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From as long as I can remember, my older sister (the only sibling I have) and I, have always played tricks or jokes on one another; some of them were just messing about and some more elaborate. The ‘victim’ usually retaliated later by jumping out from hiding, onto the perpetrator, and attempting to wrestle or playfight them into submission.
The ‘fights’ weren’t violent in any nasty sort of way, in fact, I was actually very protective of her, and woe betide anyone who I thought might hurt her. These ‘fights’ mainly consisted of attempting to force the other person down onto the floor into a position where they couldn’t move and would have to call out the agreed word ‘uncle’. I don’t know the origin of why ‘uncle’ is used, but it’s something I have heard that others do when they want to submit or give-in, so that was our word too.
Sometimes our parents would become exasperated with the rolling about on the floor, and the jumping on and around the furniture that this retaliation entailed, and we would be admonished and sent to our separate rooms. At this point, we would normally call it a ‘draw’ and get on with our lives until the next time.
It is difficult to say who used to win more ‘fights’ before parent intervention made us call it ‘evens’, as although Julie is two years older than me, we have always been about the same height growing up, and although she has a slim build, she is strong, and I admit, lightening fast.
As we grew up and other things claimed our different interests, the pranks became less and less, and we seemed to stop competing with each other and lived like most other brothers and sisters. Now that I have reached the age of 18, I believe I am supposed to be mature and beyond such childish things. That’s all very well, but sometimes the urge, or opportunity, to do an unexpected prank on her that I think will be funny, bubbles to the surface and…well… it sometimes gets out of hand, as you will see…
Although I am her brother, I do have eyes, and can see that Julie at 20, has turned into a very attractive, young woman. She loved playing all the sports at school and excelled at some of them. She continued to exercise regularly after leaving school, the result being that she has a toned, slim, body, with I what I suppose you would call average size breasts, all of which when coupled with her height I am sure has turned many a male’s head.
She has always kept her naturally blonde hair long enough to touch her shoulder blades at the back, and it was always a target for me when we had our wrestling fights, as it was an easy thing to grab hold of when she squirmed and tried to slip out of holds, although she always complaint that it was cheating.
When it is cooler, she usually wears skinny jeans and tight tops that further accentuate her figure, but in the summer, short skirts or tiny shorts seem to be her preferred fashion. I never saw her as anything more than my sister or friendly adversary, but as a male with newly found hormones, it’s difficult not to notice these things, even if it is your sister.
Julie works as a clerk for a group of solicitors in their offices in the local town, where she is hoping to progress to perhaps being a solicitor herself one day. She dresses very business-like for work, normally in a dark pencil skirt, dark tights, white blouse, and a jacket that matches her skirt. I have to say that it suits her figure, and her long blonde hair contrasts beautifully with her dark jacket. It’s a sort of ‘uniform’ in their offices where all the male solicitors wear suits and ties, and the females dress similarly to Julie.
As she doesn’t yet have her own car, she is fortunate in that one of the other female clerks lives not far from us and they share the journey together every day, presumably sharing the costs. I mention this because it means that she always leaves home and returns back around the same time every day, so I usually know when she will be arriving.
It was mid February, and we had had an unusual fall of thick snow yesterday, that had persisted into today. It hadn’t been enough to stop the traffic flowing, albeit quite a little slower, but Julie had been picked up by her colleague as usual. Our parents, stoic as ever, had both gone to work too. I on the other hand, had the luck to find myself on half term break from the college where I was a first-year student studying Electrical Engineering and didn’t have to go anywhere particular all day.
I had the house to myself, and with the heating turned up, I dressed comfortably in lose jogging bottoms and T- shirt. In-between watching TV, playing games on my computer and texting friends, I lazily observed the snow gently falling onto the small front garden and drifting into small piles along the hedge line that separated our property from the road.
