My lil monster
Η νικήτρια του 3ου Διαγωνισμού Διηγήματος 2018 στα Αγγλικά (SHORT STORY COMPETITION) που διοργάνωσε το English Language Courses Argiris Hatzopoulos είναι η Χριστίνα Ιωαννίδου και το διήγημά της " My lil monster"!
Ευχαριστούμε πολύ όλους τους συμμετέχοντες και ελπίζουμε να καταθέσουν εκ νέου τα έργα τους στον 4ο Διαγωνισμό Διηγήματος στα Αγγλικά που θα προκυρηχθεί στην άνοιξη του 2020.
Παρακάτω μπορείτε να διαβάσετε τo βραβευμένo διηγήμα:
My lil monster
Having siblings is the most beautiful present in the world that our parents can give us, mum says. But do you know what? I don’t believe her.I think she is trying to persuade methat having siblings is super, because she is going to give birth in some months. This is tragic! I don’twant either a sister or a brother.However, I can’t do anything to change the situation. I like my loneliness and being an only child is already super.
And I was right, she gave birth in some months from then. On a cold Winter’s day my sister was born. Some days later she came to my house with my parents. She was so cute with her fat cheeks and so beautiful with her brown eyes and hair. She was thin and too short and two years younger than me. I let her stay for three days, as a favor to my parents, but that’s all, she must leave now. My mum told me that I must protect and love her but I didn’t want to protect her from anyone and I don’t love her. Mum is the person who should protect my little sister. Βecause I had just finished my plans and I was going to send this little monster, who I am obliged to call sister back to the stork which brought it. Unfortunately, I failed to send her back and now I have to be with her in the same house and in the same room!
The time got by and my sister became one year old. Ι began to get used to her after one year living with her in the same room. One year later I thought that something changed in her behavior but it was just a thought which came soon to an end. It was a nice Saturday morning and I was going to play with my dolls in the kitchen. So that day I let my dolls in the kitchen and ran up to my room, on the second floor to take ‘’princess Juliet’’, the doll that I had forgotten. When I went again downstairs all my dolls were somehow bald. Then I saw my sister in the kitchen’s corner holding a pair of scissors, smiling like an angel, like she didn’t know who did it. I would have happily choked her if mum hadn’t been watching. From this day I and my sister are the worst enemies.
Mum wants me and my sister to become friends, but how silly does it sound? We are such different characters that we could never become friends as my mum wants me to be with my sister. She hates eating chocolate and pizza, she loves light colors and she always watches videos on youtube or she plays online games. While I love chocolate and pizza and my favorite color is grey, also I hate spending too much time on a laptop or a mobile phone. She lives in her imaginary world where everything is fantastic and awesome, whereas I am grounded. Despite all these differences, we are siblings. How does it happen? It’s a question that nobody can answer…
One year later on a Winter’s day,it was my sister’s second birthday and the house was full of children in her age and they all sang with their squeaky voices the birthday song for her: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday, happy birthday happy birthday to you …. My sister blew out her two candles and let me eat her piece of her birthday cake. It was so kind of her although she did it because she doesn’t like birthday cakes. For her birthday I gave her one of my dolls, my bald dolls. She didn’t seem like she liked my present and I couldn’t understand why, she cut my dolls’ hair. I thought she would love them with their new haircuts. At night mum let her stay up a bit to open her presents. She knows that I love opening presents but she didn’t let me open her presents with her. So I went in my bed and after twenty minutes she came too. I asked her which present was the best and she said that her best friend brought her the best present. I didn’t expect anything different but she could be kinder, and tell me that I gave her the best present.
Some months later, in September, she started nursery school. While I started preschool. Finally I had something all mine, my school. Two years ago I had also my house, my parents and my room, two years ago my life was completely different. Without troubles, without arguments with my parents about my relationship with my sister, without arguments with my sister about my dolls, without a sister…
Next September… It was about seven o’clock in the morning and the first day of school for the new school year. I was sleeping in my bed, when my sister suddenly started hopping on my bed and screaming: Come on, get up lazy girl! I was so angry with her because she woke me up that I chased her all over the house. We were running upstairs, downstairs, upstairs, downstairs in the two-floor house. After half an hour running upstairs, downstairs I got tired and let her escape from me for that time.
What was she thinking when she started jumping on my bed? That’s crazy!This can’t be the way sisters are!Sometimes I let myself believe that my sister can’t be so annoying and stupid. That my sister is the best little sister in the world, so cute, clever, beautiful, quiet and calm, but she always finds a way to destroy these thoughts with her behavior. She is exactly the opposite of all I mentioned before. She is a little three-year old devil!
