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Griffin had never asked for a brother.
Officially, Griffin did not have a brother.
Officially Robin was a second charge. Brought home like a souvenir from Canton. Nothing more than an investment.
There had been no warning. No Oh, just so you know there’s going to be an addition to the household when I come back from the trip.
No, Lovell had simply come home with a small, pale eight-year-old boy in tow.
Griffin could still remember how long they had stared at each other that first time; seeing their own face mirrored back.
“Griffin, this is Robin. He will be staying with us.”
There had been no explanation. But Griffin wasn’t stupid, but more importantly he wasn’t blind. Those brown eyes. The mix of Chinese and other neither of them had ever been able to place. Not until Professor Lovell stepped into their mothers’ homes and said it was time to leave.
Even Robin must have understood, because once during dinner when Professor Lovell had reminded Mrs Piper not to serve Robin any sauce; because apparently, Robin couldn’t handle dairy.
“You see, unlike the Europeans, almost the entire Oriental are naturally disinclined to dairy products. Their stomachs cannot handle it”, the professor had explained to them conversationally.
Mrs Piper had said, “It’s a good thing Griffin can eat it. Otherwise, it would hardly be worth getting the ingredients for only two portions.”
And from his seat Robin had perked up, “Well the Professor can drink milk, so it makes sense”, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Professor Lovell’s fork had stopped halfway to his mouth. - His face as close to stunned disbelief as Griffin had ever seen it, and Griffin had had to pretend he had gotten something stuck in his throat to cover his laughter.
Robin hadn’t noticed the strange mood that joined them at the table, though. He had been digging into the Yorkshire pie on his plate.
Despite this, the two brothers never acknowledged their kinship. Why would they? No one else ever did.
Griffin had never asked to have a second bed squeezed into his room or have an extra shadow trailing his every step; which proved to be quite the problem when Griffin tried to eavesdrop on the meetings in the sitting room.
Griffin had never asked to have a weight on his shoulder as he tried to study, demanding to know the meaning and function of the words in Griffin’s homework.
Griffin hadn’t asked for being tasked to converse with a child in Mandarin, ‘To keep both of your fluency alive’, and cutting into the time alone he had with Professor Lovell. Now the Professor was to be shared. The crumbs of praise and attention rationed into less than half of what he had had before.
Griffin had never asked to be an older brother; the eldest; the one who had responsibilities and was supposed to act as an example.
He would never admit to being jealous; that he resented the fact that whenever Robin got into trouble, he got tenth of the punishment Griffin would have gotten at the same age.
Like the time the butcher’s cat had a litter and Mrs Piper had brought Robin over to pick one out; which was just another token to how different she was from Mrs Peterhouse, the housekeeper they had had before Robin was brought to England.
Robin had sat in the kitchen with the thing purring in his lap all afternoon after classes and cooed at it in Cantonese. Griffin had stayed away, knowing better than to stay on the beach when there was a storm coming.
Professor Lovell had taken one look at it, and without even batting an eye had said, “If I find that thing still here by breakfast tomorrow, I will put it in a sack and throw it into the Themes on my next visit to the Parliament.”
Mrs Piper had argued with him over it in her full-fledged, angry Scottish glory – She was growing tired of the rats that scuttered across the yard. – meanwhile Robin had cried and begged.
If that had been Griffin, the Professor would have fetched the strap; for both him and the cat.
But in the end, Robin was allowed to sit in the kitchen to say his goodbyes after dinner all the way until bedtime.
Professor Lovell was more lenient in more ways than that, too.
On their rare visits to the bookstore Griffin would go looking for new editions on the Elements. He currently had five different ones that he used as an exercise of comparing the original Ancient Greek to whatever the English or Latin experts cobbled together. – The Professor wasn’t too big of a fan, as he thought mathematics, and the Elements especially, was nothing but a simple-minded past time for aristocrats who enjoyed squiggling pretty shapes without meaning on paper.
Which is why Griffin was baffled to see that Lovell indulged Robin whenever he picked out adventure novels (With pictures!) from the shelves. Griffin would have been sent back to pick out something more sensible.
Robin had practically skipped all the way home, and Griffin had had to be the one to poke him in the ribs when he hid out in the library to read, too engrossed in the story to remember classes.
Griffin had never asked to babysit.
He did his job though, lest he be accused of being lazy or irresponsible. Which was why he made sure to keep an eye on the little brat.
