When Dawn woke up on Monday morning, she had no idea that it was her first day of middle school. Jon had spent three years in middle school, of course, but Dawn had only attended high school, and even then for only a single day, before becoming a 5th grader on Friday night.
But now she was 12 years old, and in 7th grade. To her mind, middle school was already old-hat.
Dawn looked at her closet door, at the bras hanging from the doorknob. They were still only A-cups, but that was a far cry from the training bras she'd bought with her sister a year ago. And Dawn knew that having the right-sized bra for the body that you have was more important than whether or not it was a "good" size to be. She knew a lot about bras. Since she'd started wearing them it was like a mission to know everything there was to know about them. To take what Zoe had taught her, and learn even more. Dawn was glad that she knew her sister would always have her back, and that she should never be embarrassed when asking her for help.
Sometimes she loved being the little sister.
Dawn showered and got dressed and had breakfast, and waved goodbye as Mike and Zoe went off to the high school, while she headed for the middle school bus stop. It didn't seem fair that they lived walking distance from Lake Point High, but Line Creek Middle School needed a bus.
And it was as Dawn was leaving that bus in the afternoon that she felt something was off. There was a busy atmosphere in her home that she could sense even from a block away. The cars in the driveway were parked in each other's usual spots. Something about the way the tree branches were moving in the wind. Unease.
And as she opened the front door, she was greeted with a whirlwind of activity. Zoe was packing a gym bag as Sarah urged her on. Roger was shouting something about baseball gloves from upstairs as Mike dug through the assorted sports equipment that lived in the coat closet. Linda was stuffing sandwiches into ziplock bags in the kitchen.
But the sound of the front door closing drew Linda's attention, and as her eyes settled on her youngest child, she found a swear word rising up in her throat. "Farts," she managed to censor herself at the last possible moment. "Dawn, I totally forgot about you. I'm taking Zoe and Sarah to a cheer workshop out in Mountainview, and your dad is taking Mike to his baseball game in Harrisburg." She paused a moment. "Wait a second, you're twelve. I can leave you home for a few hours by yourself, right?"
Dawn froze up. She'd never been left home by herself before, had she? Did she want to? No. It was scary, and maybe if she'd had some time to think about it she could prepare herself, but in that moment she did not want to be home alone.
"Can't I come with you?" Dawn asked.
"Not to the cheer workshop, there isn't really a place for you there. Do you want to go see your brother's game?"
Somehow that option seemed even more horrifying to Dawn than staying home. Baseball, she knew, wasn't a real sport. How can you call yourself a sport when a "perfect game" is just two dudes playing catch? How can you call yourself a sport when you can take a literal ten-minute nap as an active member of the offensive line, and nothing bad happens? How can you call yourself a sport when you have 16 scheduled stops of play during regulation, plus as a bonus the crowd has to get up and "stretch" two thirds of the way through? Baseball wasn't a sport. Baseball was torture. Dawn was convinced of this fact above all others. Wii Bowling was more of a sport than baseball. Baseball players were the least-athletic athletes in the world. Dawn loved her brother, but she was always disappointed that he was such a big coward that he'd chosen baseball as his sport. Why couldn't he play lacrosse or badminton or water polo or tennis or soccer or pickleball or mini golf or regular golf or any sport, just any sport at all, that was actually a real sport and not just an excuse for creepy middle-aged men to drink beers together and yell at people who play catch and think it means something.
Dawn took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out at once through her mouth.
"Baseball isn't real," she said to herself. "Baseball can't hurt you."
But her thoughts were interrupted as Zoe, gym bag now packed, approached her. "Hey," she soothed, "I know you don't like either of those options, but sometimes being a little sister means getting put in a spot where you have to either make a tough decision or find creative solutions. What are you going to do here?"
By now, Zoe almost expected it when Dawn rose up on her tip-toes and spread out her arms, then settled back down into place.
Dawn blinked. Then she shrugged her shoulders. then she made puppy dog eyes at her sister. "Do you think maybe Karyn wants to come over?"
