“You’re supposed to smile!”

That was the only line that the photographer kept shouting at us. Y face was sore from how long I’d been faking a cheesy grin, so I took the time to look around at my family.

My stepfather was smiling calmly, as were my mother and half brother, who still had chocolate on his face from the pudding he’d eaten earlier. It was there even after my mother had washed his face in front of the people in the waiting room.

Before looking over at my younger brother, I decided that the female photographer was either just crazy, or it was all my brother’s fault. Most things were his fault, considering he’s always been more stubborn than a mule.

Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I sighed and shoved my right elbow into his ribs. He grunted and kicked the back of my knee, which should have sent me to the floor. Instead of falling on him, my stepfather caught my arm and attempted to hold us both up. Our combined weight put too much strain on the little stool he’d been sitting on for the past half an hour, and it gave.

We both hit the floor.

After much grumbling and loud curses, he tossed the stool out of the camera’s range and stood up. Then he took the stool my half brother had been sitting on and made him stand in front of my mother.

My brother, on the other hand, had stood off to the side and laughed hysterically the whole time. In the end, our picture was just like any of the others we’d taken: cheesy and original.