Just now realizing that this is the second bedroom themed one shot in a row, lol. Fortunately, they're very different as far as stories go!
Michelle: 9 years old
Elizabeth: 3 years old
Bedroom Buddies
"Shelly, can I play in your room?"
Michelle looked up the book she was reading and saw her younger sister practically hanging on the front of her door.
"Yeah," Michelle replied. "As long as you get down from there. I don't want you to get hurt."
Elizabeth effortlessly hopped down and scurried into Michelle's room, hopping around the floor like a Buneary on a sugar rush. Michelle watched her quietly for a few seconds before finally asking, "what did Dad feed you?"
"Nothin-, " Elizabeth squeaked, instantly halting.
Now that she was done jumping, Elizabeth began walking more calmly around the room, seemingly looking at every little thing she possibly could. Michelle wanted to go back to her book but was too nervous to take her eyes off of Elizabeth. The older girl knew full well how quickly Elizabeth could get herself into trouble if you weren't paying attention, and she didn't really want to be responsible for any of the toddler's mischief. Especially not in her own bedroom.
"What's dis?"
And Michelle was grateful she'd made that decision, because Elizabeth had found her way over to her older sister's desk and was poking around it.
"Lizzie!" Michelle scolded, hopping off her bed and hovering over the little girl. "Don't touch anything up there! They aren't toys."
"But I wanna know what's dis," Elizabeth persisted, pulling back just a bit so she was merely pointing at her object of interest and not actually touching it.
"It's a crystal Piplup," Michelle replied. "Dawn got it for me!"
Elizabeth's eyes sparkled as she looked at the colorful, angular depiction of the penguin Pokémon. "Ooh, is pretty!"
"Yeah, isn't it?" Michelle agreed with a giggle.
Turning away from the trinket, Elizabeth pointed at something else. "What's dat?"
Michelle turned to look at what her younger sister was asking about next. "It's a little box that I keep stuff in."
"Who's you get it from?" Elizabeth chirped.
"May," Michelle answered before picking up the small silver case and showing Elizabeth the top. "See? It says: For My Dear Goddaughter, Love May."
"Dats pretty too!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"May and Dawn have really good taste in stuff," Michelle stated, carefully putting the box back in its place. "Not only with their gifts, but also with their outfits, and their contest strategies, and – "
"Who's dat?"
Michelle sighed. She had always thought her brother had a short attention span, but Elizabeth might've had him beat. She could change subjects in the blink of an eye, and tended to ask a hundred questions a minute, sometimes faster than you could even answer the last one.
Glancing down in her direction, Michelle realized that Elizabeth was now pointing at something else on her desk: a silver picture frame dotted with blue heart shaped gemstones.
"What, in the picture?"
"Uh huh."
Michelle raised an eyebrow. "That's Dad."
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, do you seriously not recognize him?" Michelle asked. "He doesn't really look any different."
"He's holdin- a baby."
"I'm the baby."
Elizabeth gasped and whipped her head around to stare at her sister. "You?!"
"Yes, me," Michelle giggled.
"You're so little!" Elizabeth cried, looking back at the picture.
"That was the first time Dad got to hold me," Michelle recalled, having heard the story herself from their parents. "See how happy he looks?"
Elizabeth tilted her head, noticing that there was, in fact, a big smile on their father's face. He was gazing down at what was apparently baby Michelle, loosely wrapped in a pink blanket with her eyes closed and a tuft of fine, bright red hair just peeking out.
"Oh ya, it looks like you!" Elizabeth giggled. "You're cute!"
"Thanks!" Michelle trilled. "I really love that picture."
"How come?" Elizabeth asked, turning to look at her older sister.
"Because it makes me happy," Michelle replied, her smile widening. "Dad and I are really close, and that picture kind of shows the start of it all."
"Ooh," Elizabeth breathed, leaning in closer to the frame. "I get it now!"
Giggling, Michelle winked at her younger sister. "I'm glad!"
"But…do you have any pitchures of me in your room?"
Michelle smirked. "Of course I do! I've got pictures of all of you in here."
"Is it cause you love us?"
"Yep!"
