Let me tell
you something about my older brother: he’s egotistical, spoiled, spiteful,
charming, good-looking, a liar, and an all around jerk.
That’s just one of them. I
actually have three older brothers and one younger, an older sister and a
younger one. Not to mention, two
parents. I used to look up to all
three of my older brothers, but that has changed, and only two-thirds of them
are worth admiring.
Let’s start
off like this: First, there’s Isaac. His
real name is Clarke, but ever since I can remember we’ve called him Isaac or
Ike. He is one of the sweetest,
nicest guys you will ever meet in your life.
He’s the all around American guy who takes a girl out to dinner, pays
for it, holds the door open for her, gives her a kiss on the cheek at the end
of the night and says he’ll call her tomorrow without expecting anything
more. Then there’s Zac.
He’s a little crazier, but I guess he always has been, right from
toddler up to teenager. Well,
he’s almost not a teenager anymore; he just turned nineteen.
He’s sweet. He’ll take
a girl out and make her laugh so hard it’d be impossible for her not to have
a good time, and nine times out of ten there’s a second date.
Needless to say he has a lot of girl friends, but only one girlfriend,
and he treats her with more respect than I knew he was capable of. He’s incredibly sweet and romantic with her.
Next comes Taylor – well, he’s older than Zac, but I like him less
so I mentioned him after the brother I just did.
His real name is Jordan, but for whatever reason he’s always gone by
Taylor. Now when we were younger
Taylor was great. I loved to be
around him; he was my favourite brother.
He always hung out with me, played games with me, let me steal his
hairbrush to sing into while I was standing in front of the mirror and he’d
even encourage me. He was the
coolest. Even after they got
their recording contract he was like that – he always let me stay with him
on the bus, and we’d have water wars between busses when we weren’t on the
same one and even when we were. He’d
stay up late at night with me when I couldn’t sleep, even if he had to be up
early in the morning, and he’d let me brush his hair or braid it, and then
he’d read me a story or make one up and put me to bed.
That was short lived. He
was fourteen when they got their contract with Mercury, and by the time he
turned sixteen it started to change. They
got a new record label, and made some changes, including physical changes.
Ike cut his hair, and so did Taylor, but Taylor picked up an ego that
my oldest brother didn’t. When
they released their second album, Taylor had turned into someone I barely knew
at all. It was out for a while and he still hadn’t changed, but
then… they started interviews and signings, and the girls started giving him
even more attention than they had before he cut his hair. He let it go right to his head.
He turned into a real bastard. Where
he used to be sweet and shy with girls, he was no longer.
He got their numbers, took them out on a date, and used them.
He started bragging about how slept with these girls, and all these
other perverse and disgusting things. He
never had time for me anymore, and just… stopped being who he was. I don’t think I need to say how heartbroken I was.
But
that’s enough about him, for now anyway – we’ll come back to him later.
Jessica is my older sister; she’s seventeen now, and she just got her
license yesterday. She’s still
as blonde as the rest of us, and she’s really beautiful – she looks just
like our mom. Mackenzie is my younger brother, and he’s twelve.
He’s like a miniature Zac. He’s
nuts, but… I love him. Zoë’s
the last of us; she’s the youngest and she’s eight.
She has these big bright blue eyes and long blonde hair; she reminds us
all of Taylor – she could pass for his daughter rather than his sister.
She loves him to death, even with his changes. She just doesn’t understand.
She’s adored him ever since she was a baby, and his change just
didn’t seem to get through to her because she doesn’t get it.
I hate to see how mean he is to her sometimes; I really, really hate
him for it. Mom and dad see it,
the way he is I mean, they just pretend not to.
They don’t want to admit their golden boy is such a dirty asshole,
that their little angel turned into such a sexist macho jerk.
I guess I forgot to introduce myself.
As if it isn’t obvious, the only Hanson not mentioned; I’m Avery,
I’m fifteen, and I’m telling you the way things happened from my side of
it all.
