The Weekend Visit, Part 26

Tripping myself was only the first of three items on the checklist Kate had made for me to show our cousins and anyone else watching that I was a klutz with very little hand-eye coordination as well. At least she frontloaded the humiliation, as the fall with the gold coins was easily the worst of the three on that front. However, the rest would be witnessed by both cousins as well as anyone else who happened to be watching.

Since I had been so eager to run over to play skee-ball preceding my tumble, that’s what we ended up starting with after Luna refreshed our token supply. Technically, I could play this particular game however I wanted to. At the same time, Kate had pointed out after Luna stepped away that I probably didn’t want to do well at skee-ball if I wanted the others to believe that I was comically bad at all this stuff.

I couldn’t believe I had let her talk me into digging my own grave again. It definitely was too late to back out of the deal, now that I had suffered through the most embarrassing part first. So when Luna returned, informing me upon her approach that it would probably be best if she held onto the tokens from now on, I forced out one of those awkward giggles and reached in to take a few coins. Lilah arrived around the same time, meaning they would all be watching me do poorly on the first game of many.

Deciding to take Kate’s advice, if only to get a little extra credit for our conversation later, I made a point to aim for anywhere but the middle of the bullseye. Alternating left and right, shooting on a slight diagonal every time, I ‘succeeded’ in getting the minimum ten points over and over again. The twins tried to give me pointers along the way, while Kate just chuckled and sarcastically wished them luck.

It was true that my academic endeavors had always come first, and I wasn’t exactly the most sporty girl. Still, I wasn’t this bad. The machine spit out a single ticket for every throw, further emphasizing my painfully low score.

Due to my non-center aiming, I did end up sinking a ball in the corner hole for 100 points once. All three girls erupted into cheers and started praising me for it. If this were an outing with friends, not that an arcade would ever be our go-to activity, maybe I would let myself get caught up in the excitement. In my current situation, I just blushed and felt even more like the little girl I was being presented as, with my older sister and older cousins being overly enthusiastic to support me amidst an otherwise weak showing.

Though Luna was going to be responsible for the tokens moving forward, I got the privilege of carrying my tickets. Speaking of feeling like a child, walking around the arcade as the shortest and most immaturely styled girl in our group with a handful of tickets didn’t help the awkward headspace I was in throughout all this. Smiling and giggling and back to including dozens of filler words now that I no longer had to deal with the pacifier, I was also responsible for leading the way and always choosing where to go next.

As much as I wanted to make a beeline for the next game on Kate’s list, it wouldn’t make sense to skip over so many games in the expansive arcade if I was supposed to be pretending to be the fun-loving little sister the cousins perceived me as. Taking a break from the more physical games, as pretty much any of those would require a conscious effort to do horribly on purpose in the name of consistency, I opted for some of the simpler electronic ones that were more a matter of pressing a button at the right time or rolling a token towards a wheel of slots.

Kate and the twins weren’t acting as audience members every time. Depending on the game, they’d occasionally just let me play a few rounds while chatting amongst themselves. I overheard snippets here and there, though I was pretty much resigned to my immature fate at the moment. There were way too many distractions at the moment to think about how I might solve all this by the end of the weekend. Now that our cousins knew about my diapers, that was feeling less and less likely by the minute.

Eventually, it was time for the next part of the list Kate had given me. When the basketball hoops were within sight, I started making my way towards them, stopping for just enough games along the way to make my idle roaming seem more natural. By this point, I had so many strands of tickets in my hand that it was feeling ridiculous. It was fine for all the games that just required my dominant hand, but Lilah stepped in to hold onto my winnings when she saw what I wanted to play next.

Kate’s rule for this one was that not a single ball was allowed to go in the hoop. If I failed at that endeavor, my penalty would be to wear nothing but the diapers below my waist later tonight. It was one thing for the twins to know about them; it was something else entirely to be sitting around with the padding on display while playing board games or whatever. So, unlike my halfhearted approach to skee-ball, I truly focused on being as terrible as possible for basketball. We weren’t even that far away from the hoop, meaning that every shot had to be pointedly and painfully off to make sure I didn’t accidentally score a point.

Flushing at not only the awful angles I threw the ball to make sure they hit the side netting or fell a couple feet short of the metal ring, I also had to deal with the giggles and the comments of my relatives that were watching. They weren’t being outwardly mean about it, or even directly teasing, although it was clear that our cousins were stunned at just how unathletic I appeared to be.

I wasn’t taking any chances, either. Always aiming low rather than high, there was never a risk of getting a lucky bounce or anything like that. When the buzzer sounded, my ‘success’ was highlighted with a big red zero on the scoreboard.

“She didn’t even make one?” one of our cousins muttered to the other girls. She sounded far more amused than judgmental.

“I don’t think basketball is your game, little sis,” Kate scoffed, “Maybe we should try something else?”

“Like, I think you’re right,” I replied, doing my best to giggle through the embarrassment. There was a small group of teenagers nearby who had clearly stopped to watch my atrocious attempts at shooting easy free throws, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a new low score at the arcade. Surely someone got zero as well over the years, although he or she was probably way younger than I was. “Maybe, umm . . . DDR?” I suggested, hoping to jump right to the next secret task instead of dawdling like before.

“Whatever you want, Annie!” Kate smiled, “This is your activity, remember? Lead the way.”

I did just that, while bracing myself to come across as rhythmically challenged on top of everything else. Plus I was going to be dancing in diapers.