I could feel my brother’s stares as I shoved cornflakes into my mouth.

I chose to ignore him and continued eating. If I have more siblings I’d die.

It was getting more and more annoying so I finally gave up and looked at him.

My brother Jacob was the spitting image of Dad.

Everything from the brown hair to the shape of the nose, the cheekbones and everything else except for the blue eyes.

I don’t know if people with brown hair can have blue eyes but all the blue-eyed people I had ever met either had blond or black hair. As for Jacob,it made him odd but oddly attractive.

He was also very smart. I’m talking smart as in ‘too smart for his age and his own good’ kind of smart. I mean,the boy’s first word was ‘science’.

“What are you keeping from me?”

I almost chocked,my mind going to SOAM instantly.

“What are you talking about?”

One of the disadvantages of having a genius brother was he could tell if you were lying or keeping a secret.

It also made it very annoying. He’s fourteen for the love of God,why does he know more things than I do?

“Come i know you Jo”

I sighed,”What time did Mom come home yesterday?”

He shrugged,”She came home sometime in the afternoon, you weren’t home from School yet. But…”

“What?” I probed.

“She left right after that, she was all dressed up.”

I nodded,” I haven’t seen her this morning, she must have taken Amelia with her”

“What’s with all the questions?”he asked, taking our bowls to the sink.

“I think she’s seeing someone”,I said then pressed my lips together, knowing I had another secret.

What surprised me was how his face lit up and he even laughed.

“That’s good.”

I rolled my eyes,”No it’s not”,I said, grabbing our bags then going on and on about all the reasons why it wasn’t.

Question:What do you think about Johanna and Jake’s sibling relationship?

Some time later: Jacob

I walked into the classroom, facing down. I was greeted by the loud noise my classmates made and I couldn’t help but wince.

I sat quietly at my desk and took out my book. I know that I’m the only one studying but I couldn’t care less. I didn’t bother me being the class nerd.

We were newbies,grade eights;the babies of the school and usually the teachers would let us be.

The teacher walked in told us about a project. We’d be working in twos.

“Samantha Owens, you’re with Lesedi Makhafola”. The girl groaned and looked at Lesedi in disgust.

“I won’t tolerate that look Samantha”, the teacher said, giving her a look.

The girl just looked at her books, cheeks puffed in a defiant gesture. She was stubborn,I gathered,and sort of pretty.

“Cyrus Brown and Kyle Ndlovhu, Jacob William and Kaylin Simpson”.

I turned around in my seat and the girl smirked. She had dyed blue hair tied in two pigtails on her head and a large blazer that covered her whole body.

I slowly turned away to look back at my books and wondered what just happened.

Kaylin was a bad girl. She dyed her hair a different color everyday; today’s was blue.

I tend to stay away form girls like her, they don’t know what they want out of life, they don’t write homeworks, and they are probably involved with boys who do drugs and some other things that I’m too innocent to know or even think about.

I don’t involve myself with people who are trouble.

But what choice do I have?

‘A little while later’

“So…my house or yours?”

I looked up from my book to see Kaylin looking down at me.

What was she talking about? Oh, the project.

“I don’t know,yours? Where do you live?”

She tore a piece of paper from my book and my cheeks turned red with anger.

She scribbled something on the piece of paper in front of me,then strutted across the room to her seat.

Question:Do you get angry or annoyed when people mistreat books? For me it’s when I’m reading a really good book only to find out a page is missing. What about you?