Packing Up Arjun's Room: Similes and Metaphors in a Family Story

The Room Next Door

1For two weeks, my brother Arjun's bedroom has been a construction zone. Cardboard boxes stand in crooked towers, and rolls of tape roll across the floor like tumbleweeds. On Saturday, Arjun leaves for college, a whole day's drive away, and I am supposed to be helping him pack.

2Mom is a general. She stands in the doorway with a clipboard and gives orders. "Sweaters in the blue box! Books in the brown one! Nobody needs six pairs of old sneakers!" Arjun salutes her with a sock. Then he packs as slowly as a snail crossing a sidewalk, stopping to read every old birthday card he finds.

3My job is the closet. It turns out that Arjun's closet is a time machine. Behind his winter coat, I find his first baseball glove, a dinosaur costume made from a cardboard box, and a shoebox full of folded notes. They are the notes I used to slide under his door at bedtime when I was little.

4I unfold the top one. In wobbly first-grade letters, it says, "Arjun is the best brother." I laugh, but my throat feels as tight as a knot in a wet shoelace. Arjun is my alarm clock, my math tutor, and my best audience. Who will wake me up on school mornings now? Who will laugh at my jokes, even the bad ones?

5On Saturday morning, Dad packs the car like a puzzle with no empty spaces. Pillows are squeezed between boxes, and a lamp is tucked behind the driver's seat. Arjun hugs me so hard that my feet leave the ground. Then he and Dad climb into the car, and it turns the corner and disappears. That afternoon, our house is a library. Every room is hushed, and even the hum of the refrigerator sounds too loud.

6That night, I find a note taped to my door in Arjun's messy grown-up handwriting: "Priya, you are the captain of this hallway now. Take good care of the ship. P.S. I kept every one of your notes." I tape his note above my desk. Then I knock twice on the wall between our rooms, the way we always did at bedtime. Nobody knocks back, but I smile anyway.