It was seeing this soft, crisp, snow piling up, that gave me the idea to ambush Julie when she came home with a few surprise snowballs, as a minor prank, which wouldn’t do much harm except maybe get her a bit wet. The more I thought about it, the more I remembered the tricks we used to play on one another, and how it might be a bit of a laugh to see her face when she was hit with the cold snow when she was least expecting it.
Later in the afternoon, wrapped up well against the cold, I cleared a path through the snow from the road to the house, not all that far, but it needed doing and it also meant Julie would undoubtably walk along the path I had cleared. I dumped the snow from my shovel on each side of the path and then taking a couple of handfuls, tested it to see how well it clung together as a snowball, without it being too hard and perhaps dangerous. I had no intention of hurting her, and it was perfect.
When I got back into the house, there was a message on the phone from our parents who said that as the traffic was so bad this morning, they were going to have dinner near where they worked and then come home later when the roads would be quieter. They said there was various things in the fridge and for me to have whatever I wanted. It wasn’t the best news, but perhaps good that they wouldn’t be home for several hours after Julie had come home.
As it grew dark and the time for her to return home approached, I bundled myself up in warm outer clothes, and a few minutes before she was due, went out into the front garden, near the hedge, and made a few large snowballs. Crouching down near the hedge, I knew that she would walk past without seeing me and then I could spring up and throw the snowballs towards her back, with hardly a chance of missing.
I was glad I had put on enough warm clothes as, presumably due to the road conditions, she was later than usual getting home, but sure enough, eventually, I heard a car draw up and the car door open.
“Thanks Pat, see you tomorrow, drive carefully,” Julie shouted, then shut the door.
I heard her feet crunch on the snow on the pavement, then change to a harder noise as she got to the cleared path I had made. I watched as she passed by without noticing me and continued up the path.
The first snowball hit her squarely on the back of her blonde head and disintegrating into a flurry of loose snow in her hair. She turned slightly, not sure what was happening and the second one hit just above the collar of her coat and then fell down her neck.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” she screamed, putting her hand on her neck and still trying to work out what was going on.
It was then she caught sight of me.
“Chris, you stupid, fucking, bastard, what the hell are you playing at,” she screeched at me, “what did you do that for, I’m covered in fucking snow you dumb prick.”
I have to admit I was a bit shocked. I had never heard her use foul language like that before and realised she was really angry at me.
“Errr…it was just a joke,” I said, lamely.
“I don’t think it’s at all funny,” she continued shouting, “what age are you, 12? I’ve been working hard all day and I come home to find you, you little shit, playing stupid pranks because you’ve nothing better to do?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, not by a long way,” she said, menacingly, before turning round and going into the house, slamming the door behind her.
Wow, I thought, I really got that wrong and now she is furious with me. Although it was cold, I decided it was best to wait a few minutes before going inside and hope she would have gone to her room and calmed down a bit by the time I saw her again.
When I thought enough time had passed, I gingerly opened the door and looked around, there was no sign of her, but a trail of melting snow on the carpet heading towards the stairs gave me a clue as to where she was.
I took off my outer clothing and went into the warm living room where the TV was still on and sat down on the sofa, which has its back to the door. I flicked through the channels until I found a video music channel, put on my wireless headphones, turned the volume up a little, then sat back to watch it, wondering what grovelling I would have to do to Julie to make up for my prank.
I had been sitting there for about twenty minutes or so, my attention focussed on watching and listening to the bands that the channel was playing. I was in my own world and wasn’t really paying attention to anything else.
Suddenly, I felt a quick tug from behind on the back of my T-shirt and then a large amount of something very cold being dropped down against my bare back.
“Ahhhggggggg,” I shouted, leaping up and unsuccessfully trying to scoop whatever it was from my back, but of course I couldn’t reach it. God it was really cold and wet. I ripped the headphones off and pulled my T-shirt up and over my head as quick as I could, in an effort to release whatever was against my skin.
A large pile of slushy snow fell onto the carpet and as I cavorted one way and another to get it all off, I saw Julie standing behind the sofa, a smirk on her face and a large plastic bowl in her hands.