do.

"I'd break my neck, Pony. I'd probably die."

Darry holds his hand to his chest and falls forward a few steps in a dramatic gesture.

For a kid who was typically so understated and serious, Darry could be a real ham sometimes.

"Hey if you break your neck can I get your baseball cards?!" Soda, who was trying (and failing) to do a headstand, piped up.

"You're hilarious Soda, a regular laugh riot," Darry rolled his eyes.

Soda, sprawled over the uncut grass, just shrugged and let out a laugh.

Soda and I both tried to do our own gymnastics. Soda, though, would get too excited and ended up flopping around like a fish out of water. He always laughed though, even when ended up face first in a pile of mud.

"Wait, I'm gonna do it this time!" But his enthusiasm never matched up to his ability, because once again he would end up flat on his face.

As for me, I had the opposite problem. I would start off running, but just before I was about to jump in the air and flip, I started to get real scared and ended up chickening out.

"Pony, you just gotta give it a try, if you get scared you're going to fall." I looked up at Darry, easy for him to say, he was big and strong; people always mistook him for a high school student even though he was only 12.

I tried again.

I would screech to halt. Soda's best friend, Steve Randle, thought this was hilarious and would point and laugh at me. "Nice flip there!"

"Shut up!" I shouted, hot tears of embarrassment running down my face. I hated embarrassing myself in front of anyone, but especially in front of Steve.

Soda got between us, "cool it guys," he told both of us, but I noticed that he was looking at Steve.

"Yeah, shut your trap, Steve," Darry punched Steve in the arm, not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to get the point across. Steve would scowl at Darry and then go along to play with Soda, wincing and still holding his arm.

I noticed that Steve never laughed at Soda when he fell, just me.

With Steve's back to me I gave him a shit eating grin, it was nice having big brothers.


A/N: S.E. Hinton owns.

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