Let’s talk about me. I’m five. My younger sister is four and possibly the most annoying creature ever born. She wants to do everything I do, including use the very same crayon that I am using at the same time that I am using it. Cardinal red. It’s my favorite color, and I need it for the rainbow picture that I am making for my grandmother. All the other colors are filled in. I need the cardinal red crayon. All I want, all I ever wanted, is for this pesky little sister to go away and leave me alone, so I give her the “evil eye,” which means that I’m crossing my eyes at her and sticking out my tongue. My mother is standing at the kitchen sink, her back to us, so how can she possibly know I am doing this mean thing to my little sister? But out of her mouth I hear this prophecy: “Your eyeballs are going to freeze like that.”

Suddenly all I can think about are eyeballs, the one that must be hidden somewhere in the back of my mother’s head and my own two that are about to turn into ice cubes. It’s enough to make me quickly slip my tongue back into my mouth and uncross my eyeballs. Even though my tongue wasn’t mentioned, can it be far behind?

Beyond that, which is more threatening? The prospect of my cold eyes forever seeing only the fuzzy ridge of my own nose, or my mother  …