The Book David Once Wrote for Me

My brother, who was recently accepted into a radiology program and will be living with me for 18 months, has had a bumpier road than I have.  Despite the ups and downs, he's always kept a good attitude, stayed positive, and found a way to show how much he loves his family.  David loves to read and write, and unfortunately has never been able to find a job doing either of those things.  Over the years, David has done the following things for me:

1. He drove from his college town (3 hours away) to my school for the afternoon just so my students could have the reward they had earned (a visit from David--they loved when I would tell stories about him).  He was only there for about 2 hours because he had to go back for his job later that day.

2. Right before my first marriage fell apart, we had just put our dog to sleep because of seizures he kept having.  I was not interested in celebrating my birthday, but I went to my mom's anyway (the husband did not come).  David drove from out of town (college--he's 3 years younger than me, and was in school for 6), again, 3 hours away, to surprise me at my mom's house for my birthday.

3. (This is the one this post is supposed to be about.)  One year for Christmas, David wrote me a book.  It's a short book, probably closer to a short story than a book, technically.  On Christmas Eve, he had not finished writing the final copy and illustrating it, so he stayed up until 3am to finish.  It was the most amazing present I think I've probably ever gotten.  It was called "The Wrong Island" and it was about a teacher (my profession) who has a horrible class (I had a horrible class at the time) with one really good little girl in it (my class had 4 girls total, all really good, but he told me later he didn't know my class was so bad...I was teaching out of state).  The teacher in the story is a witch, literally, and one day when her class is particularly badly behaved, she accidentally casts a spell that sends the kids to this "wrong" island...where they all start disappearing.  The one good girl befriends this little creature who says he can take her to the wizard who will send them home.  No, it's nothing at all like "The Wizard of Oz" I'm just really bad at describing it.  The wizard's a bad guy, the creature isn't what he seems, the scary creature they talk about is not what he seems...It has a surprise ending, it's funny, and it's amazingly illustrated.  My poor mom was SO jealous that he gave me his first real book/story.  But she was also really touched that he gave it to his sister.

David and I are so different, personality-wise.  He is super laid-back, and I am soooooo high-strung (think Sally from "When Harry Met Sally"...only worse).  I know a lot of siblings don't get along well, or not even that, just don't really talk or see each other much.  I am SO lucky that my only sibling, my brother, likes talking to me, enjoys seeing me, puts up with my quirks (which include my husband, haha!), and says "I love you" to me on the phone.  Always.