Potatoes and Tomatoes

It was a normal recess at the elementary school, with students climbing the trees, getting stuck on the monkey bars, and doing other normal, childish activities. My best friend, Feliciano Vargas, had wanted to play in the sandbox with me for the past week, and dragged me over to the bacteria ridden dirt heap.

"Get away from my brother, you stupid potato!" Lovino Vargas ran (Well, in technical terms, he toddled, but seeing as how we were five-year-olds, it held the same meaning) over to where I sat making sand castles with Feli. He said that when we finished building our fort that he was going to be "a pretty pretty princess", and I had to explain to him that forts don't have royalty and that men don't strive to be "pretty pretty princesses." Of course, he didn't listen to a word I said and started making a tiara out of sand.

At that point I gave up trying to explain things to the oblivious Italian, refocusing on his furious older brother, who finally managed to make his way over to where we were. "What did you call me?" I asked him, giving him my best glare.

"I called you a stupid potato, stupid potato!" he replied angrily.

Feli, surprisingly, spoke up in my defense. "That's not a nice thing to say, fratello!" he said. "Ludwig is really really smart!"

"No," Lovino argued, "he's not! He's stupid and he eats too many potatoes!"

"You're clumsy," I said to him, "and you eat too many tomatoes, so then you must be a clumsy tomato, right?"

He was enraged by my remark, as his face morphed into the color of the fruit to which I compared him. This caused the raging brunette to tackle me to the ground and start punching and kicking me. In response, I threw sand at his face, successfully getting it in his eyes and temporarily ceasing his assault. I then proceeded to take the offensive position, delivering a few quick jabs to his stomach and kicking his shins fervently.

Even though I was only a kindergartener, I knew how to fight. My big bruder made sure of that. He said to fight only in self-defense, and to never make the first strike.

Lovino had sat down and was crying, wailing even, apparently unable to take a few hits. Feli left sometime before, when I was caught up in my own thoughts, presumably to fetch a campus supervisor. He in fact returned with three, or rather they returned with him, as he cried much like his brother and needed to be carried. I recognized Miss Héderváry, who held Feliciano, along with her former husband, Mr. Edelstein. The third one I'd never seen before, though I felt that I should know him somehow. "Ay dios mío!" he cried. "Lovi, what happened?" It was difficult to understand what he said through his crying. "What did you say?"

"I said don't call me Lovi!" the weeping boy shouted, causing the adults to laugh.

"He'll be fine," said Miss Héderváry, and Feli cheered up a bit. "Mr. Carriedo."

"Sí?"

"Would you mind contacting Gilbert and explaining this situation to him?"

The cheery Spaniard smiled and nodded, whereas I shook my head violently. She noticed this and knelt down to my height. "Don't worry," she said reassuringly. "I'll make sure you won't get into too much trouble with your brother."

I muttered a small thank you, and it was obvious that Mr. Edelstein was growing impatient. "Alright, you two," he said, "Say that you're sorry to each other. We don't have all day." We looked at each other and mumbled out some generic, insincere apology, and that seemed to satisfy him.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and at two o'clock I went out to the front of the school to wait for my big bruder. When he finally showed up twenty minutes later, it was obvious that he was not very happy. "I heard you got in a fight today," he said.

"Ja, I did," I admitted, expecting the worst.

"Did you win?"

"I guess," I replied, shrugging.

His lips formed a smile. "That's my bruder," he said.