Fiction Inspired By Bickering Children
The Growing Up of Dale and Sub
A quirky weird story of brothers and sisters
Once upon a time, a not so very long time ago, there was a girl named Dale. She liked to eat tiny bites of dirt from the garden in the morning, play video games in the afternoon, and pick fights with her big brother, Sub, in the evening.
Dale spit in mailboxes, popped her knuckles, and ate donuts for breakfast and dinner. Dale was 10 years old and Sub was 14.
Sub didn’t like Dale much either. Their parents were gone almost all the time at their boring jobs. In the summer, when school was out, Dale and Sub were expected to entertain themselves. Unbeknownst to them, they did this by aggravating each other to no end.
When left to their own devices, and separately, they could also be pretty creative. Sub loved baking. Every morning he would preheat the oven to 350 and microwave a bowl of marshmallows, powdered sugar, and water to make fondant. He’d then dye the fondant and make tiny creatures to set on his perfectly baked strawberry cupcakes.
By the time the cupcakes came out of the oven, Dale would be in the kitchen making fun of Sub’s fondant animal concoctions. She’d call his polar bears rats and sprinkle powdered sugar in his curly black hair when he wasn’t looking. He’d glare in her direction until she slinked away.
Dale would go back to her room and work on her comics, The Adventures of A Spitball Named Sub. Sub had never seen Dale’s comics, which were published bimonthly by an independent comic press out of California. They paid her with store credit, which was just fine, because she could keep her anonymity that way.
One evening, Dale and Sub’s parents both had to work late and told the kids they were on their own for dinner. Sub wanted to try to make ratatouille for the first time, but when he told Dale this she called him Ratface and said she’d rather eat moldy bread for dinner than something Sub had made. Anyway, she’d just eat donuts.
Dale threatened to spit in Sub’s ratatouille.
Sub decided it was time for a truce. After all, they only had a few more years living under the same roof (hopefully). When Sub opened Dale’s bedroom door (which she had forgotten to lock) he saw her on the floor staring at drawings. Drawings of Sub! Sub as a rat. As a rat spitting in ratatouille!
Dale looked up, braced for a raucous fight. Sub started chuckling so loudly that Dale couldn’t help but laugh, too. The laughter was contagious. The laughter felt good.
Sub was impressed with Dale’s talent. And, Dale admitted she liked Sub’s cooking.
They sat down together that evening and ate big plates of ratatouille together before their parents came home.
Dale and Sub agreed that it is the job of siblings to fight and aggravate their parents. So, they kept up the act until they both moved out of the house.
When Dale and Sub got along so well as grownups their parents patted each other on the back for a job well done. And, Dale and Sub agreed to let them think so.
