by Sybil Nelson
~~~
Chester the Investor
An extra credit assignment for Mrs. Talendy's 7th grade English class
Okay, so apparently my other assignments were too 'negative' and didn't get me good enough grades to pass the first quarter. So now I have to write an essay about a positive characteristic of my little brothers. I guess I can see why that's necessary. I mean, you probably think my little brothers are just plain pure evil at this point. I did too for a while until I discovered their special talents. I still stand by the fact that they are mostly gross, annoying, pathetical (is that a word?) excuses for human beings, but they are useful for a few things.
First of all, they are ridiculously good at keeping secrets. Their minds are like steel traps. Stuff goes in and never comes out. We have a pretty big family secret and they haven't told a single person. Well, to be fair, even if they told someone, no one would believe them anyway. So that might not even count.
Second of all, my brothers are kind of caring and creative and stuff. There's a little thing that happened with Billy Wescott that I could write about that shows this, but if you ever talk to Mr. Barkley then the grade for my last project could be in trouble. So I think I'll keep that on the down low.
Third of all, my little brother Charlie can eat anything, and I do mean anything, as long as it's covered in peanut butter. Now that may seem pretty useless to you and normally it would be, but that's because you don't know Chester's special talent. He's the evil genius and criminal mastermind behind all of The Devil Twin stunts.
Anyway, once Chester figured out Charlie's peanut butter gift, Chester created the one and only C&C Gross Factory. Basically, Chester set up a table in the backyard and invited his crazy little friends over to watch Charlie eat a whole bunch of gross stuff. The genius part comes in the fact that Chester charged $.25 a head for general admission and $1.00 for specific eating requests. Charlie and Chester easily made $10 a night from Charlie's diet of peanut butter covered fur balls and lizard tails.
None of us knew what was going on until one day I took them to McMillan's pharmacy and the boys bought a brand new Slip n' Slide and enough candy to give a small country diabetes. Since I knew I hadn't given them the money, I decided to keep a closer eye on them in order to figure out where they got their money. That's when I discovered the freak show circus going on in the backyard.
Instead of ratting them out to our parents I decided to invest in their little business. I raised their head fee to $.50 per person and managed to get them 20 more customers a night. Now I don't claim to be a math whiz or anything. I just flunked a proportions quiz yesterday as a matter of fact. But I still know a huge profit increase when I see one.
Charlie was a huge hit with my friends. And Chester adding the Rocky theme song music to the disgusting eating frenzy was just a stroke of pure genius. Who knew I could become the most popular girl in town not because of my good looks and charming personality, but because my little brother could chase down a peanut butter covered pine cone with a cup full of pool water?
I know you probably think I'm some sort of horrible person for exploiting my brothers. (Bam! Another vocab word. Go me!) But I assure you he was perfectly safe. My genius best friend, Tai, signed on as the health director and made sure Charlie never ate anything that would really put his life in danger. Most of what he ate would be considered normal food in another country. I mean, the French eat snails all the time. Granted their snails are not trying to squirm out of a glob of peanut butter as they're being eaten, but hey, that's their choice.
For two weeks, everything went great. We made tons of money and I was half-way to getting that new Street Mania video game until one day little Annie Masterson went home and threw up after watching Charlie slurp down a peanut butter covered worm.
Annie's mother who, according to my mother, was a part-time nurse and a full-time hypochondriac decided that Charlie was in danger of dying or at least of developing a bad case of internal worms. And she rushed over to our house to tell my parents this. Mrs. Masterson insisted she had to take Charlie to the hospital and give him a full round of x-rays and medical tests. My mother thought that was unnecessary since a peanut butter covered worm wasn't the nastiest thing she had seen Charlie eat in even the last half hour. I think that honor went to a peanut butter and chicken salad sandwich covered with crickets.
Unfortunately, my mother did put an end to the C&C Gross Factory and, therefore, my easy summer income. But it was nice to learn that Charlie and Chester were at least useful in earning me some extra manicure money.
So there you have it, Mrs. Talendy. My little brothers are not complete evil. They are master marketers and I swear one day Chester is going to be some kind of millionaire investment banker or investor or something. And then my life will be set as well. I mean, I'm gonna charge him a ton of money for all the blackmail pictures I've taken throughout the years. I'd make a million off the Play-Doh boob thing alone.
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About the Author
Sybil Nelson lives in Charleston, SC with her husband and two children. She currently attends the Medical University of South Carolina. Visit www.sybilnelson.com or www.priscillathegreat.com to learn more
The Priscilla the Great Series
Priscilla the Great
Priscilla the Great: The Kiss of Life
Priscilla the Great: Too Little Too Late
Priscilla the Great: Bring the Pain (October 2011)
Priscilla the Great: The Time Traveling Bullet (January 2012)
Twin Shorts
