Young Writers Society

Chapter 4

A few days later my sister called me into her room. “Do you smell that?” She asked. She had her arms crossed and was pacing around the room.

“I don’t smell anything,” I told her. “Why are you pacing?”

“I’m trying to figure out where the smell is coming from,” she replied as she continued to pace.

“What do you smell?” I asked her.

“It’s hard to describe,” she replied. “It just smells… off. Like a general musty smell, but also kind of like old people.”

“Well, I definitely don’t smell anything like that.” She ignored me and continued to pace, hand on her chin. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said. “You’re being weird.” She continued to ignore me.

“I’m thinking that I should wash this whole room,” she declared. “To get rid of the smell you know?” She finally stopped pacing and looked up at me.

“Wash the whole room? What does that even mean?” I asked.

“You know like take everything out, scrub the floors, maybe scrub the walls if I have to.”

“Scrub the walls? Are you listening to yourself? You hate cleaning.” My sister’s room was hardly ever clean, and clothes often littered the floor, but even then I never thought her room smelled as bad as she was describing.

“I just have to do whatever it takes to get rid of this awful smell,” she declared. It’s driving me crazy.”

The topic came up again later that night at dinner. “I noticed you moved a lot of your things into the hall today,” Mother said. “Are you planning on moving out?” She asked sarcastically.

“There’s a terrible odor in my room Mother,” she replied. “I need to get rid of it.” Mother looked confused.

“It’s probably from all the grime and dirty clothes you have in there,” Father chimed in, remembering all of my sister’s dirty habits. “I appreciate the initiative showing and I’m glad that you are taking care of it.” Things had still been tense between my sister and Father after the dinner debate, so we all thought this cleaning was an attempt to get back on his good side.

So she cleaned her room entirely. All of her clothes were washed, a few particularly smelly items more than once. All of her trash was taken out as well. Then she began to scrub the walls with a sponge and soapy water. I walked in and found her on her hands and knees, scrubbing one corner particularly viciously.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?” I asked. She paused her scrubbing momentarily to look at me. She frowned, as if I had said something that didn’t make any sense.

“You’re joking right?” she replied. She seemed genuinely annoyed with my question. “The smell is only getting stronger.” She turned away and went back to scrubbing the corner. I still couldn’t sell what she was talking about. By this point her room smelled heavily of fruity chemicals and soaps.

“I still don’t smell anything,” I told her, somewhat reluctantly. She paused her scrubbing and turned to look at me again.

“Well I don’t know what to tell you Percy,” she replied. “Maybe you’ve gone nose blind to it.”

Her frantic cleaning continued entering its third day. I started to worry, unsure of when this episode would come to an end. Every moment she wasn’t at school, she would spend inside her room, still scrubbing. She started to refuse to do her homework or sleep in there, choosing to bunk in my room. She claimed the smell would keep her awake at night. Late into the third day of this saga, I attempted to talk her out of this again.

“It's been three days Brook, how long are you planning on keeping this up,” I asked.

“The smell is still there,” she replied. “As long as it takes for it to be gone.” “Mother said she doesn’t smell it either,” I replied. “Even Father thinks that you’re becoming a bit obsessive. Is it possible that the smell could be all in your head?” she glared at me. “No, no, hear me out, I insisted. Maybe this isn’t about a smell at all.”

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” she asked.

“I’m just saying things have been a little different lately. We haven’t been together as much. You just had a huge fight with Father.”

“Fighting with Father is nothing new,” she interrupted. “What are you trying to say.”

“I don’t know. I just think that you’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“And I just think something is rotting in this room,” she replied. I walked out of the room feeling defeated.

A few hours later I noticed her things were back in her room, organized in their usual places. “Did you get rid of the smell?” I asked her.

“Yeah, she replied. “The smell is gone.”