Elizabeth giggled and turned to watch her sister walk over to one of her bookshelves. Once she got there, Michelle retrieved another picture frame, this one a pearlized blue with three silver hearts across the top. The picture inside was of a young Aiden and Michelle, both of them smiling at the camera as they held onto a baby with dark red hair who looked far more confused than the two older kids.
"Ooh, is dat me?" Elizabeth marveled, leaning in closer to the frame.
"It is!" Michelle confirmed. "You were a cute baby, too!"
"I know!" Elizabeth agreed with a laugh.
Michelle smirked and rolled her eyes. Her little sister definitely wasn't the humblest, although she clearly had a very high sense of self-confidence. Their father always just laughed and said their mother had been the same way when she was younger, and so he assumed that just like her, Elizabeth would grow out of it one day. Michelle wasn't so sure, but she guessed her father did know better than she did.
"Was dat when you guys held me first?" Elizabeth asked. "Like Daddy did wif you in that other pitchure?"
"No," Michelle refuted. "I think this is when Todd came over to take family pictures of us right after you were born."
Elizabeth furrowed her brow, bewildering Michelle. "What, do you not remember Todd?"
"No," Elizabeth chirped.
"You have to remember him," Michelle insisted. "We just saw him a few months ago!"
"No," Elizabeth repeated, shaking her head.
Michelle sighed and slumped her shoulders. For whatever reason, Elizabeth also loved pretending not to know or remember people she very clearly did. Her mother surmised it was because Elizabeth enjoyed pushing people's buttons, and she had figured out that acting naïve did just that. Either way, no matter how many times the rest of the family had tried to break the youngest member of that habit, it was always a lost cause. They had all just kind of accepted it at this point, choosing not to prod Elizabeth too much once she started her little act.
"Your room's so fun, Shelly!"
Michelle blinked hard as Elizabeth scurried past her, climbing onto the bed and jumping up and down. "Hey, don't do that!"
Elizabeth just giggled and continued to bounce, causing Michelle to scowl. The older girl dove across her bed, trying to pull her younger sister down, but just missed grabbing the child's ankles. Squealing, Elizabeth went flying off the bed, landing roughly on her feet before losing her balance and falling over.
"Elizabeth!" Michelle gasped, frantically crawling across her bed and leaning over its edge to peer down at her sister. "Are you okay?!"
The girl groaned a bit, which sent Michelle's heart up into her throat. Elizabeth quickly followed it up with a short laugh, however, and got back to her feet. "Ya!"
Michelle sighed and threw her head down on the bed. "You scared me…"
"I did?" Elizabeth asked, tilting her head.
"Yeah, cause I thought you hurt yourself," Michelle replied, picking her head back up and pulling herself into a sitting position. "You've got to be more careful!"
"I'm very careful," Elizabeth refuted as she pushed herself up on her tippy toes and nearly fell over once more.
"Right…" Michelle drawled, wincing as Elizabeth waved her arms around to stop herself from toppling over. "Real careful."
Having finally steadied herself, Elizabeth spun around to face her older sister, grinning ear to ear. "Shelly, come wif me to my room!"
Michelle raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"I wanna see what kinda cool stuff I got in there," Elizabeth explained. "I bet I got pitchures and statues and all kindsa other stuff like you do; I just don't look for it!"
Michelle didn't appear convinced. "I don't know about that, Lizzie. All of those things are super breakable, and you're…well…you."
"Mommy and Daddy prob-ly just put 'em real high up so I can't reach 'em," Elizabeth scoffed. "But you're tall, Shelly! You can see! Can we go look? Pleaaaase?"
Wincing, Michelle groaned internally. It was awfully hard to say no to her little sister when she got all cute like that…a fact that the young girl knew very well and always used to her advantage.
"Alright, fine," Michelle sighed. "But only if you promise to be more careful!"
"Okay!" Elizabeth chirped before dashing out of the room, tripping herself right in the doorway and landing on the floor with a thud.
Scoffing, Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose. "That didn't last very long."
"I'm fine!"
Elizabeth is like a smaller, less destructive version of Aiden at that age :P She'll fall over and play a bit rough sometimes, but it's still nowhere near to the level of her big brother!
