The Sister Solution by Trudi Trueit

entire head is purple !

    â€œYou okay?” Banana pulls into a parking space in front of Miss Larkspur’s Tea Room. “You hardly said a word at the aquarium.”
    I chip a big piece of coral polish off my thumbnail. “Sorry.”
    â€œAren’t you having a good time? Do you want to go somewhere else?”
    â€œNo. I mean, yes, I’m having a good time and no, I don’t want to go anywhere else.” I look out the car window at the black-and-white sign of the Whitaker Art Gallery across the street.
    â€œIs it Jorgianna? Your mom mentioned the two of you were going through a rough patch.”
    â€œShedyed her hair purple. Not lavender. Not violet. Purple .”
    â€œYou know your sister. She’s a great blue heron soaring among mallards.”
    â€œNow she’s a great purple heron—a purple heron I have to go to school with on Monday. This is all I need. I’ve already gotten complaints from Eden and some of my other friends over last week’s flock.”
    â€œFlock?”
    â€œJorgianna wore a bright orange hat to school with a bunch of fake crows on it, but the birds looked real enough—I mean, dead enough—to freak out half the Wildlife Conservation Club. I had to do a lot of explaining to Miss Fleischmann.”
    She tries to hide her grin.
    â€œPlus, we had a big fight this morning.”
    Her lips straighten. “I’m sorry, hon.”
    I drop my head into my hands and pull my bangs through my fingers.
    â€œMost sisters go through a stage where they can’t seem to do anything but fight,” says Banana. “I did with mine. Ellen and your mom certainly did. When the two of them were teenagers they nearly drove meinsane. Every day it seemed there was a battle, and over the silliest things, too.”
    â€œJorgianna and I have had our battles too, but we’ve never been mean to each other—not like this.”
    Banana takes her keys out of the ignition. “Let’s go inside. You’ll feel better after we’ve had some lemon verbena tea and cucumber sandwiches. I hear they have a new molten chocolate cake. Chocolate is good for the soul, you know.”
    Cutting into a yummy chocolate cake with a warm, gooey center does sound good, but there’s something I have to do first.
    â€œBanana, could we go over to the Whitaker Gallery before we eat? I promised Jorgianna I’d see her artwork.”
    â€œOf course, sweetie.”
    I won the crepe flipping bet, so I don’t have to visit Jorgianna’s exhibit, but I want to. Plus, there’s a certain photograph I have to see.
    Inside the gallery we are met by a mousy-looking woman with a chestnut-brown Pebbles-style ponytail on the top of her head. It’s thin but long, reaching almost to her waist. She is wearing a black-and-white striped suit, a frilly white blouse, and the reddest, tallesthigh heels I have ever seen. Banana tells her we are here to see the school district art show, and a red fingernail with dark pink tips points to an arched white hallway. “The last three galleries on the right.”
    â€œI remember,” says Banana. “Jorgianna’s sculpture is in the second gallery.”
    The moment I see my sister’s art work, my breath catches. Jorgianna was right. The spotlights, the clear acrylic display stand, the little stairs that lead to the top of the cube—everything in the gallery works together to create the right atmosphere. Several overhead lights have been carefully arranged to bring out the colors of the Northwest landscape on the sides of the cube. While Banana tries to look inside the miniature Space Needle, I skip up the steps. Peering inside, I see the mound of pop cans, lightbulbs, batteries, and other trash scattered on Jorgianna’s mock seashore.
    â€œI remember when she was making this,” I say to Banana, who is slowly moving the hinged blue dog’s tail on the back of the box.