I know many writers who seemed to show two primary interests as children -- reading and lying. (It makes perfect sense after all, even though I'm sure a parent's first thought when his or her child tells a bold-faced lie isn't, "Maybe I'm raising the next Hemingway!")
While I had no interest in lying, I did like to tell stories. I often wrote plays for my sisters and I to perform in. Of course, being a little control freak as well, I liked to write, direct and star in my plays. And, when my sisters gave what I deemed to be unsatisfactory performances or refused to learn their lines verbatim, I would take on their roles as well. By premiere time, I was usually performing all of the roles except for brief cameos by Snuggles the bear. I'm sure it was not the easiest story for my audience, a.k.a. Mom and Dad, to follow.
And while many older sisters like to torture their younger siblings with tales of how they were actually adopted, I had something else in mind.
"You know you're not one of us," I told my youngest sister while we were at the beach for a family vacation. I think we were having breakfast. She was three to my wise and mature nine, and I'm guessing she'd either gotten on my nerves, or I was bored. (I was so loving at that age.)
