By Karen T
© June 2007
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
Notes: Written for samcarter_gen challenge #4: parachute. Continued thanks to Michelle for all the fic poking.
As she stands just outside her brother's room, her new set of markers in one hand (they're scented and the purple one smells like yummy grape jelly) and a discarded bed sheet in the other, Sam ponders her choices. She really wants to use her new markers (especially the purple one), and her brother's brand new leg cast is practically calling out to her. But she also really wants to point out her brother's stupidity.
Decisions, decisions.
"Hey, Mark," she eventually says as she pads into his room, one end of the sheet dragging on the floor behind her.
"Hey," he mumbles without looking up from the comic book he's reading.
Sam studies his cast -- so white, so inviting -- and then looks down at the dirty sheet still clutched in her left hand. "Does it hurt?" she asks, tipping her chin towards his cast.
"Mmm, not really," he says, still not looking away from the comic book. "Itches mostly."
"Oh." Inching closer to his bed, she deposits her pack of markers on top of his mattress and asks, "Can I draw on your cast?"
"Sure." Then, as if it suddenly occurs to him to whom he's speaking, his eyes jerk in her direction and he says, "Nothing too big, okay, Sam?"
"Okay." She lets go of the sheet and uses both her hands to open carefully the pack of markers. She definitely wants to use the purple marker, and the orange one. And maybe the red one, too. But Mark's a boy, so she should probably throw in some blue and brown for good measure.
As she hunches over his cast and begins drawing near where his knee should be, she says, somewhat distractedly, "Mom says you broke your leg pretending to be Superman."
"Paratrooper," Mark corrects with a loud sigh. Sam suspects he's made this correction a bunch of times with their parents. "Dale and I were pretending to be paratroopers."
"So you jumped off the roof of the garage and used a sheet as a parachute?" She pauses to cock her head at what she just drew.
"Yeah. I don't know why it didn't work," Mark grumbles. "It shoulda. We tested it first with Dale's GI Joe and it worked just fine."
"Well, that's 'cause the GI Joe weighs less. You weigh a lot more. Duh."
She doesn't mean to be snotty -- okay, she does mean to be snotty, but only a little bit -- but Mark doesn't seem to appreciate her restraint. As his room grows very quiet, she grabs her loose markers and their plastic pouch and scurries to the door. An annoyed "Mooooom! Sam's bothering me!" is, no doubt, close at hand.
Back in the safety of her own room, Sam thinks she'll leave Mark alone for a while. She bets his leg does hurt, and he's probably feeling pretty stupid about the whole parachute idea. And, well, she doesn't want to be nearby when he sees all the hearts and smiley faces she drew on his cast.
-the end-
Full prompt: Sam as a kid with a home-made parachute.
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