My Younger Brother and

I was lying on my couch. My head and upper back resting against a stack of three pillows. My body was slightly tilted towards the opening of the living room, where I saw my younger brother, by 6 years, approaching. Closing my laptop, and putting my homework away I welcomed him by saying,

"What's up?"

"Five dollars," my younger brother announced, with one of, if not, the most confident, smug, and/or narcissistic expression I have ever seen on a person. He had a slight smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, his eyes slightly turned downwards, and his chin slightly lifted allowing his nose to point straight towards the sky. All of this done as he reclined into a chair and lifted his feet up and onto the coffee table.

"What?" I replied as I raised myself from my previous position, recognizing that he would like to earn more money.

"I bet you five dollars that I can make you say the word no." he said without having missed a beat.

"Okay deal." I tiredly responded. My younger brother was eleven years old and loved to make these kinds of bets for two reasons. The first reason is that he only gets $5 dollars a week as allowance, and with him being addicted to candy and video games it does not leave him with much wiggle room. The second reason is that he's quite prideful and competitive, he loves to win and then hold it over you afterwards, although I am no different.

"Great! Okay, so you're in a dream and you see three doors in front of you. The first door leads to a room full of hundreds of mice the size of dogs. The second room leads to a room full of lava. And, the third room leads to a pride of lions that haven't eaten for months. Which room do you choose?" Amused by how this will get me to say the word "no" I respond without thinking much. 

"I'll enter the room full of lions." 

"Damn! How'd he know the answer!?" he whispered as if he were yelling, making it sound overly dramatic. Although, it was just barely loud enough for what he said to be comprehensible.

"Okay. You may have gotten the first part of the question but you won't get the next bit." My younger brother said extremely confident. He looked me dead in the eye and wore a mask of complete confidence, displaying how much he thought that he had already won the bet.

"So this time there are two rooms. The first room has an endless lake and the second room has a ravine without a bottom. Which room would you like to enter?" He wiggled his eyebrows in a joking manner eliciting a couple small chuckles from my mouth.

"I'll enter the room with the endless ravine." I reply short and straight to the point.

"Come on! You've heard this before haven't you!" Immediately standing up and pointing his finger directly in my face he exclaimed. He then let out an angry snort of air as he leaned back and collapsed on the chair behind him. 

Entertained by his extreme theatrics, providing me with a textbook definition of hyperbole, I replied without thinking much of what I was saying.

"No, I've never heard this riddle bef-" I am quickly interrupted by my brother once again wearing that smug smile he had when he first entered the room.

He immediately burst into a laugh full of so much delight and narcissism that I found it hard to hold back a few laughs myself. I lay my back against the back of the couch relaxing my expression and realized that I have lost to another one of his devious machinations.

"Now, my money." My brother declared as he rose so that he was standing just in front of me, and raised his right arm over the coffee table and only a foot or two from my face extended his palm facing upwards. Doing this with so much confidence, that when he heard the next few words from my mouth he froze.

"I don't have any money." I replied as I lifted my body up off of the coach slowly. Thereby, allowing my words to hit home nearly instantly. As he was stunned, I quickly strolled behind him and quickly retreated to my room.