When both of your parents wear glasses, you grow up expecting that one day, you will have to wear glasses, too. My mum always made sure that both I, and my younger sister, Cheryl, had our eyes tested every year. The optician always made sure that the eye tests were quite good fun and, up until I was nine years old, we both passed with flying colours. When I was nine, my Mum was told that I was beginning to show signs of becoming short-sighted, like her, but that my prescription was minimal, so they didn’t need to do anything about it at this stage. I was told that I might well need glasses next year, but that I should come back sooner if I started to have trouble seeing things. The following year, the test took a little bit longer, and I was told that I was a borderline case for getting glasses, but there was no real need for me to get any yet. However, I was told that I would probably need to start wearing glasses next year. Cheryl was easily able to read the really tiny letters that I had struggled with, so there was no problems with her eyes. I got my first glasses when I was eleven. It wasn’t a great surprise. I knew from the previous year that it was likely to happen, and confirmed it for myself when I tried on a friend’s new glasses, and realised I could see better with them, rather than without. It didn’t bother me when I was told by the optician that my eyes had changed a bit during the previous twelve months, as I had been expecting it. When my Mum asked how much I should wear them, she was told that I would need them in school, but that if I wanted to wear them a bit more often, they wouldn’t do me any harm, so I could wear them as often as I liked. My initial plan had been only to wear them in school, but sibling rivalry caused me to start wearing them most of the time. I hadn’t realised how jealous Cheryl would be, that I now had glasses, and she didn’t. “It’s not fair,” she would complain. “I’m short-sighted, too, you know?” “But not enough to need glasses. The man said almost exactly the same thing to me two years ago. You’ve only got to wait another two years, and you’ll probably get your own pair.” “But I want them NOW,” she would protest. “I can’t see clearly. I can see so much better with your glasses, Elaine.” I would often let her borrow my glasses for a minute or two, and she would “prove” how much she needed them by reading something off a wall with my glasses on, and claiming she couldn’t see a thing when she gave them back to me. I didn’t dare say anything about how I could read the same things without my glasses – although I couldn’t resist pointing out how much clearer things were with them on. And the more often we had this sort of exchange, the more I wore my glasses around the house. I didn’t have to say a word; I knew what she was thinking. In the end, I got so fed up of the complaints, and the constant whining, that I suggested that we should order Cheryl a pair of glasses off the Internet. Mum thought this was quite a good idea, and set me to find something suitable which she thought Cheryl would like, before we mentioned it to her. The plan was simple – to get Cheryl a pair of glasses with plain glass in them. They wouldn’t help her to see any better, but they would stop her constant whinging. There was only one problem: I couldn’t find any frames I thought she would like without going on to an online glasses website, and if we were going to order them from there, we might just as well have her “negligible” prescription put into them. It also meant she could have a choice of about three or four different frames. I learned quite a lot about ordering glasses online as I was helping out. Somewhere, Mum had our prescriptions on the sheets from the Optician, but we had to measure Cheryl’s pupillary distance ourselves. I discovered that my own glasses were a -1.00 in both eyes, and that Cheryl’s prescription was -0.25. I also asked Mum how strong her glasses were, but she couldn’t remember exactly. They certainly seemed strong to me, on those occasions when I had borrowed them – and they still seemed strong, even now I was also officially a glasses-wearer. We had finished entering all of the details into the computer, and Mum had put her credit card details in to pay for the glasses. She was in a bit of a hurry to get dinner sorted, as we were going out later on, so she asked me to watch the computer while it finished off the payment. Cheryl had wandered back to her room, satisfied that she was now to get her own glasses, even if she was going to have to wait two to three weeks for them. This left me alone with the computer, when the website asked me for one final confirmation of the details. I don’t know quite what made me do it. It might have been the desire to get my own back for all the arguments in the last month or so, but I wondered what might happen if I changed the prescription to something a little stronger. That way, Cheryl would not be able to wear the glasses at all, but £19.99 was quite good value for the peace and quiet we were all going to get. I changed the -0.25 to -2.50 for both eyes, and then confirmed the order. It was nearly three weeks until the package arrived. I might have forgotten all about it, but the fact that it was the first thing Cheryl asked about every day when Mum picked us up from school, made that impossible. Also, I was feeling a mixture of guilt and worry; guilt, because I knew I had altered the numbers, and worry, that the glasses would look so strong that it would be obvious what I had done. As we entered the front door, Cheryl dropped her bags in the way, as usual, grabbed hold of the package, raced up to her bedroom, and shut the door behind herself. I knew we would have plenty of time to see what she would look like in them, as she had already announced that she was going to wear them all the time, like the rest of us, but even so, I wanted to get an early peep at the new Cheryl. I gave her a couple of minutes, before I knocked on her bedroom door. “Who is it?” she asked. “It’s me, Elaine. I want to see what your glasses look like on you.” “Come in.” “What do you think?” we both asked each other, at exactly the same moment. The frames suited Cheryl, and I could see that the lenses looked stronger than mine. “I asked first.” I told her that they made her look very grown-up, and that she had obviously made the right choice of frame. She told me how much better she could see with them on (I knew that was a lie, but was not prepared to admit to what I’d done, so couldn’t call her out on it), so I asked if we could swap glasses for a bit, and see what they looked like on me. The style of frame was actually right for me, too, although the colour didn’t really suit me. What interested me more, though, was what I could see. I could force my eyes to see well enough through the lenses, but it was an effort, so I wondered how much harder it had to be for Cheryl. However, I could hardly comment on how strong they were, as I knew they weren’t supposed to be, and at that moment, it dawned on me that I was now wearing the weakest glasses in the house. Having