Betrayed by Satch

"Hey! What are you guys talking about?" Jon asked.

Kenny and I looked at each other, blurting, "Nothing!" in unison.  Kenny took that as his cue to take off, leaving me to fend for myself.

"All right, fine!"  Jon plopped down on his bed.  "Be that way.  Jeez!"

Pulling a comic book from under his pillow, he started flipping through it.

I walked over to the mirror, studying every inch of my face, as if I was having a staring contest with myself. I'm not all that bad looking.  It's not like I'm a mutant.  I look like any other normal kid my age, with straight brown hair and light brown eyes, and no pimples...well, not yet, thank God.  Still standing in front of the mirror, I practiced posing, trying to look cool.

"What the heck are you doing?"

Caught in the act again!  "Nothing."  I stretched, trying to act casual, like I wasn't doing anything in particular.That was one of the down sides of having so many brothers and sisters: You could never be alone, even when you really needed to.  I'd forgotten Jon was there.  I would  love to be an only child. Well, I wouldn't mind having Francine around.  Oh, and Rosco, our dog. "Why?"

"You've been acting weird lately," Jon said.  "Hey, when are we going to finish our video game?  You said we'd play this Monday.  That was two days ago!"

"Sorry.  I forgot."

"How could you forget?  Warrior's Conquest is like your favorite game!"

As if he had to remind me.  "Yeah, I know."

"Are you mad at me?"

I wondered why he cared.  Jon never cares about what anyone thinks of him .  "It's not you.  You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"You're too young to understand."  Then I blurted it out, "It's girl trouble."

"Too young?  That's what you think!  Just the other day, Tara McDougal told me she liked me, so I kissed her," Jon said.  "She slapped me!  And then she ran away."

"Wait a minute.  You kissed her?"

"Why?  Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

This was great, just great!  My own stupid little brother had more experience with girls than I did!

"You...you kissed her?"  I couldn't believe it.

"What's the big deal?"

My curiosity got the better of my pride.  "What did it feel like?"

"I don't know, soft.  Spongy.  Sticky."

"Sticky?"

"Yeah.  She was sucking on a lollipop."

"You kissed her while she had a lollipop in her mouth?"

"No, stupid, I waited for her to take it out.  Then I just planted one on her!"

No wonder she  slapped him.

So my little brother was a pre-teen Casanova, and I was a total loser with girls.

"Why are you asking me this stuff?" Jon said.  "Haven't you ever kissed a girl before?"

He cornered me. The question caught me off guard.  "Well...no.  Not yet."

"Well, duh.  No girl in her right mind would kiss you with that on your lip!"

"What?"

"THAT!" Jon pointed to my top lip.

"What?  Show me."

My little brother spun me around to face the mirror-and the ugly truth.  There, right smack on my top lip, dead center, was this weird thing, like a callus, or a blister.  I'd never really noticed it until then.  "Oh, my God!"  I looked at it more closely.  Did I have some horrible disease?  It didn't hurt.  Despite myself, I tried to squeeze it, but it wouldn't squeeze.

"Ew!  Gross!" my brother said.

"Shut up, Jon.  This is serious!"

"No.  It's gross, and your love life is doomed!"

"Don't remind me!"

Pulling myself from the mirror, I slumped down on my bed.  Jon came over and plopped down next to me.

I groaned.  "What am I going to do?"

"Can't you just cut it off?"

"WHAT!?"

"Just get Dad's toenail clippers and clip it off."  He made a brutal action with his hand.  "One quick clip."

"Are you nuts?  I'm not getting Dad's toe cheese all over my lips!"

"Whatever, it's your love life.  You're just afraid there might be blood."  Jon walked out of the room.

Apparently, Steve isn't the only one who knows I'm not very good when it comes to seeing blood, especially my own.  It's right up there along with my ability to do sports.

But now my love life was hanging in the balance.

When I stared into the mirror, I saw a guy who was going to go to his grave without ever knowing what it felt like to kiss a girl.  Suddenly, the thing over my lip seemed to grow bigger and bigger.  I couldn't take it!  Running out of my room, I headed for the stairs just as Jon was walking from the kitchen to the dining room.  "Jon!"

He looked up, annoyed. "What?"

Did I really want to go through with this?  "Go get Dad's clippers."

Maybe it wouldn't be that scary with him there.

He looked almost eager.  "Are you sure?"

Who in his right mind would be sure he wanted to chop off his top lip with his dad's toenail clippers?

"Yeah," I said.

"Oooohhhh-kaaaaay," Jon sang out.  He hurried back down the stairs toward my parents' bedroom.

I was secretly wishing Jon wouldn't be able to find the clippers so I wouldn't have to chop off my lip. I stopped wishing when Jon came galloping back up the stairs. 

He was so excited, grinning like a devil.  "Here you go."  He handed them over.

"Thanks."  I went into the bathroom. 

Jon followed me.  I stood in front of the sink, nervously clutching my dad's clippers.  My hands started to sweat.  Looking into the mirror, I slid my top lip between the sharp blades, my hand shaking.

Jon watched, mesmerized.  He was making me so nervous that I yanked the clippers from my mouth and caught a tiny bit of skin in one of the blades.  The pain brought tears to my eyes.  If that could happen from just a little bit of skin, how much was the full clipping going to hurt?! 

"What's the matter?" Jon asked, impatient.

"Stop staring at me like that!  You're making me nervous!"

"What's taking you so long?  Just slip your lip between the blades and clip it real fast."

"If it's so easy, let's see you do it."

"I don't have to.  I'm not the one with a huge callus on his lip who hasn't gotten to first base with a girl yet!" 

He always had a fast comeback.  And I couldn't argue with him.

I turned back to the mirror.  There was blood on my face.  I started to feel queasy.  It felt like I was standing on a soft mattress where the floor used to be.  The room began to spin.

I have to do this, I told myself.  My love life is depending on it.

Trying to ignore the blood, I went back to my task.

"Come on!" Jon was practically shouting.  "Do it, already!"

"I am!" I gritted my teeth.

I had the clippers right where they needed to be.  Now all I needed to do was squeeze down and my troubles would be over.  Just squeeze, I coached myself...a little more...a little more.  I could feel the blades sinking in.  A little more...a little more...