Severe Wind Advisory

         By all accounts, it was totally his fault. Blaze McGrim, the uncool kid with the cool name, farted. A lot. And while kind souls might take compassion on him, middle school is a place severely lacking in kind souls. If you asked anyone around, it was always the same thing. "Blaze needs to stop eating jalapeno burriiiito!" would be said in a bad Spanish accent.

         Blaze is half Mexican, half Irish, if you're wondering. He was a chubby, short kid with dark brown hair, green eyes, and more zits than could be found at a national convention for toads with zit problems.

         Nobody wanted to sit near Blaze at lunch. Nobody wanted to sit behind Blaze in class. Nobody wanted to be seen in the general vicinity of Blaze McGrim, the fartiest boy in school. And I was no exception.

         My name is Mariposa McGrim. I'm Blaze's older sister, but it's not like I want that kind of information spread around school.

         I knew he was getting mocked. I knew he might even be bullied. I knew... but I didn't want to think about it. Blaze was always a dork. I might not be the most beautiful girl in school, or the most popular, but I had a gang of friends I liked to hang around and be accepted in. I didn't want my brother messing that up.

         But then the day came that I found Blaze underneath the stairs, crying his eyes out. Well, actually one of the teachers found him, and sent me after him when he wouldn't talk to her.

         "Blaze? Dude, what's wrong?" I asked hesitantly, standing away from him awkwardly. One of my friends was going to see me, I knew it. Curled in a little ball, his face buried in his hands, he only sniffed in answer. I saw a tear sliding down the tip of one finger to his knuckle to drop to the ground. I stared at it blankly.

         My brother's a cheerful guy. I mean, he's the guy you go to when you want a laugh. He's the guy who'll stand on his head and attempt to wear a funny hat at the same time just to make someone smile.

         "Blaze, cut it out," I snapped.

         He sniffed louder.

         "You're so embarrassing!" I yelled in frustration.

         And that's what made something break inside him. He removed his hands from his face and glared at me with more hatred than I ever thought was possible for someone with a heart as big as his. Tears streaked his face, his vivid green eyes were bloodshot, and one of his zits had started to bleed. "That's all you care about!" he screamed at me. "Whether I embarrass you or not, so you can hang out with those... with those cool kids. I hate you. I hate you. You're not my sister."

         I folded my arms and tried to look annoyed but something inside me tried to say he was making a good point. I told that something to shut the hell up.

         Blaze went home. Dad came and picked him up.

         After school, I went home and Dad told me the whole story. Apparently, a group of kids had been picking on him a long time. Making fun of him and mocking everything about him, from his farts, to his zits, to his parents to the fact that his sister was ten times cooler than him.

         My dad and I talked for a long time. He wasn't accusing or angry. He just asked me, quite simply, why I wasn't standing up for or being more of a sister to my brother, as if he expected I would have a perfectly logical explanation for it, and then he could answer, "Oh. Okay. I understand."

         You'd never guess, but I didn't have a logical answer for him.

         I went into my brother's room. Blaze was on his computer, playing some video game.

         "Hey, can we talk?" I asked.

         No answer. Figures.

         "Blaze, I'm sorry, I-" I paused, hoping he'd cut in.

         Nothin'.

         "Blaze, I'm a total loser and a horrible sister."

         "Yep." Well. Better than nothing.

         "I'm sorry."

         "Uh-huh."

         "Blaze-"

         He paused his game, turned around, and stared at me with one eyebrow raised and his eyes prepping to roll.

         "Look, I'm trying, here."

         "Uh-huh." I didn't know he could put so much sarcasm in two syllables.

         "Tell you what. Let's fight this thing your way."

         "What?"

         "Those idiots at school. Let's take care of the problem your way."

         He stared at me blankly and I grinned at him and told him my plan.

         The next day at school, for the first time, I felt like I was almost as funny as my brother. A lot of people laughed at my brother and me. But my brother didn't end up crying in the corner. He sure did smile a lot more than he did before though. That was good to see.

         I'm not such a bad sister after all. And maybe middle school does have a few kindly souls.

         Made out of cardboard, brightly colored markers, and stuck to our backs with duct tape, we both wore signs all day proudly declaring, "Severe Wind Advisory."