Yup, I was right; I'm covered in scrapes and bruises.

Most of them were self-inflicted during my adventure in the wilderness, wearing my school uniform and waving around a hockey stick like a demented drum majorette, but the more obvious scratches and blue marks are totally Ethan's fault.

What?! It was his idea to sit on the rock!

It probably wasn't his idea to fall off it, though; he seemed to be as surprised as I was, but it's still his fault because... Just because.

I rub my lower back. It's a little stiff after that fall, and turning in front of the bathroom mirror, I check out my entire length from behind, admiring the pattern of small scratches marking where branches and twigs made their way under my clothing.

I suddenly have a very vivid vision of Ethan and me lying in the bush with our legs pointing straight up like a couple of dead budgies, and I double over with giggles. 

Yeah, I can laugh about it now. Didn't feel so funny at the time, but now I kinda wish I had a picture. It would not do Ethan's Mr Cool image any favours if I posted it on... the social media apps I never use.

I'm already not cool, so it's all good.

Taking a towel from the rail, I dry myself and pull on my Look-I'm-A-Bunny PJs. No, it doesn't actually say that on there, but the short has a soft, spongy bunny tail, and the short-sleeved top has a hoodie with ears. It is made of soft pink t-shirt material covered in cute white and blue bunnies... and it is my favourite pyjamas.

Ethan calls it my Silence of the Bunnies PJs since the suit is technically a bunny, wearing other bunnies, but we've already established that Ethan is a moron.

I brush my hair, letting it fall tangle-free and damp around my towel-covered shoulders and leave the bathroom after making it more or less tidy.

I nearly swallow my tongue and wet my pants, traumatising the little bunnies hopping around all over it, when I cross the hallway and enter my bedroom to find Delia sitting on my bed playing with the moon, making it flash green and purple and red in my darkened room.

It is not unusual for Delia to be in my room at any time of the day or night (nor for me to be in hers), but it is unusual for her to be here when I'm walking around trying to wrap my head around her brother's strange request, wondering what I'm going to tell her when the topic comes up.

"Hey!" I shout. "How are you?!"

"Not deaf," she informs me, turning off my moon lamp and placing it back on its stand on my bedside table when I turn on the main light, chasing away all the shadows.

"Sorry, I was startled," I admit, lifting the towel from my shoulders to bury my hair and most of my face in it.

"Got the hockey stick back, thanks," she says, and I can hear a gazillion questions in that one sentence.

I didn't want to let Ethan return the stick to her, it seemed suspicious to me, but he reminded me that we're always sending each other stuff via him as if he's our friggin' courier - his words - so I let him take it. Now I'm regretting that decision.

Delia knows! I'm sure she does!

What exactly does she know? That her brother is a weirdo? She's known that all her life, nothing new there...

"Thanks for lending it to me..." Now, to think of a good way to explain borrowing it without lying – I never lie to Delia; we made a pact – but also without telling the truth. Tricky...

"Why are you all scratched up?!" she rises from my bed to stand in front of me so that she can inspect all my injuries. Calling them injuries is probably a bit over the top; they're nothing, not even worth mentioning, and I tell her so.

"Did someone try to hurt you? What's going on, Kira? Did you pick up a bully?"

Does she mean like picking up a tick in the veld? Or a nail in a tyre? How does one pick up a bully? Like one picks up a stalker?

"No," I sigh, turning away from her to absentmindedly pick up my phone lying on my vanity while I'm trying to think of a plausible non-explanation. There's a message waiting, and I unlock the screen and open it.

"The truth," it says, and for a second, I have no idea what I'm reading, and then I realise that the message is from Ethan, and it is in answer to the question I sent him before I went to take my shower: "What do I tell Delia?"

He is kidding, right? I cannot tell Dell about his weird-as plan; it's too... I'm not sure too what exactly. He's right, though; if I say yes, Delia will know because we can't "date" all over the place, but just not when she's around. Better to tell her before we start. This is all too weird. It makes no sense to me.

Normally when I'm faced with a strange situation like this, I would... talk to Delia about it.

