OR blogger 2

In the second section I am reading, the mood drastically changes. It goes from observant and grudging to a series of bitter flashbacks. Life with a mentally retarded sister is more than a teenage girl can handle. The little games they played as children are less and less appealing to the pubescent Rachel. As Beth, who desires only to play like they used to, tries to talk Rachel into games, she gets more and more distant “But mostly, Beth tries to spend time with me, and I say no. ‘No, I don’t want to watch Adam-12. I don’t want to sing to your dolls.’ She gets a hurt look. ‘Go call your own friends’” (Simon 102). This rebellion, though expected from teens, is the first true discontent Rachel shows towards her sister. Embarrassed by her childish ways, Rachel wants nothing more than to escape from the life in which she must be responsible for a retarded sister. Rachel hears that word, over and over again at school, kids calling themselves ‘retarded’ because they failed that test. Rachel knows that people like her sister with disabilities are frowned upon, mocked openly by society, and the shame of having a retarded sister is more than she can handle on the bus ride home from school. She hears the kids laughing, pointing at her sister who waits for her bus every day after school. Rachel remembers “As my bus pulls up to our house, there she is at the curb in semi-naked cowgirl glory, shooting off water double-handed, beaming up at my window. The bus erupts. I seize my books and bolt down the aisle, my head down. The laughter slams against my ears. I have never heard anything so loud. I have never felt such humiliation” (Simon 104). This humiliation, this ridicule, why is it aimed at mentally retarded people? The fact that Rachel and Beth a laughed at due to a condition out of their control is sickening. It is then that Rachel learns hatred, towards those kids, and towards a sister who brings naught but shame to her older sibling.
This growing hatred and embarrassment only grows when Rachel tells her mom about the bus incident. Rachel begs her mother to force Beth to stay inside so Rachel could go home in peace. Her mother refuses, saying “You shouldn’t be ashamed. They should be ashamed. I will not hide your sister from the world” (Simon 104-105). Rachel, furious and sobbing, bemoans her future, where she knows she will have to take care of Beth. She cries “Its not fair that, on top of being a teenager, which is bad enough as it is, I have this extra worry! It’s not fair that I know-and Laura and Max know-that we can never think of a future that doesn’t include Beth! It could happen to any one of you. When you’re older, save money for her, so when we’re gone you can take care of her. We don’t believe in the back room. She’ll be in plain sight, as one of the family. Never put her in an institution. Ever ever ever. Make room for her in your own house....I sob at the injustice of it all. I know it’s true, and I know mom’s right, But I hate it all so much that I decide I’ll walk home from school from now on”(Simon 105). To have such resentment against one’s own sister is the kind of thing that tears families apart. Rachel is clearly struggling to accept her sister, besieged by waves of fury and shame. She knows that she should love her sister, but when society is teaching her and every other child on the earth to hate Beth, what can she do? Rachel knows she should love Beth, treat her like a sister should, but Rachel also wants to lead a normal life, one where she can live carefree and happily without the weight of her sister on her shoulders.