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Mrs. Hosking's English 2nd Hour
by
Andrew Lindquist 9B
I was downstairs checking my e-mail when my mother called me up to the kitchen. When I arrived, I had no idea of what I had coming to me.
“If you were to share a room,” she started, “with either of your brothers, which would you be most comfortable with?”
I thought for a minute. The smell of dinner cooking, the sound of siblings pulling each other’s hair filled my senses. Chances are this is not a survey, Mom does not usually ask my brothers or sister or I a question such as this.
“Why do you ask?” I inquired innocently.
“Because we are switching rooms,” Mom said.
“So where will you be sleeping?” I asked. Under my breath I said, “Well, they both snore…”
“In my room, of course.”
“I thought we were switching rooms.” I shifted my weight onto the wall.
“We being you and your siblings,” my mother explained.
“We are going to switch rooms. The idea,” she resumed, “that we have now is that you and Stephen would sleep in Ross and Rachel’s room and Rachel would sleep down the hall. Then Ross…”
“Rachel would sleep in the bathroom?” I interrupted hopefully.
“No,” Mom said with a sigh, as she shot me a look. “She will sleep in Stephen’s old room and Ross will sleep in your old room.”
I felt a bad taste in my mouth. I knew that meant cleaning up my stuff, putting it in boxes, and throwing away a lot of the stuff I “didn’t need,” especially because most of the stuff in my room (including my tractor wheels from 5th grade) I didn’t need. I seated myself on a stool and rested my head in my hands.
“How come Ross and Rachel get their own room?” I catechized.
“Ross doesn’t have to have his own room, but…”
“Then why can’t I keep my room? Stephen and Ross have shared a room before!” I said.
“True, but,” her lecture mode kicked in, “that’s the way we’re going to do it.”
“But why are we switching rooms?” I inquired anxiously.
“Because Rachel is getting older,” she said, softening her tone.
“I’m older already, why don’t I get my own room?”
“Because you’re a boy and she is a girl,” came the explanatory reply.
“I already knew that part of it.” I thought that she expected me to know, at this age, at least the rudiments of, well, the situation.
Mom sighed and said, “Rachel is too old to share a room with one of her brothers. The Family Life magazine said that seven years is when you should separate two children that way.”
Well, really. Is that so, or do I smell a malevolent, co-feminist plot here?
“I’m twice her age, Mom. She’s only seven, and wouldn’t know the reason you are moving her even if you have explained it to her several times. Besides, Ross is only two years her senior, and neither of them know what…well, never mind.
She looked me in the eye. “Would you like to change the wallpaper?” my mother inquired nonchalantly, closing the subject.
I dismissed myself with a nebulous “Yeah,” seeing no further purpose in this increasingly vapid conversation. Giving up my room, my fortress and safe haven, my safety in times of trouble would be more than a minor adjustment. My roommate, for example, wakes up an hour earlier than me, and none to surreptitiously, either. Also, moving up to the ground story will be a change with all the noises (besides my brother’s snoring) like cars and trucks on the road (my room was downstairs on the other side of the house).
“I’ll think about it,” I called over my shoulder.
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