When Cooper's nine years old, his mother gets married to a boring guy called David. David doesn't seem to do a lot, except sit in his study and then occasionally go off and spend long periods of time in a mystical place he calls 'the office', before coming back and sitting in the study some more. Cooper had been sort of excited to learn he was getting a stepdad, but only because he thought it would mean someone to teach him guy things like sport and how to put up shelves, that he'd get lots of new toys like his friend Marla did when her mom got married, and that he'd have someone to take to those stupid father-son soccer tournaments his coach held all the time. Cooper was running out of excuses for why his real dad could never make it.

David doesn't do any of those things, though. In fact, having a stepdad is rather like just having his regular dad - in that he never really sees either of them. He spends the first six months of his mother's marriage utterly unimpressed by the whole thing.

Then his mom sits him down one day and tells him that she has some news.

He's going to have a brother.

She probably expects him to be excited. In the past, he's said how boring it is to be an only child, and complained that since they live out of town he never has anyone to play with. But that was in the past. All Cooper can think now is how Marla's little brothers scream all the time and put food in her bed and how when they were first born she would come into school with lopsided pigtails and fall asleep at her desk because she hadn't been to sleep at all the night before.

He also remembers how she said they take up all her mom's time, and thinks, if I hardly see my mom now, what'll it be like when she has a more important kid to look after too? She'll probably never even look at me again.

He tells her all the stuff about Marla's brothers being annoying and also some things he learnt in school about babies needing a lot of looking after and being fragile, and then tells her he'd rather she didn't have one, if it's all the same to her.

She looks at him like she's trying not to laugh, which confuses him, because he didn't even say anything funny. Cooper knows when he's said something funny. His teacher says he's a 'class clown' - whatever that is - and his grandpa always says he should be a comedian when he grows up.

"It's not a choice whether or not I have this baby, Cooper," she says gently. "It's already on its way."

He sighs like it's a great personal hassle.

"Well, when is it getting here then?"

She tells him about six months, and he brightens. Six months is forever. He'll probably have made enough allowance money to get his own house by then anyway, and then he'll never even have to meet the baby. He tells her fine, she can go ahead and have it, and then retreats to the back yard to play soccer with the dog.

0.

When Cooper's nearly ten, his mom is the fattest lady he's ever seen. She tells him it's because the baby is growing inside her stomach. It takes him a few months before he think to ask how it got in there in the first place.

The resulting talk is so horrifying that he can't bring himself to look any adult in the eyes for weeks. In fact, the first time he manages it again is the morning of his tenth birthday. He wakes up early and bounds down the stairs to search out the presents he knows will be hidden somewhere. The living room is already decorated with balloons and streamers and a shiny green banner that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY with little race cars driving up the sides of the letters, all in preparation for the party that afternoon. He's invited everyone in his class and there's a cake shaped like a soccer ball and an amazing film that his mom had let him pick out at the store and then she agreed to let Marla stay the night afterwards. It's going to be the day that is better than every other day he has ever lived put together.

At least, it is until his parents come down the stairs at ten o clock. His mom is clutching her stomach and moaning, and she's wearing a coat over her pajamas. David is wearing the messiest outfit Cooper's ever seen him in, jeans with a hole in the knee and a shirt that's buttoned wrong. He looks frazzled when he crouches down to talk to Cooper, and Coop forgets to be grossed out at the thought of what this guy's been doing to his mom, because it looks like something serious is going on.

"Cooper, it looks like we're going to have to call off the party."

Cooper doesn't remember what he says, but he think it may have been somewhere between a list of all the worst swear words he knows (taught to him in secret by Alfie Wingcrest, whose dad is an alcoholic and therefore tells him all sorts of great grownup stuff) and a flat out scream. David glances back over his shoulder at Cooper's mom, who has stopped moaning and is now huffing out breaths with a sort of determination Cooper didn't know could be applied to something as boring as breathing. She shoots her husband the angriest look Cooper's ever seen, and David gulps and starts talking again.

"Your mother's having the baby. You're going to have a little brother in a few hours. Isn't that exciting, son?"

"I am not your son! And I don't care about Mom's stupid baby, I just want my party! It's already taken everything else of mine, it can't have my birthday, too!"

David looks helplessly back at his mom again.

"Maria?" he asks. She glares at him.

"You're the one who put this effing baby in here, you figure it out," she growls. "I don't care, just do it fast."