They had both been sent outside – Something about fresh air and spring cleaning. – and Griffin had planted himself underneath the tree in the neighbourhood public garden.
The weather had been dry for the last few days, so he managed to sit on the bare ground without making him bum wet. He had only just managed to get comfortable and reading at a decent pace when he saw something in the corner of his eye.
Robin was small. Smaller than the three boys currently approaching him on the sidewalk on the other side of the square. – Boys from further down the road. Griffin recognized them from when they had been toddlers ushered around by their nannies and he had been a boy not allowed to climb trees. (Even though he had did it anyway because the Professor was 50 miles away, and what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.)
How Griffin had ever feared other boys that age when he was the same size as Robin seemed ridiculous now. But that was easy to say for a fifteen-year-old. After all, Griffin was towering above all four of them.
Griffin continued watching, more intently now with his book resting against his knees. They were getting closer to Robin, still talking, though he could not make out the words. They were too far away.
Clearly, they weren’t being very friendly. Robin stood stiff like a rod, caught in the bear trap of being labelled impolite and the desire for peers his own age. Griffin’s thoughts were pulled to the picture of a tiny bird surrounded by cats.
Griffin would have returned to his book; let Robin sort this out himself. Let him grow some skin, because God knew Robin could be softer than butter. But just as Griffin was about to turn away, back to his book, one of the boys picked up a stone.
“Hey!”, he shouted. He was on his feet before he even noticed himself springing upright beneath the tree.
The effect was immediate. The boys startled and looked at him, like rabbits in a field. They clearly hadn’t realized he had been there to begin with. And even if they had they hadn’t realized Griffin had any affiliation with Robin.
When they didn’t step back, or drop the rock for that matter, he started towards them.
One of them took a step back; scared. The fat one shouted something he couldn’t make out, but he knew it wasn’t nice. He scowled then.
“I said, HEY”, he shouted, propelling his voice across the park. And then he was across the green and over the mossed stone wall in one fluid motion. By the time he reached Robin, they were already running away. The stone rattled on the ground where they had dropped it.
Robin looked up at him. His eyes wide.
“What did they say?”, Griffin asked as he watched the boys’ retreating figures. He addressed him in Mandarin, even though they usually only did it behind closed doors. Mrs Piper didn’t like them bickering in a language she didn’t understand, and Professor Lovell would more often than not step in to poke their grammar into line, like they were performing a speaking test.
Perhaps if it had been Professor Lovell, Robin would have dismissed it; would have lied. After all, nothing he or Griffin told him about their feelings would ever be considered an inconvenience. He only cared if someone made suggestive remarks about their parentage.
But when Griffin asked, he lowered his gaze. If he looked up, would his eyes be shiny? Griffin wondered. The possibility made Griffin want to resume the chase of those boys again.
“They asked if I eat dogs”, Robin said, quietly, also in Mandarin. “Or, they said I eat dogs, and that they ought to bash me with a rock to keep the pets of the street safe. I tried to tell them that I have never eaten dog in my entire life, but they didn’t seem to care.”
Griffin clenched and unclenched his fists. How unimaginative the English were. Those were the same insults from when he himself was a boy and ventured outside in hopes for company; or a fist fight, as it usually ended.
“Next time, tell them your older brother is going to come at night and cook all their precious furballs for Sunday brunch.”
He didn’t even catch himself using the word for older brother; gēge. It felt surprisingly comfortable in his mouth, nowhere near as alien as he would have imagined. Was that the reason he wanted to run after those small boys and throw them, one by one, squealing into the rose bushes of their uptight mothers?
“I can’t say that!”, Robin exclaimed, looking up at him in admonishment. “They’d just bother the both of us.”
Griffin scoffed. He’d like to watch them try. “I can handle three tiny white boys.”
“Well, I can’t!”, Robin berated, and there was genuine alarm in his high little voice. “And what if they have older brothers or cousins of their own? He’d be so angry…”
Now they had both said it, without really saying it.
Older brother. Griffin, Robin’s older brother. Robin, Griffin’s baby brother.
“You know, for him to be angry, he’d have to find out first…”, Griffin reminded.
Robin’s eyes went wide again, and Griffin couldn’t help but laugh.
And even if Professor Lovell did find out, there was no way Griffin would let Robin get in trouble too.