"So," I say, turning to face her. She's gone back to my bed and is lying on her side, paging through my latest edition of Discover Nature, a monthly magazine I subscribe to. I'm pretty sure she's not all that interested in how bats are responsible for the pollination of things like bananas, avocados and mangoes; she's not even really reading the article she has open, she is slyly watching me.

I'm starting to feel guilty; it must be killing her that I'm not telling her what's going on. She won't force me to, but she must find it extremely odd; I usually tell her everything. Well, this is not going to be an exception to the rule. I am so glad I got that reply from Ethan.

"I went to meet this weirdo at the bridge, and we sat on that big boulder, and then we fell off, and I got all scraped up."

Right, I wasn't going to start there... I chickened out.

Dell narrows her eyes at me, pinching her lips together, and now I'm really nervous. How do I say this?

"Well... uhm..."

"Was this weirdo Ethan and he asked you to be his girlfriend so you can teach him to become a better version of himself?"

He already told her?!

Wow! That sounded so easy to say and almost like something that makes sense... it's absurd, though.

"Yes."

"And? Are you going to?"

"No!" I gasp and pop my lips out, trying to blow a raspberry. It's not one of my talents; it never quite works, and as usual, I end up spitting a little, so I try a few other scoffing noises with a little more success. Dell doesn't look impressed by my achievements.

"Why not?"

Now I'm blinking at her. Is she serious? She looks serious; she's even doing that thing where she sucks in her cheeks, making dangerous dimples appear and disappear. It's scary. Why is she being scary?

"Stop it," I tell her and sit down on the bed, leaning my shoulder against hers, when she sits up straight.

"Stop what?"

"You're badgering me, and this is a new dimension of what-the-hell-is-going-on, I've stepped into."

Delia takes the towel I still have draped over my head and starts to dry my hair with it, patiently and gently, strand by strand. She's always been a great mother to me.

"Sorry, I just don't see the problem."

"You don't?"

Did she bang her head against the wall too hard when she tried to get off the wrong side of her bed again this morning? 

She's always doing it since she moved her bed up against a wall. The problem is that the side she's used to rolling off from is the one bordering the wall now. Wasn't a good plan, and she has the bruises to prove it, but there's now so much more floor space to dance on when we're being pop stars.

"It's Ethan," she says matter-of-factly. "Dating him would be like dating me, just completely different but the same."

I burst into laughter, turning to look at her face.

"Are you drunk?"

"No, it made sense before I said it." She is laughing too, now.

"What I mean is...  you'd be doing me a favour."

"Huh?"

"Look, I love my brother to bits, but let's face it, he has the worst taste in girls," - now that is an understatement - "they all either cheat on him because they're skanks or they try to frame him for theft... and those were the nice ones. Then there are the other ones who always seem like they're trying to mate with him in public and the ones who like to get him into fights with other boys, causing him to get hurt. He seriously needs a lot of help in the dating department."

"So, you want me to date your brother, to save him from trollops?"

"Right... uhm... no..." she's frowning now, thinking it over. "I want you to date him and do what he wants you to do."

"Seriously?" Quite frankly, I'm shocked! "The guy is a pervert!"

"Kiki," Delia says in that reasonable voice she often uses when we're struggling to make sense of the TV Guide. "We seem to be having some serious communication issues tonight."

"Tell me about it."

Dell is quiet for a while, once again slowly drying my hair with the towel.

"What was his request exactly? Why does he want you to date him?"

"To teach him to become the ideal boyfriend."

"There you go. Do that."

"How is that a favour to you?"

"If he is the ideal boyfriend," she explains, "he'll end up with a girl who will love him for a change rather than just try to own him or use him or play with him. He'll be happy, and that will make me happy."

"And he'll get Grandpa Alistair's Citroën."

"Huh?" Dell is giving me a look now, and then she's smiling, nodding happily. "Oh! Right! Of course! The car."

"I can't believe that your grandfather made such a strange condition."

"Me neither..." she really does seem baffled.

"Besides, I don't see how turning Ethan into the ideal boyfriend will stop him from being a ne'er-do-well-ruff-a-tuff."

