Stuntmen
"Daniel, what are you doing?" Kris asked. Of course, when their parents were gone for like, two seconds and his little brother had to have a wild hare and decide to do stuff he wasn't allowed to do. There was an ominous pile of couch cushions, blankets and pillows in the middle of their family room floor, totally covering up the Nintendo.
"Getting the wrestling ring all ready!" he announced. He was bare-chested, in some old basketball shorts.
Kris was older, and unofficially, Kris was in charge. He crossed his arms. "I'm not wrestling you," he said plainly.
"Yeah, you are!" Daniel objected.
It made Kris sort of embarrassed that at ten he was smaller than his little brother was at eight-and-a-half. He asked God every night to make puberty come faster, but so far, no luck.
"Dan, no way! The last time we did that, you almost broke my arm, and then we both got grounded. Remember that?"
Stopping short, his shoulders slumping, Daniel nodded. "Oh yeah. Well, what can we do then? I'm bored. Hey, I know! I can show you some of the flips I'm doing in gymnastics! You know, in this, being small is a good thing."
"Thanks a lot," Kris scoffed.
"All the boys in my class are small like you."
"Just shut up, okay? I'm sticking with baseball. You be the stuntman."
Kris tried not to get all huffy when Daniel made a big deal about his size, but sometimes his temper got the better of him. He was halfway out of the room when he turned back and saw the disappointment in his brother's eyes.
"I can do a cartwheel..." he offered reluctantly, wanting to make Dan feel better.
"Oh, then you can do a round off, too!" Daniel piped up, excited. "We gotta clean up these blankets and stuff first, otherwise you could get injured," he said, piling the stuff onto a couch. "And you need to stretch first."
Kris rolled his eyes, but tried to be patient. He knew Daniel looked up to him. Obediently he sat down and did some half-hearted toe-touches.
"All right. That's good enough," Dan announced.
"Okay, move out of the way," Kris warned, kicking off his sandals and taking off his shirt. He did a pretty decent cartwheel if he thought so himself, but Daniel grimaced.
"I'll show you how to do it," he said importantly. Then he did exactly what Kris had done.
"That's the same thing I did!" Kris objected.
"Yeah, but it was better than you did," Daniel teased and took off running with Kris close behind.
At the top of the stairs, Kris found Daniel in the kitchen, polishing off a root beer. "Hey, can I bench press you?"
"You don't even know what a bench press is! Forget it, I'm playing Nintendo, and I'm Mario," he bragged, hoping it would entice Daniel downstairs to play with him. Playing Nintendo by yourself just wasn't as good.
"If you come outside with me, I'll show you this really cool flip I can do off the deck. But you can't tell Mom and Dad!"
"You're lying so bad," Kris said smiling. "If you did a flip off the deck, you'd die."
"I've done it a bunch of times. Off the low part of the deck."
Curious, Kris went outside, and stood back as Daniel stood on the railing. Before he could blink, his brother was airborne, landing in a real stunt roll when he was done. Kris had to admit, it did look pretty cool."
"Where'd you learn this?" he asked, climbing up to stand beside Daniel once he was back on the deck, in one piece. Kris was sure that his brother couldn't get away with flipping off their own deck railing.
Daniel shrugged. "At my friend's. He's way better at it than me. Okay, so just make sure you aim yourself so you don't hit head-first. Are you even listening?"
"I'm just checkin' to make sure no neighbors can see us..." Kris said conspiratorially.
"Bomb's away!" Daniel called, flipping flawlessly into the grass, and whooping so loud the whole block could probably hear.
Kris followed, once Daniel was out of the way, his stomach dropping as he flipped and doing his best to aim so he wouldn't break his neck. Somehow, he landed in a heap, with the wind knocked out of him.
"Really cool, right? You okay?" Dan asked, smiling.
Kris lie there gasping for a minute before he got his breath back. Then, he sat up and shook his head a little. "You are insane. And if you try this again and I know about it, I'm letting Mom and Dad know."
"Lame! No way!"
"Yeah way, it's dangerous!" Kris shot back.
"Then why'd you do it, Sherlock?" Daniel demanded.
"That was a mistake. Just promise me you'll leave the daredevil stuff for gym, okay?"
Daniel sighed, dragging his feet as he walked inside. "Fine," he said like he was pouting.
Just when Kris was starting to feel bad for taking Daniel's fun away, he took off running ahead of Kris, pounding down the stairs.
"Ha! I'm Mario!" Daniel called.
Kris shrugged, taking the second controller. "I don't care. I like Luigi better anyway," he said, and pressed power, bringing the game to life.