We now go on to 2011, the year that I went to a primary school, I was in the first class of elementary school and my sister was just four years old. I was very happy and proud of myself that I was then a primary school-student. Everything was perfect, my teacher with her brown long hair, my school with its big yard which could be full of thousands of students and could hold more… Everything was awesome until the day I came home from school and caught my sister greeting my headmaster: -Hello headmastel, she said because she couldn’t pronounce R, I am Helen’s sistel. What a shame? , I thought. I ran to catch her and pull her into the house but it was too late, too late… The next day I pretended to have stomachache and din’t go to school because I felt embarrassed of what had happened the previous day. Yet, my mum, I don’t know how she understood that I was pretending and send me directly to school. She understands it when I am really sick and when not, but how, I act exactly the same in both cases. Strange creatures our mothers…
The year ended as the next school year did too, my sister was five years-old and I was seven years-old when we went on our first family holidays all together. I mean she came too and not that we hadn’t gone on family holidays before she came to our lives. It was much better back then, only me, my mum and my dad, and now we also have her. From that year we had to decide together our holiday resort. My father brought to our living room a big map of Greece so we could choose where to go. Before we started to argue about where to go he accented, that we would go also one week to the village where our grandparents live and one week camping to Olybiada. He was so sure that we were going to argue about where to go for holidays that he finished his speech saying: -Now I let you argue about where we are going to go for holidays… I can’t say he was wrong because we ended up like he predicted. I told my sister that it would be awesome to go to Thasos because it is near Thessaloniki but she wanted to go to Santorini because our dad said that it has the best sunset. Our dad solved the problem by booking tickets for Santorini and telling me that next year we would go to Thasos as I wanted. I went to my room, crying, about my failure, to persuade my parents to book tickets for Thasos. It was the first time I lost from my sister. The year ended with her success and my first failure. I loved Santorini it was a beautiful island. However, a failure is always a failure.
The next year was the worst year ever, my sister came to my school, the elementary school. We were in the same school but luckily not in the same yard and building. We now shared the same school the only thing that was all mine before she came too. Now nothing belongs only to me, I have to share everything with her. Our teachers got confused and called me with my sister’s name and her with my name. I hate it when they call me with my sister’s name! We are absolutely different, I am clever, beautiful and older while she is annoying and younger than me. And that’s just the truth, I am not jealous of her. I have no reason to be.
Three years later and my sister was nine years old when she got her first marks:
Language: A
Mathematics: A
History: A…
Anyway, to make a long story short she got A in all the lessons she had at school and started to show off her marks to me. Βecause when I was in her age I got one B at mathematics and one B at history. OK we understand it, she is a better student than me she doesn’t have to show off. But if I am not a good student how did I get high marks this year? Any way she is older now, she is a nine-year old arrogant girl who knows how to show off.
-Ok this is a joke it can’t be true that in three months we are going to have another member in the family! I was screaming alone in my room. It is the second time I am going to have trouble, I mean a sibling. I have already one and we don’t have the best relationship… -One trouble plus one trouble give us two troubles and two troubles give us no room, toys and no more attention from our parents, I was grumbling, while I was thinking the best plan to get rid of these two monsters. I don’t like babies, they cry all the time and they are always hungry, the most of them at least. My sister liked the idea of having a brother and she also persuaded me. So I didn’t put my plan in practice and I was looking forward to my brother’s birth with my sister. My brother is eleven years younger than me and nine years younger than my sister.He is so cute that I like squeezing his cheeks. This year was also my last year in primary school, finally another school all mine before my sister comes too.
A year later and we still argue with my sister, but not for my dolls, our family holidays or her annoying behavior. We are older girls now, we have other things to argue about such as our room, we argue when we have to read loudly and we have to do it at the same time. So I always find my homework more important than hers and kick her out of our room. Then she cries and screams that this isn’t fair and that the room belongs also to her, every time she says exactly the same that I know by heart her story. After all these my mum comes to our room and she is trying pointlessly to change my mind even though she knows that I don’t relent.
Two years later, my sister and I again in the same school together, for one more time our teachers get confused and call me with my sister’s name and give me her tests and she gets mine. I can’t escape from her, she is everywhere with me, we don’t want to argue anymore we are just bored and if we argue we don’t do it us we used to when we were younger. Then we used to fight by playing TAEK-WON-DO, the martial art we learned while we were primary school students. I always beat her of course. Now I just pull her hair and she does too and then we count till ten and we let together our hair. This happens because junior high-school is over for me. Now I am a high school student and I am bored of arguing with her like we did the good old days.
Three years later I wrote my final school exams. I was so excited that I finished school and also stressed. My sister went with me to the school, she was trying to calm me down on the route to school and when we reached the school, she wished me good luck. It was the first time she said something without her ironic look: - Go you can do it, good luck! Two months later I got my results and I had passed in the school which I wanted in Athens. I was very proud of myself as my family too. My dad drove me to the airport and I moved to Athens in a studio apartment.
I have been in Athens two years now and I have already missed my sister. I haven’t seen her since Easter holidays andtomorrow she is writing her final school exams. I am going to sent her an email to wish my lovely sister good luck.
From: leniwioannidou@gg.gr
To: depyioan4@gg.gr
Subject: wishing you good luck!
Dear little monster,
I have missed you so soso much! We may be as different as Sun and the Moon, but we are like two different flowers from the same garden. You share with me my thoughts, secrets, my laughter and you wipe my tears when I cry. Finally I understand that mum wasn’t wrong when she told me that a sibling is the most beautiful present in the world that our parents can give us. You are very important to me and you will always be. I don’t know why but I have missed all our arguments from our childhood. Do you remember all the funny moments we had together? When you cut my dolls’ hair and I was so angry with you and then I gave you one of these dolls for your birthday. I was so evil back then. Or the time that you were jumping on my bed early in the morning to wake me up and I chased you in the house. Or the other time that we argued about the summer holidays and finally we went to the island you wanted. I admit that I wasn’t very good with you, but you also have to admit that you were so annoying. Any way I now know that I love you and I will protect you from anyone who is going to hurt you. Tomorrow is your final exam and I want to tell you that you shouldn’t be scared of it. I know that one day you will become the best doctor in our country. Remember that we are humans and we always have a second chance to correct our mistakes. Good luck, do your best! Please let me know your results…
Always yours,
your sister.
Xoxoxo
P.S.: You will be forever my little monster-devil-sister!
