Double Assassination

“I’m gonna kill him,” Jenny seethed, fingers balled into fists at each hip. Her eyes blazed as they fired something far sharper than daggers Bobby’s way.

“Calm down, Jen. It’s just a stuffed animal!” I touched my fingers to her trembling arm.

She reacted as if I’d just given her an electric shock. Instantly, a whirling tornado of angry tresses flashed through my field of vision as she turned to face me.

I shrank back under my eight-year-old sister’s fiery gaze. “Mr. Whiskers is not just another stuffed animal. He’s my first stuffed animal, and I love him.”

“Okay! Okay! Geesh!” I replied, taking a step back. “Why don’t you just ask Bobby to give him back? Maybe mom can sew his head back on.”

“Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that?” she shot back, her quavering voice rising. “No, he tore Mr. Whisker’s head off! That calls for far more severe consequences.” Her eyes flashed with malicious intent, the curled ends of her chestnut locks bouncing on her shoulders as gesticulating hands foretold my friend’s impending doom.

Reaching into her pocket, Jenny removed two pink hair ties with an enraged jerk, bundling her animated hair into the telltale twin ponytails that indicated she really meant business.

“You’re scaring me, Jenny. What are you going to do to him?” I couldn’t keep the tremulous waver from my voice, punctuating my question with an audible swallow.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” she hissed from between clenched teeth. Setting her jaw, she marched after the boy.

As he heard her loud stomps approach, Bobby stiffened, then spun around to face her. His eyes instantly lit in amusement as his pigtailed, 47-inch-tall stalker came to a stop before him. “You gonna cry now, Jenny? For your precious Mr. Whiskers?” With a sneer, Bobby held up the stuffed toy’s head in one hand, its body in the other, his own toy tucked under an armpit.

Jenny’s curly eyelashes trembled with fury, and faster than I could blink, she cocked a fist and sent it sailing into her tormentor’s unprepared stomach. A whoosh of air sailing between Bobby’s astonished lips, he dropped the destroyed animal to the floor before doubling over, clutching his stomach. Jenny placed two fingers on his forehead and gave him a quick shove, sending the boy sprawling to the ground.

Bobby gazed up at the young girl, his wide eyes and contorted features a study in absolute terror.

Jenny placed her hands on her hips, towering over her prone adversary as she glowered at him from high above.

“W-what are you going to do to me?” Bobby whimpered.

“Well, I think that one assassination deserves another. Don’t you?”

If Bobby’s eyes had seemed wide before, it was nothing compared to what they looked like now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the whites around anyone’s entire iris before or since. But I did just then. “No! I didn’t mean to kill Mr. Whiskers! I really didn’t! Please! Please!”

As Jenny’s hands left her hips, Bobby flinched, crossing his arms before his face for protection.

Jenny reached down, her small fingers curling into something soft flesh like a hawk’s claws into a mouse.

Bobby shrieked in horror. “Y-you c-can’t! You w-won’t!”

Jenny’s eyes gleamed with cruelty. “Oh, I so will.” Licking her lips, she pulled her arm upward, Bobby’s shoulder’s lifting from the ground with her tug. He scrambled to thwart her, but he was too slow.

Jenny ripped Mr. Bojangles from Bobby’s armpit and, placing one hand atop his head and another set of fingers digging harshly into his pillowy chest, she twisted. With a soft pop, the rubber dog’s head separated from its body. With a gleeful laugh, Jenny threw the pieces to the floor and stomped on them until they split at the creases.

Tears welling in Bobby’s eyes, Jenny crossed her arms in satisfaction. “Maybe next time, you’ll think twice before you mess with a girl’s lion.”

As Jenny marched away, I retrieved the pieces of both toys and set about repairing them both. Bobby, cowed and obviously sore, rose from the floor, casting his damaged toy a sullen glance. “Geez! Your sister’s a little crazy, isn’t she?”

I flashed him a wry smile. “You have no idea. She pretty much goes straight for the nuclear option when anyone crosses her.”

Bobby rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I guess so!”

“I heard that,” came a shrill voice from the other room. It was quickly followed by a giggle.

My stomach dropped to my ankles. Oh no!

Dropping the damaged toys, I ran to the living room. This time, Jenny held my favorite animal, Kitty Kat, in her grubby little fingers.

“You wouldn’t! I cried.

Jenny cocked her head to the side, her pink-banded pigtails jiggling dangerously. “Wouldn’t I?”

Each tiny muscle in her slender arms tensing, she cried out, “Rrrrragh!”

A moment later, the threads holding Kitty Kat’s smiling face to her fuzzy chest, stretched, then snapped.

With a triumphant giggle, Jenny threw Kitty Kat’s decapitated body at me. It bounced off my forehead, and I collapsed, defeated on the ground.

“Just call me the stuffed animal assassin!” cried Jenny, prancing around, Kitty’s head still firmly clasped in one hand. After a victory lap through the living room, she grabbed an apple from the kitchen counter and took a large bite out of it as she bounded up the stairs to her room.

Bobby and I exchanged a look, and I shrugged, setting about the task of collecting the various toy parts and dumping them into the garbage. It was a shame that it had come to this, really. I should have known better than to antagonize the slumbering beast that was my little sister.

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