Our parents weren’t home that fateful evening. Big brother Steven was the designated baby sitter.  Our eyes were glued to the the old black and white TV set watching Shirley Temple’s Storybook.  Shirley Temple, the narrator, told different fairy tales each week.

This particular evening Beauty and The Beast was the featured show.  Steven transformed himself into “The Beast” and started chasing us around the house. We commenced to yelling and running having a great time.

In our attempt to hide from “The Beast”, we dove under my bed.  For reasons unknown Brent had managed to wedge his arm between the mattress and the bed frame. “The Beast” jumped onto the bed and crack went Brent’s right arm. Needless to say the fun came to a screeching halt.  We seemed to have a knack for things going bad when our parents were away. We had to come up with a plan pronto.

Steven tried to calm us down, being a newly appointed Boy Scout he said he knew how to deal with this.  He got the first aid kit and began wrapping Brent’s arm in white gauze. It was a feeble attempt at best and looked more like part of an unraveled mummy than an emergency procedure.

Time was running out, we heard the car door slam on our old black Dodge.  One thing was for sure we were all equally guilty and we would all receive punishment.  We looked to big brother Steven for guidance. He told us we should tell the truth.  What a concept !! They bought it hook, line and sinker. Brent was whisked away into the night to be taken to the hospital.

 We sat silently waiting on the sofa. They were home, the familiar sound of dad swearing as he walked up the driveway. We looked out the window to see Brent emerge from the car proudly holding up a cast that went clear up around his elbow.

He couldn’t wait to go to school to show off to all his friends and have them sign his cast. He got out of doing a lot of chores for the next few weeks.  I think we were all a bit jealous of the special attention he was getting.  We always wanted what the other one had, even if it happened to be a broken arm.