My mother sniffed the air suspiciously when she came to say goodnight to us. “Boys,” she said, “there’s something rotting in this room"
Being the fifth kid in a big family has its benefits. For one, I got away with a lot because, well, people were just too busy to notice me. I also got help and company from my older siblings. And I was a big brother too. All in all, I liked my place in the family.
There was one thing, though, that bothered me about being #5. When you’re #5, you’re never going be to be #1. There was always someone bigger, stronger, or smarter than me around. That bothered me a little. Sometimes I felt kind of like a little appendix dangling at the end of a big digestive system: a little unnecessary, kind of left wondering if anyone really needs it.
One day when I was ten years old, I came home from school (as usual), had a snack (Mommy’s yeast cake leftover from Shabbos, yum!), and looked for something to do. I went into my room. Something smelled weird. Maybe I could pretend I was a K9 police dog and search out the strange smell — it was probably being caused by something I had left around, and better I find it than my mother. It reminded me of the time I left a hot dog under my pillow to eat later. Yeah, well, you can guess how that story ended.
I tried to clear some of the mess, but we were four brothers sharing a small room. I gave up pretty quickly. Walking around the room, I sniffed and sniffed and breathed in deeply. Yuck, it really smelled bad.
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