Egrets lay multiple eggs. But instead of treating each and every egg equally, the mother usually
chooses to incubate the first egg and neglect the others. This causes the babies to hatch on separate
days instead of at the same time. The first to hatch has a huge advantage: food. By the time you get to
the third and fourth eggs, it is virtually impossible for the chicks to survive. The first-borns get a heads
up on the world and snatch up all the good grubs.
We little ones are second and always will be, something I became increasingly aware of the
older I got and when my brother brought home his big, shiny, brass baritone straight from the halls of
Bothwell Middle School and played the stupid thing for a week. It was just another thing that Andy could
add to his book entitled Things I Accomplish Before Erin: Volume 1. I wanted one, too, but even touching
the blessed and almighty baritone was a sin. The stupid thing was expensive and I might break it. Plus,
he didn’t want a low-life 5th grader in his room. I attempted to drown out the sound with Q107,
notching up the radio every time I heard his squawk above the Backstreet Boys. I wanted to toss his
Essential Elements book right out the window. But despite the torturous sound that emerged from the
confinement of his walls, nothing was as annoying as the fact that I was barred from taking a stab at
producing a wonderful symphony of my own.
Speaking of annoying, can you imagine being Prince Harry? I mean sure, royalty has its perks,
but wouldn’t you rather be Prince William? For me it is no contest. If I had to choose, I would definitely
be William. Too bad I’m only red-haired, freckly-faced Prince Harry material. I’m not capable of
“leading.” I’m just there in case something bad happens to my sibling. I am a back-up, so to speak.
Second in command.
At least people recognize Harry. He probably doesn’t get the “You’re Prince William’s brother,
aren’t you?” thing. The first day of school was dreadful for me every single year, but not for the obvious
reasons. Summer ending was the least of my worries. On the first day, each and every one of my
teachers called roll. With a last name like Sikkema, I was sure to be a target. I wasn’t surprised when my
AP Chemistry teacher uttered the words that seemingly every teacher in the Marquette Area Public
School District managed to ask.
“Are you Andy’s sister?”
I said the first thing that always popped into my head.
“No. He’s my brother.”
That wasn’t the worst, though. When Andy and I had the privilege of sharing a class, he was
always called first for attendance. Not only was I younger, but I was alphabetically challenged, too. A
comes before E, after all.
A is even considered a superior letter. If you ace an exam you get an A. If you forget half the
facts or perhaps just forget to study, you get an E. It’s almost as if I was destined to fail.
I often heard that older children are smarter, and now they know it is true. A Norwegian study
concluded that firstborns have a 3 point IQ advantage over us less fortunate children. This number may
sound small, but it can correlate to hundred point differences on the SAT. This can be the determining
factor in admittance to prestigious colleges. Parental attention, I’m sure, has nothing to do with this.
Or does it?
I realized just how much more attention Andy got than I did when I helped put together a
picture collage for his graduation party. Every single photo album was covered with his rosy, baby
cheeks.
Page after page after bloody page.
Even after I was born, he was the star of the photos. There were virtually no pictures of me
without him in them, too. It wasn’t my fault he got to do everything first. It wasn’t my fault that the
second go around wasn’t as exciting for my parents.
I continued flipping through the albums. He was rocking me to sleep or pushing me on the
swings. Isn’t that sweet? These were the “Aww” moments that every parent dreams of. He always did
know how to be a charmer.
Andy could probably charm snakes to do whatever he wanted. He could be a pilot. Or a
physicist. A doctor. A lawyer. The president’s top advisor. The CEO of Yahoo!
He’ll probably discover the cure to cancer, too. In his freshmen year of college, Andy managed
to get an internship extracting RNA from cells and doing research with neurosurgeons to find a cure for
brain tumors. While he could tell you the insides and outs of how to culture cells, I couldn’t even begin
to skim the surface of their membranes. He was named freshmen chemistry student of the year. I can
barely remember the charges of polyatomic ions or whether or not a compound is soluble. This is
enough to make any person feel inadequate, like a Prince Harry or second born egret.
But even the second-born egret can get its chance to shine. Eli Manning, the quarterback of the
New York Giants, led his team to a victory over the heavily favored New England Patriots to win the
Super Bowl in 2008. Eli, the younger brother, overshadowed his brother Peyton, who hadn’t even been
able to lead his team to a victory over the Patriots in the finals. When I got my chance to pull ahead like
Eli, I took it.
At my dentist appointment this past May, my dentist plopped the heavy lead apron onto my
chest and made me bite a stick while he took some X-Rays. After he recommended that I get my three
wisdom teeth removed, I kept pressuring my mother to make the appointment. I wanted those teeth
out of my mouth. Why, she wanted to know, was I so eager to endure so much pain?
Simple: finally I would get to do something before my brother.