Then she doubles over, clutching her stomach and making the weird moaning sounds again. Cooper wonders if he should point out to David that Mom seems to be in pain, and he should probably get her to the hospital because that's not normal, but then they would just be leaving and his party would still be off, so he doesn't.

"Maybe we can find someone else to run the party?" David says, though Cooper's mom doesn't seem to be listening so he's really just talking to himself. A few moments later he's grabbing the phone and hitting speed dial number one. Even Cooper knows who that is - the redheaded girl who comes to dinner quite a lot and always brings him a bag of sweets when she does. He likes her. She's been coming around a lot more since Mom got so big, and she does things like cook soup and do the dishes. He thinks she works for David, but she's not boring like him.

"Marlene?" David says into the phone. He stands up and walks over to the other side of the room, but Cooper can still hear him. "Listen, I need a favour - yes, I know it's Saturday, but - yes, I know, but listen, Maria's just gone into labour - oh, thank you, thanks, but here's the thing - no, it's just that it's her kid's birthday today and he's got some friends coming over and obviously they can't - look, no, please, just - look, I'll pay you time and a half, okay, and it'd just be for a few hours - oh, thank god. You are wonderful. You are amazing - yeah, yeah, I'll text you the details - oh, yeah, thanks, I'll tell her. Okay - okay. Bye."

He hangs up and turns back to Cooper with desperate eyes.

"Listen up, Marlene - you remember my assistant, Marlene? - anyway, she's going to come over and watch you guys. She won't be here for a few hours, so you'll be by yourself for a bit, okay? But she'll be here before people start turning up. And then your friend Marla's parents are going to take you for the night. I'm gonna take your mother into the hospital now."

His mom kisses him on the forehead quickly before she rushes out the door. He's left with nothing to do but try and set up everything else he needs for the party, and not worry about his mom.

The party goes off without a hitch, except when one kid starts crying at a scary bit in the movie and Marlene has to stop texting whoever it is that's had her glued to her phone and try and calm him down with an extra bit of cake. Cooper thinks a better way to take his mind off it would be so show him this hilarious trick he's taught the dog, but he doesn't say this because he kind of thinks the kid is a wimp for getting so upset at something that wasn't even that scary.

Two days after the party, Marla's mom drops him back at his house. She kisses his forehead, and she smells like spicy curry - which is all their family eats, since they own the Indian takeaway in town. Cooper thanks her for having him just as politely as he's been taught, and then goes inside to find his stupid new brother.

For the first five minutes after they meet, Cooper really likes Blaine. He's absolutely adorable, tiny and pink with a head of thick dark curls just like Cooper used to have. Cooper imagines they'll eventually fade out into perfect waves, just like his have. He pictures Blaine, a few years down the line, as something akin to his perfect mini-me. Someone to teach tricks to, play games with, an ally in his fights with Mom and someone who will always think everything he does is awesome. His mom even lets him hold Blaine when he climbs into bed beside her, and Cooper sniffs the top of his brothers head - it lives up to reputation. New baby smell is the best smell in the world. He thinks that Blaine fits perfectly into his arms. When he hands him back to Mom, he wonders if they'd let him knock down a wall so him and Blaine could share a bedroom.

Then Blaine starts crying, and Cooper hates him again.

He remembers that this kid is the reason his mom hasn't been to any of his soccer games for three months. The reason he's had to move into the tiny guest bedroom. The reason there's no way his mom will ever get rid of David and find someone cooler to marry. The reason he almost had to cancel his birthday party.

He remembers that this kid has taken his birthday. Two people can't have a party in the same house on the same day, and the fact that Blaine is newer and more exciting means that Cooper is always going to be less important.

He storms out of his mom's room and spends the rest of the day trying to figure out how to hook up his new playstation.

1.

When Cooper is eleven, his mom goes back to work. He knows David makes a lot of money so he's not sure why she does, but she tells him it keeps her sane.

He's not sure why that is, either, but he doesn't ask because she has her frazzled face on.

She tells him she'll up his allowance by five bucks a week if he takes over the babysitting duties between the time he gets out of school and the time she gets home - which, she says, will be quite late. Cooper still kind of hates Blaine, but since he started crawling and sleeping through the night it has to be said that he has a certain kind of charm. He agrees because now that he's in middle school he feels like he needs more money. People keep asking him to come with them to the mall or go get a soda after school, and his current ten bucks a month isn't quite keeping up with it all.

Thing is, he doesn't quite realise just how much looking after Blaine needs.

