‘Look at you, calling me spineless behind my back.’

That wasn’t strictly accurate. She’d said this because – yes - I may have inferred she used to be a coward. I would never say that now, naturally… at least, not to her face. However, what I said wasn’t strictly false. She was a coward. Father took us out hunting, as he did every Sunday, but I think this time there was the crushing weight of expectation. Enough to crush a spine, if she had one. Elsie had just turned thirteen, and she had received all the presents she wanted before you spend your sympathies. She had also been given her first hunting rifle. I remember thinking, even then, the mahogany was cut from one of the family trees. I realise not everyone has family trees, but I hope that’s not too difficult a concept to grasp. There may have been some jealousy on my end, but I was the only male heir, and I had not received my gun – and this was an injustice. Admittedly, I was eight.

Back to my sister, she was chasing a bouncing rabbit down the stream. She did what any thirteen-year-old ought to do in that situation - and take aim. Her glasses were fiddly around the scope, and I did tell her to take them off - but that was because they made her look like one of the poor kids from school. Her hands were shaking as she tensed up and pulled the wood close to her chest. My hands wouldn’t shake, I remember thinking. It’s only an animal. Get on with it.

I have never seen a look on her face like the look on her face in that very moment.

Her eyes were crystalline. Tears welled – and even she couldn’t distinguish between happy and sad in that very moment. The pushback from the rifle shattered the glass of her glasses into a fractal pattern – but you could still see those damned eyes… and the smile that started to form.

She didn’t do it right. An epiphany – a discovery of the love of glorious and senseless killing just completely wasted. She didn’t kill the rabbit. Father gestured in his twotty little tweed suit for us to advance and ‘put the creature out of its misery.’ I’d have been a lot less miserable if, 1: I’d have been shot properly or 2: I hadn’t been shot, but father assured us that this was a mercy. To kill a creature you’d hurt – that’s the mercy.

Elsie aimed up on the rabbit in front of her, and if I were to be totally honest, I would’ve done the same. I have a gun, so use it. But no. ‘Wring it’s neck,’ Father said. Who was she to disobey father? She picked up the limp and lifeless body – her first – and wrung… but wrung too far. When wringing, it’s a twist… not a pull.

She pulled the rabbit’s head clean off, along with a trailing spine.

Spineless, see?

In front of me, right at this very moment, is not my sister. It is that girl. The new leader of our family. She is going to wring my neck and pull. My family watching. My life in tatters – and it’s those eyes.