Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

Frenda Seivelun’s soul had partially left through her mouth.

That was no exaggeration. Her eyes really had rolled back in her head.

She was in an elementary school dorm in District 13. Were all the stuffed animals and character products her little sister’s taste, or were they all things Frenda and others had bought her because they thought that was what little kids liked? A goldfish and a rhino beetle lived in the room too and the study desk contained a notebook, math drills, a textbook, and a morning glory observation journal.

That was all summer homework.

However, Frenda’s homework did not include a morning glory observation journal. It all belonged to her first grade sister.

“See, in the end, I told you this would happen. And I even told you I wouldn’t be helping you.”

“In the first place, you told me not to go crying to you when August 31 rolls around. Today’s the 30th, so I haven’t broken my promise yet!”

This little sister was awfully clever for a 7-year-old.

The dark side older sister was mildly worried.

The younger sister tilted her head.

“In the first place, why are you holding me from behind?”

“Because I know you’ll make a getaway if I don’t have you in my lap like this. In the end, I don’t like the look of those outdoor shoes you have ready to go over there.”

“Heh heh. Today I get the best seat in the house☆”

And so Frenda had her arms around her little sister’s hips to hold her in place like a thrill ride’s safety bars. This was a sign of mistrust because she assumed the younger sister would try to escape from the balcony given half a chance, yet the younger sister leaned back against her and kicked her legs like she was seated in the most comfortable throne.

“I notice you’ve barely even started on it. Why didn’t you do any homework until today?”

“I meant to.” The 7-year-old princess pouted her lips in her sister’s lap. “But there were so many days when I didn’t have time to do that day’s amount. So my plans to do it little by little kept falling apart.”

So she had a plan but had overestimated how much she could do in a day.

Frenda was exasperated as her little sister continued.

“But, but! I kept my Sundays open as a catch-up day, so I should have been able to make up for all of that.”

Choosing Sunday for that kind of insurance had been a mistake. Even during summer break, the school schedule had imprinted her with the idea that Sunday was a day off. It was rare to be able to stay focused on work on that day.

“And the next thing I knew, it was hopeless.”

The younger sister had tears in her eyes.

Then she extended her legs and shouted in desperation.

“In the first place, it’s not my fault!! It’s summer break’s fault for being so much fun!!”

“In the end, I can tell you’re racing down a path everyone has to go down eventually.”

At any rate, she had to get that homework done.

That she had called on her big sister now had to be a sign of trust. Frenda reached her arms under her little sister’s to divide up the mountain of homework and textbooks on the desk.

“Okay, I’ll do this arithmetic for you, so you write out these kanji.”

“ ‘Write your name in kanji.’ ...In the first place, how am I supposed to do that?”

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with an all-alphabet name was at a loss.

Elementary school arithmetic problems weren’t actually all that difficult, but there were a lot of them. And as she went through doing those ultra-simple calculations over and over again, Frenda grew less and less certain of the Japanese she was looking at. She was experiencing some real gestaltzerfall. She was also under a lot of pressure because getting even one first grade problem wrong would damage her honor as the big sister.

(Oh, no, no, no. In the end, doing this over and over is like packing parts in boxes on a factory conveyor belt. I’m feeling dizzy already.)

Then a new stimulus arrived. The little princess pulled out a tape measure. To make sure the 7-year-old didn’t cut her fingertips, the school had given her a cloth one rather than a metal one.

“I have to measure my body too!”

“?”

“For the summer break growth chart.”

…Had that 7-year-old really grown as much as the morning glory vine?

Frenda wasn’t certain, but it was too late now. She decided to measure the younger sister’s current height and then make up weekly numbers going back to the start of the break. As long as it didn’t end with the girl being shorter than she was during the 1st term, no one would know the difference.

The little sister was released from the “throne” so she could stand by the wall to be measured.

“Okay, in the end, stand tall and I’ll get you measured. Stay right there.”

“Nhh.”

“No, don’t stand on your toes.”

Frenda had thought only the athletic boys thought being taller was better, but was she wrong about that? She couldn’t remember what life had been like back when she was 7.

“In the first place, I’m as slim as a supermodel.”

“If you say so.”

Where had she learned that term?

Then the 7-year-old began playing with the cloth tape measure. She wrapped it around and around herself.

“In the end, what are you doing?”

“This is what grownups do. It’s called taking your measurements!”

Frenda decided to just watch as her 7-year-old sister had her fun.

She knew there was nothing grownup about that measuring tape mummy.