SO Sick of This!

My 13-year-old daughter asked her 17-year-old sister to help her with a school project, writing the answer to the question, "You are special because...".  It would take all of a few minutes and involved writing a few sentences about her little sister.  It is due by October and she asked her September 11th.  Plenty of notice.  My stepdaughter's response yesterday:

"I'll try, but I can't guarentee I'll have time to do it."


(That's her spelling; not mine.)
 
Seriously, you can't take five minutes, hell, two minutes to write a few sentences about your sister, who you used to be SO close to before your other parent won with the alienating tactics, when she has given you three weeks notice?  You don't even have to handwrite it; email it. 
 
I haven't told my daughter yet.  It'll hurt her feelings.  My stepdaughter and daughter used to be really close and she specifically wanted her big sister to be a part of this school project but she can't even give her two minutes of her time. 
 
I've seen my daughter in tears brought on by my stepkids' behavior.  Hanging up on her a couple times a few years ago pretty much devastated her - hanging up on her on her birthday crushed the heck out of her.  If my stepdaughter doesn't do this for her (and let's face it, it's not because she doesn't have time to do it - it's two minutes!), part of me wants to shield my daughter from the hurt and type up something and say my stepdaughter emailed it to try to avoid the hurt if my stepdaughter doesn't do it - not for my stepdaughter's sake but for my own daughter.  The other part of me thinks she'll find out what I did and hurt anyway.  When do I protect and when do I just be there when they hurt?
 
I can't believe how much things have changed - how close the kids used to be.  It disgusts  me that an adult interfered so badly that it damaged sibling relationships.  It wasn't just the bond between father/child or stepmom/stepchild that was interfered with; that alienation made its way to the siblings as well.  Due to a person's insecurities, innocent lives were so altered that they'll carry those scars with them for a long time, maybe forever. 
 
This is the result of two very different homes - one home was insecure, manipulated, and alienated and the other home wouldn't stoop to involving any of the kids in the horrid games, wouldn't talk bad about the other parent, wouldn't manipulate the kids, and did everything "right" for the kids' emotional/mental health. 
 
We did everything we were supposed to.  Look where we all are now.