A Guide To Being The Middle Child

Count five on your left. Count five on your right. Note that this doesn’t make you the center of the stage.

Don’t yelp when the youngest pulls at your hair. Don’t sob when the oldest leaves for town. If you do, they’ll cry as well.

Leave the door open. Seven and Eight come home late and they won’t sleep without you. But don’t leave too wide a gap, lest Nine and Ten catch a cold from the cross-breeze.

Feel free to let your thoughts wander down the starry lanes, but don’t even think about staying up. Count ten stars your window grants you the view of. Then get up before dawn and put Eleven back to sleep.

Keep the puppies away from the kids. You never know what things they touched with their paws. Reproach it when the older pup bullies the younger, the way you’d yell at Seven who quarrels with Nine.

Throw Eight a compliment when he overtakes you on his bike. Though you know the speed limit of your pram.

Don’t flinch when Ten spits his soup at you. Just keep feeding him until he finishes his noodles. If he dumps your phone in the bin, don’t fret, just pick it up and wipe it, though he’s been occupying it for the past two hours.

Never let the pram leave your sight while playing dodgeball.

Keep an eye on the ball, yes, but also on Eleven, or whoever that’s been carrying her for you. If she wails, pass the ball to someone else; go straight to her, lift her up and pat her.

Remember to be gentle, she can’t take the cathartic force you use when tossing the ball.

Stay.

Feel free to watch the ball from the side, now that she’s in your arms.

Smile at the younger girls who come up to you. Put the baby in the pram now, given that she’s dozed off. Braid the girls’ hair. And don’t forget to rock the pram with your feet while you’re at it.

Don’t talk about the pram when they ask you why you stopped going to school.

Talk about your grades. Talk about the classes that made you yawn for hours on end. Talk about your teacher – doesn’t matter, it’s not like she’s gonna hear you. Talk about your friends, how you’re in this together. Talk about playing catch. Talk about sneaking snacks. Talk about how these were the biggest reasons why you went to school.

Stop talking now. You don’t have to tell them everything.

Indulge in a trance if you may. They’ll stop probing once they see you stare at the postcards you’re clutching. Picture One and Two in them; find One’s silhouette among the pillars of Pantheon, seek out Two’s smiley face amid the bustling crowds in Bangkok. You know they aren’t really there, but at least they’re closer to those places than you are. Close your eyes just so you can forget about that. Picture the places in your mind. Now place yourself in any of them. No one can keep you from your whimsies.

Rise from the stool, Eleven’s crying on your back now. Coo her like you would the doll you loved as a child – which you still do.

Once she’s asleep, weep without shedding a tear. A moment of silence for the doll now resting somewhere in the valley, rotting away like the days before you could count to five…or perhaps vinyl doesn’t decompose?

Make good use of dusk. The light is strong enough to tell them that you’re around, and dim enough to hide your vestiges.

Sulk in Three’s empty bed. Nuzzle against her pillow, though it barely retains her scent. Wonder what One, Two and Three did when they were your age. Relish the moment in a room containing you, your sister’s pillow, a gecko, and a fly on the wall.

Be the fly on the wall when Four and Five demand your audit. Give a thumbs-up to Four’s latest invention, though you think it’s funny to install a siren on a motorcycle.

Swear internally at the lousy engines they’re hopelessly proud of. Cough out loud as you wrestle with the exhaust, but note that they won’t hear your protest from yards away.

Now close your eyes and recite the nursery rhyme Two has taught you. Check your phone and see if she texted. This way you’ll find out if she’s bluffing about her telepathic ability.

Throw a tantrum if she lied. Stomp a puddle. Kick a cobblestone. Elbow that tree you deem too frail to stand the tempest. Jump and pick that dragon fruit dangling from the branch over the fence. Crack it. Devour it. Don’t mind the seeds. Swallow them like how you swallowed the curse that almost spilled when Seven yelled at Nine, when Eight bumped into you and the pram on his bike, when Ten spat his soup on your new tee, when Eleven wailed just as you were dodging the decisive shot.

Now gaze at the trail once Four and Five are out of sight. Picture the way One, Two and Three would come scurrying down the same lane on New Year’s Eve. Sit with the thought and smile for some time. It’s better for your health than apples and maize.

Go back to the porch at moonrise. Count the younger ones before you go inside. One, two, three, four, five…

Six.

Don’t forget to count yourself this time.