Five score and spectacles!

Ever since the doctor told my little brother to wear spectacles for his headache, on a regular basis, he had been in a foul mood. While all my friends thought my little brother, who is seven years younger than me, looked very cute in those shell framed spectacles, I, as a sibling obviously was not going to utter any such thing remotely close to cute, be it about him or his specs.

One day, he came back from school and my mom found that he wasn't wearing specs. On her asking, he told her that his friends made fun of him because of the shell frame.

My mom firmly said that he was not to remove his specs under any circumstances other than for sports. He knew better than to go against her words. She reminded him of what the doctor said, that if he wore them all the time, he'd be able to get rid of them for good in a year. He did get rid of them eventually though...

The following day, he came home again without his specs on and my mom was furious. He assured her that he wore them the whole day and forgot to wear them back on, after playing cricket in school.

"Played cricket? With whom? You are just six!", I was suspicious of the way he came up with the excuse.

"With the tenth grade students", he came up with that almost immediately.

"Six-year-old playing with a bunch of 16-year-olds? In what universe? I don't buy it. Did they run out of students in your school?", I pushed it.

"No, simply because I am an excellent batsman, that's why. Now if you are done questioning, I need to go fresh up", he avoided the conversation.

It didn't seem right. I knitted my eyebrows. Even I didn't hang out with 16-year-olds at my age. I pointed it to my mom and told her that this was just a big fat lie because he didn't like wearing specs.

He has been known to lie a lot before and the terrible liar he is, I always find out sooner or later. Most often he gets so scared that I will find out, that he admits to lying while he is in the middle of cooking up stories!

But as usual my mom didn't believe what I said and she proudly told my dad about it later in the evening.

This went on for a couple of months. Everyday my little brother would come up with new commentaries of his own achievements against boys much older than him. The amusing part was how he added previous day's runs he scored with that day's and gave her a complete narration of how he played on the field. He even used this as an opportunity to justify his shirt getting dirty everyday. I got to give it to him. Adding numbers, remembering runs from previous day, names of the made-up seniors he was supposedly playing with, dirtying his shirt just the right amount.. All these by a six-year-old kid! Meticulously orchestrated lie, just because his classmates made fun of him for wearing specs.

When his imaginary score reached 50, My dad boasted to his colleagues and friends that his son had hit half century against 10th grade students and that he was going to be the next Sachin Tendulkar of India. My mom made sweets and distributed to our neighbours, proudly telling them her son's quests in cricket. He was a six-year-old prodigy! One has to be really very naïve to buy this kind of nonsense. Only I knew he was a six-year-old bag of lies!

Needless to say, he hit century very soon, like he couldn't wait to get there. My dad joined him in summer cricket team, my eyes-rolling-to-the-back-of-my-head.

Then came the righteous day, parent-teachers conference.

My little brother and my mom were arguing about me going with them to his parent-teacher conference.

"Sisters are not allowed. This meet is only for parents", he said anxiously. Normally, he would jump at the opportunity to bring me to his school proudly, but today he was not only against it, but it seemed like he definitely didn't want me there. Something was fishy, I could sense it. I couldn't care less anyway. I was not going to waste my time wondering what it was, much less listening to his teacher's complaining about his talkative nature. So I didn't refute to his logic.

My little brother looked very anxious. He was walking up and down the living room while my parents were getting ready.

"Wear your specs", my mom told him.

"I am not going there to study. No classes today. Just a short meet and then we will be back home. Why do I need to wear my specs for that?" he asked promptly.

"Do what I say. Don't talk back", came back my mom's usual template response to everything she doesn't have an answer to.

He pretended to search for five seconds and came back and reported that he misplaced them and that he didn't have the time to search.

That's when my Spidey-senses sensed the fishy part.

"Here they are. Right under your bag", I handed him his specs. He looked like he saw a ghost. He couldn't say anything. He wore them quietly, put up a long face and off he left with my parents.

As soon as he entered the room with his specs on, his class teacher exclaimed, "Hi Arvind. New specs? How cute!"

My little brother tried to look cute to get away with it.

My mom, as innocent as she was, asked her, "What do you mean? He has been wearing them everyday for two months now."

"I have never seen him with specs until today", his teacher responded.

My mom's eyes bore a drill on my brother. Blood drained from his face. Wish I had gone with them after all. But hearing about it at home while my mom made him do a 100 sit-ups, one for each imaginary run he scored, was still as much fun. Memorable as it was for me, he didn't dare to remove his specs even when he went to bed.

Out of pity, mom got him metal frame.
Kids still made fun of him!