Just after breakfast Bobby led her down the cellar stairs promising a special treat. He could get her to do anything because she trusted him. Later this would not be so.
A bare bulb glared above the workbench. He climbed up to reach the Mason jar. The lid stuck. His small hand applied all its strength. The lid gave way. The jar sloshed open.
“Drink this.”
She did.
After some commotion – a frantic phone call, a screeching car ride – an attendant held her hard against the table while the doctor jammed a tube down her gagging throat. Up came scrambled eggs, pumped into an enamel pan.
Boric acid in a jar on a workbench in a cellar.
This was not the first time Bobby tried to kill his sister.