It all started when I first caught my sister, Lucia, stealing. I had caught her with two fistfuls of Hershey chocolate kisses, sneaking up to her room. I was immediately suspicious; our house had been taken over by ants recently. There were ants all over the house – the tiny ones you could smoosh with your pinky – that were searching for some mysterious source of sugar.
“What,” I asked, grabbing her, “are you doing?” I squinted my eyes at her, making my voice low so it sounded like I was hissing. At age eight, I was already trying to sound like my mom, being the tyrannical older sister I was.
She hid the Hershey kisses behind her back. “Umm...nothing....” She bit her lip.
“Really? Then what are those?” I pointed to the little white flag on one of the Hershey kisses that seemed determined not to stay behind Lucia’s back.
“Oh, those?” Caught, she held the Hershey kisses out and laughed nervously. “They’re just Hershey kisses!”
“So then why were you hiding them?”
“No reason.”
“Really.” I raised my eyebrows at her, like my mom raises hers.
“I just wanted to take them upstairs so I could eat them at night as a snack!,” she blurted out.
“Interesting.” I crossed my arms. “So you’re the culprit!” I smiled gleefully to myself; she was going to be in so much trouble. “I’m going to tell Mommy,” I announced triumphantly.
“Please please please please don’t tell Mommy!” Her eyes widened with fear. I didn’t blame her. The ants had put our mom in a bad mood. If she found out...let’s just say that Lucia wouldn’t be able to see the next sunrise.
I scoffed at her. “Oh, you know I won’t,” I answered sarcastically.
“I’ll do anything!”
At this my eyes lit up. She would do anything for me! Suddenly I felt like I was in power. Now that I knew my sister had midnight snacks, I could control her in ways unimaginable before. Of course, I was only eight, and my dreams of power consisted of getting her to my chores and, as I like to put it, “other things.”
I began daydreaming, and drifted off into a world where Lucia would serve me.
She was Cinderella, and I was the evil stepsister. I saw her, dressed in rags and covered in soot, begging on the floor and sobbing, “Please Emily! I don’t want to do anymore of your chores,” she cried. I turned to see myself, dressed in a beautiful purple gown with a silver crown on my head, haughtily saying, “Anything for you, Lucia, but now I shall tell Mommy that you eat in bed and leave crumbs all over the place for the ants.” “Nooooo,” she sobbed, terrified at the thought of my mother’s unleashed wrath. “Please, don’t, I’ll do your laundry...”

Ah, that dream seemed so real! I promised Lucia that I wouldn’t tell our mom. I didn’t want to lose my one chance at having a personal slave.


And so it began. For the following week, I ordered Lucia around. She folded my clothes, poured me glasses of water, made sure my bath water was hot, and did many other countless chores that I have long forgotten. I laughed at her every day, basking in my glory, and enjoying every second of her suffering. Every time she finished doing a single chore, I would say, “Thank you, Lucia. You are the best sister in the world!” Then I would proceed to smile deviously, saying, “Now, can you go do one little thing for me? It’ll only take a second...” Who knew it felt so good to be evil?

Meanwhile, the ant problem was steadily growing worse. Lucia had decided to stop eating sweets in bed a while ago, namely because it was the cause of her new chores. However, the ants wouldn’t leave. Now that they were in the house, they kept multiplying and multiplying.

I was surprised that my mom didn’t notice that Lucia was doing so much work. The only time she acknowledged it was when she said, “Lucia, you’re growing up! I love that you’re finally taking responsibility and helping around the house!” Lucia responded to this by weakly smiling. When I overheard this, I cackled to myself. My mom was blinded.

But all good things come to an end. My mom finally realized that the fact that my room was clean when I hadn’t lifted a finger was too good to be true. She forced me into confessing, weaseling my horrendous deeds out of me the way only mothers can.

I recovered from my shock quickly. Somehow, I knew my mom would find out. My mother’s sixth sense will forever repeatedly foil my brilliant plans.

“You know you were wrong.”

I sighed and cast my eyes onto the floor.

“Look at me.”

I looked her in the eye. The guilt overpowering me, I glanced down again.

“Were you wrong? Answer me.”

“Yes.”
She looked tired. “When will you finally learn,” she said to herself. With that, she left my room, closing the door with a note of finality.


From that day forward, I never manipulated Lucia again. I redeemed myself by doing extra chores for her during the week after.

As for the ants, the ant exterminator had to come to get rid of them. He came exactly a week after my sister and I got our lecture, wearing a green jumpsuit and goggles. He killed the ants with some poisonous gas, killing every single one of them in sight. In a puff of yellow smoke, our house was finally ant-free, and manipulation-free.

My mom and my sister may have thought that they had finally straightened me out, but everyone knows that there are many other means of control besides manipulation. During the following weeks, I would cook up more schemes of torture for my sister.
After all, she’s Cinderella, and I’m the evil stepsister.