"Well..." Delia says, lowering the towel; she is frowning, clearly also wondering about the logic. "It's a start, I guess. It could cascade down to other facets of his life. You could be doing humanity a favour."

"I don't want to do humanity a favour... humanity can kiss my-"

"Well, I'll be going to bed now. Don't forget to lock the door when Deli goes home. Good night girls."

I left my bedroom door open when I came in, and I now smile innocently and sweetly at my dad, leaning in from the hallway. I doubt that he heard what I was about to say; he has his professor face on, lost to the world. I'm surprised that he was in the here and now enough to remind me to lock up and to say goodnight to us.

I love the way my dad looks when he's on his way to bed. He is not wearing his glasses, and his hair is not brushed in a side part. Instead, his fringe is flopping over his forehead in a goofy way, making him look oddly vulnerable and much younger than he actually is.

"Sleep tight, Daddy," I say.

"Good night, Uncle Joe."

"I can't believe that you actually want me to do this," I tell Delia after listening to my father walking down the hallway to his own bedroom. "It's like you're pimping me out to your brother or him to me..." I'm not entirely sure in which direction the pimping is going on.

"Look," Delia sighs. "You're always complaining to me that you don't know how to date guys, that you either end up with boring users like Liam or bastards like Cole who only want to see how far they can get with you. 

"You said that you would love to date someone wonderful, amazing, talented, loyal, loving, super-hot and sexy like Simon," - I've never used any of those terms to describe him... loyal, maybe... the rest... nope - "but you wouldn't know what to do with him if you found one and would probably end up scaring him away because you'll be awkward and scared."

It's true; I have, on occasion, said those things. Many occasions... They are legitimate fears. I turn into an imbecile when a boy I like tries to speak to me. It worked fine with Liam because he spoke to me about insects, and Cole didn't try to speak at all, he just turned into an octopus, and I love animals... 

Except when they're trying to grope me while eating my face. I have my limits of tolerance, and I draw the line at the males of the human species doing those things. If it's going to act as though it has eight arms, it had better be a real octopus!

"So?"

"Ethan could teach you to be the ideal girlfriend."

I stare at Delia as if she'd lost her mind because she obviously has. I see no sign of it anywhere. And then I burst into laughter again.

"His idea of an ideal girlfriend is a she-demon on a leash!"

"That is not true... that might be what he keeps on dating, but it is not his ideal. Not at all!"

I take the towel from Delia's hands and get off my bed to take it back to the bathroom. I need some space that doesn't contain any of these weird words. Movement from my bedroom window catches my eye. Ethan is in his bedroom, trying to sign something for me. I think he's saying: Puke thumbs.

Yeah, probably not, but he's using his hands to show that something is blasting from his mouth, and then he's holding both thumbs up. I tilt my head one way and then the other, and he is becoming frustrated, which is making me happy.

Delia starts to turn around, and seeing it, Ethan falls to the ground, disappearing from sight, and now I'm completely cracking up.

"What?! Did you bang your head falling off the boulder?"

That was my question to her... the head-banging part.

"It's starting to feel like it. Am I having a hallucination?"

"Think about it, Kira. You guys might fight all the time, and you're always telling me you hate him, but you trust each other and are always there for each other when needed. You can be clean slates for each other to practice on."

Here we go with the slates again!

"You can turn each other into the perfect boyfriend and girlfriend material."

"For each other..."

"You can obviously make it more generic."

"It could muck up our friendship. Yours and mine."

'Why?"

I cannot believe that she doesn't see the problem!

"If we break up or hurt each other, you could be forced to pick sides, and he's your brother..."

"Why would you do that? It's just a project. If it doesn't work, you can just go back to hating him, and he can remain a rough-a-later... or whatever..."

She does make a good point. Who better to teach me about dating than one of the most popular guys in school? And she's right; it's Ethan and me; there are no feelings involved. It is completely safe; it could be very educational.

"Fine! It's a deal!"

Ethan is once again standing in his window now that Delia's back is turned to him again, and I shove my hand out, closing it into a fist and sticking my thumb up. He sees it and pumps a fist into the air, doing a strange little dance.

What am I getting myself into?!

♂♀