made so much of a fuss about “needing” glasses, there was nothing Cheryl could do but wear them all of the time, and everyone soon got used to seeing her in them. Occasionally, someone would ask her how well she could see with them, and they always got the same answer about how much better she could see now that she wore glasses. Mum did try to persuade her that she didn’t really need them for much more than school work, but as Cheryl also classed homework as “school work,” it was hard to argue against it, and the one time she pointed out that even I did not need to wear my glasses as much as I did, Cheryl remembered that I had been told it would not do me any harm, so they wouldn’t do her any harm, either. It didn’t seem like a year had passed before it was time for us to go back for our annual eye check. The closer it got, the more worried I became. Cheryl was not even supposed to be wearing glasses, and yet, she was never seen without them. She even dropped one or two comments about how she felt her eyes had changed and that she might be allowed to get real glasses this time. However, she did take the hint that the optician didn’t expect to see her wearing glasses at all, so she left them in the car when we went in for the test. My eyes had got slightly worse in the twelve months since I started wearing glasses. The optician was a little surprised that I said I wore them all of the time, but when I reminded him that it was he who had said that it woudn’t do me any harm, he made a comment about how some people found it harder to tolerate blur than others, so I would probably want to get new lenses, as I now needed -1.25 in both eyes. I’m not sure whether I was more nervous having my own eyes tested, or while I was sitting at the side of the room waiting for Cheryl’s turn. I was more than a little surprised when she announced that she was unable to read anything more than the big E at the top of the chart with both eyes, but not at all when she was made to cover one. I felt sure that she was pretending, just so that she could be given a real prescription, and the optician did ask her whether she was sure this was all she could see, but she confirmed it. I’m not sure quite how long the part of the sight test took for her, but it was certainly longer than mine. All I had needed was a couple of “better with or withouts” to confirm my marginally increased prescription. Sometimes she could read a new set of letters with the latest lens, on other occasions, she couldn’t. What did become all too clear, was that she wasn’t making it up and, as far as I could tell, her answers were genuine. Once he had completed all of the other tests, he spent a few more minutes writing up his notes. I wondered what he was going to say to her. When he turned around, he had a very serious look on his face. “Well, Cheryl” and here he looked at my mother, “and Mrs. Link, there has been a very substantial change in Cheryl’s eyes in the last year. I’m surprised she hasn’t said anything to you.” (I was praying hard that neither of them would say anything about the glasses we had ordered over the Internet). Last year, you were just starting to show the first signs of becoming myopic. Over the last twelve months, your eyes have changed a lot. You need glasses, and you will need to wear them all of the time. I would like to see you back again in no more than six months, and if you start to have problems with your new glasses, you must tell your Mum straight away, and we’ll update your prescription.” He picked up a couple of lenses from his tray, held them in front of Cheryl’s eyes and said: “This is what you’ll be able to see with your new glasses. Quite a difference, isn’t there?” Cheryl agreed. The process of choosing new glasses was, predictably, a long one. Cheryl wanted to try every frame in the shop. By now, I was feeling very guilty about what I’d done. I’d tried to stop her from wearing glasses by making them too strong for her to wear comfortably, but to no avail. Even I was surprised when I saw the two prescription sheets. I knew about my own numbers – I’d even been asked in the shop whether I even really needed new glasses – and by that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see that Cheryl needed -2.50, but to see the number -3.25 for both of her eyes really stunned me. Her comments over the last few weeks about needing new glasses had obviously been truer than anyone had realised. It only took three days for her to get her new glasses. They’d rushed them through as the change had been such a large one, and they kindly made mine at the same time. Needless to say, we tried each others’ glasses on when we got home. It was a sobering thought for me that what I now could see through her correctly-prescribed lenses was probably better than what she had first seen some ten months earlier, with what I had ordered for her. She also declared that what I was wearing seemed like plain glass to her. Any lingering sense of guilt was eliminated by the twin thoughts that she had wanted to wear glasses, and it had been her choice to wear them all day, every day. Moreover, her new glasses were stronger than the ones I had ordered for her. The reminder letter came through about six weeks before the six months were up. Mum asked us how we were both getting on with our glasses. Mine seemed absolutely fine, but when Cheryl said that she was pretty sure she needed new glasses, I agreed that it might not be a waste of time booking an appointment for me, as well. This time, I let her go first. The optician wasn’t surprised to see her, although the fact that I was also there to have my eyes tested did surprise him a little. I watched what happened extremely carefully, so that, when it was my turn, I thought I knew what to say. Cheryl needed an increase in both eyes to -4.00; I was told that the slight increase in my prescription to -1.50 didn’t really warrant a new pair of glasses this time. I didn’t argue, but a thought had popped into my head. I waited a couple of weeks after she got her new glasses before I decided to broach the subject with my Mum. I told her that I had found some really classy frames on the internet, which I would have liked to order. She told me that I didn’t need new glasses, but when I pointed out that she had ordered unnecessary glasses for Cheryl some time last year, she relented and gave me a budget. Fortunately, the frames I had found were within that budget, so I filled in the rest of the information, and waited for Mum to put in her credit card details. All I had to do then, was amend the final prescription. She was busy in the kitchen at the time, so I had a few minutes to reflect on what that should be. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea that my sister wore stronger glasses than me (even if I had an adult-sized bra, and she didn’t), but if I put in anything approaching her prescription, she would be on to me the moment she tried them on. And yet, somehow, I found myself wanting the glasses I ordered to do for me what hers had done for her. And, in that thought, I knew where I needed to start.