Coop picks him up from daycare on his way back from school at three thirty. They've recently moved into a new house in town so it only take a few minutes to get home. He lets himself in and settles down on the sofa to do his homework.

But after five minutes, Blaine is babbling and trying to climb onto the coffee table. Cooper plonks him in the playpen in the hope that'll keep him settled, but all Blaine does is babble louder and try to climb the mesh walls. When it becomes clear that won't work, he starts banging plastic bricks together and laughing at the sound it makes. And when that becomes boring, he begins bashing on the toy keyboard he got for his birthday. The keys light up and make different animal sounds.

A few minutes of that is enough to make Cooper cry. Normally this is the point in his Blaine-watching where he gives up and fetches his mom. Only she's not there.

So he does the only thing he can think of; he takes Blaine out of the playpen and tries to amuse him himself.

At dinner time they're still alone in the house. He makes himself a sandwich and gets Blaine a jar of some weird mushed-up vegetable. They eat together on the living room floor, surrounded by the pictures they've been drawing and the toys they'd been playing with. Cooper had kind of forgotten how much fun it was to goof around like that - even though he knows most of it went over Blaine's head, he'd been making up stories about the teddy bears' lives and trying to act them out.

When it's eight o'clock and he's still parentless, he heats up a bottle of milk for Blaine just like he's seen his mom do it, and tucks him into his cot. He goes into his room and does homework for half an hour. Then he goes back to Blaine, who has finished the milk and has heavy, drooping eyelids. Cooper takes away the empty bottle and, after a moment of hesitation, begins to sing him to sleep.

Wonderful baby, living on love,
The sandman says maybe he'll take you above.

It's the only thing he knows that's sort of like a lullaby, and he only knows it because it's on the same album as American Pie, but Blaine must like it because he smiles his cute, chubby little smile and falls asleep within just a few verses.

And from then on, that's Cooper's after school routine.

2.

When he's twelve, Cooper is still Blaine's main babysitter. Only to him, it sort of feels more like being Blaine's main parent. His mom's started leaving earlier for the office, so now he wakes Blaine up in the mornings too, and drops him off at daycare on the way to school. He smiles and says hi to all the moms, and they smile back and joke about how he's one of them, and he should come to one of their nights out one time. To be honest, he wouldn't really mind - he's just reaching the age where he can appreciate that some of them are pretty hot.

Cooper still plays soccer. He's getting pretty good. His team is terrible, of course, because they're basically a collection of the kids who weren't athletic enough to play football. The school doesn't even sanction them, so they have to practice on Saturdays. That actually works out perfectly for Cooper, because his mom doesn't work Saturdays so he's free. Occasionally, though, they have matches in the week, and when that happens, he has to bring Blaine with him.

Blaine doesn't mind. He's the world's most sociable toddler and he loves flirting with people, batting his thick eyelashes and sucking his chubby thumb and yammering away very intently in his own little nonsense language like he thinks he's having a real conversation. There's nobody in the world who doesn't love him.

The coach didn't at first, of course, because Cooper was always getting distracted checking that Blaine was doing okay with whichever mom was looking after him at the sidelines, and the team are bad enough already that they really can't afford any slip ups. But then Marla starts coming to the games to sit with Blaine, so Cooper is able to play without worrying, and after a few weeks the coach is so enamoured that he turns up to a game with a tiny soccer ball plushie for Blaine to play with.

Nobody in the crowd is ever really watching the games, except for a few of the more stoic fathers, because Blaine just draws in people's attention like an adorable little black hole. He proudly shows off how many times he can spin around in a circle, or the lisping version of twinkle twinkle little star he has recently learned to sing, or the adorable series of jumps and turns and strange arm movements that he calls 'my daaaaance'. He actually provides a pretty good way to keep any of their parents from noticing how badly the team was losing, which is an integral part of their tactics. On the whole, everybody agrees that Blaine's presence is pretty much a blessing.

So nobody complains when Cooper's mom picks up a Saturday shift, and Blaine has to start coming to practice, too. Cooper always makes sure to bring a bottle of juice for him, and sets it down on the ground next to the dummy and the ring of teething keys. Cooper is always prepared when he takes Blaine out - he has two gym bags, one with his soccer kit in, and one with everything he needs for Blaine. But Blaine never ends up needing any of it - he just sits with coach at the sidelines and cheers Cooper's name over and over again, cuddling his toy soccer ball. And if he occasionally crawls into the net and tries to climb the goalkeepers leg - well, he's sweet enough about it that nobody minds at all.