Read Online Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff by Jack Canfield - Free Book Online

fact that David wasn’t ever going to be straight, but also that it wasn’t a bad thing at all. That for David, it was a very good thing.
    Then they did the craziest and most wonderful thing. I still laugh when I think about it. They made a list of all the people they hadn’t told about David, including old friends, siblings and their own parents, and they planned a three-week road trip across the country. They had news to deliver, and they wanted to deliver it in person and do some sightseeing in the meantime. They’d gotten this idea in their heads that it wasn’t enough for David to come out of the closet. He would never feel they’d truly accepted him until they came out of the closet, too, as the loving parents of a gay son.
    David’s apartment was the last stop on their journey, and I took an airplane up to meet them when they arrived. We took another family walk, and David told us about his new boyfriend and I told them about mine. Finally, after so much pain and hard work, my brother’s two lives started to merge.
    Danielle Collier

How to Scare a Big Sister
    When we were little, my brother and I had a special kind of relationship. I scared him, and he would cry. I don’t remember why I thought scaring him was so funny. It was probably the fact that when I ran out and yelled “boo,” especially if I hid well and got him as he wandered past, lost in his three-year-old thoughts, he would leap into the air like a shocked frog.
    This method provided years of youthful mirth, but over time I found it increasingly harder to scare my little brother. He was just getting too old to be startled by my simple scare. Afraid that the balance of sibling power was threatened by this development, I frantically switched tactics. More sophisticated scares. Rubber snakes under his pillows, ghost stories about a mean old lady haunting his clothing chest, randomly ducking his head underwater as we played in the pool. I wasn’t above any trick. He was getting bigger, sure, but not so big that I couldn’t make him scream with terror. It was my duty and my passion.
    Sadly, all good things must end. All of a sudden, little Daniel was almost as tall as his antagonist sister (and gaining fast). I could hardly get a shudder out of him with the best of my schemes. Even a professional mistress of fear like myself knows when to give up a hopeless cause. I declared peace and made amends with my little brother—he took it very well, demanding no reparations.
    I should have realized that I wouldn’t get away with my crimes so easily. Destiny was about to get me back.
    I came home from school one day and found an empty house. It didn’t faze me—it was normal in my family. Mom and Dad often worked late, and my little brother and sister stayed at a friend’s house in the afternoons. My older brother usually showed up by dinnertime. I liked having the quiet house all to myself. It meant I could watch TV and listen to my music as loud as I wanted. On that day, however, the noise felt empty and false—it felt like I was trying to cover up the silence. I could feel the absence of sound hiding behind corners like a big kid waiting to jump out at me. I couldn’t understand why I felt so uneasy.
    After a while, I realized that it was getting late— really late. My family was usually home by five-thirty, and it was already close to seven. It was my little sister’s babysitter, finally bringing her home, who filled me in on the situation. Everyone was at the hospital. In the emergency room.
    â€œDaniel had a bike accident.”
    I immediately felt better—my little brother was always breaking toes and skinning knees. The explanation had restored a sense of normalcy to my world. The baby-sitter was still speaking.
    â€œHe borrowed a neighbor’s old bike. The handlebars fell off in his hands.”
    I stopped listening. My crazy brother! I could just see him zipping