Title: Family matters

By: Ashley Lambert

Hr: 7

~Breaking the News~

"Welcome home, darling!" my mom called out from the kitchen

"Hi mom," I answered

"Why don't you come into the kitchen for a moment," my mom added swiftly. I walked into the bright yellow kitchen and saw my father sitting at the stainless steel table pretending to be reading the Newspaper, but it wasn't working because the paper was upside down. My mom was leaning against the counter in front of the window studying her brightly painted blue fingernails.

"What's up?" I asked clearly not interested.

"Well... your father and I have come to a decision... and we're moving to Tokyo," mom stated plainly like it was no big deal.

"What?" I yelled "we're moving! Why are we moving?"

"To be with your grandparents," mom said while dad had been quiet the whole time.

"I hate you! Why are you ruining my life?" I screamed as I stormed upstairs and slammed my bedroom door.

~Later that Day~

"Jenny?" dad knocked.

"Go away," I yelled into my pillow.

"We're going out to eat you want to come?"

"No..." I answered.

"Okay, we'll be back around nine then," mom cut in.

"Okay." and that was all I said and that was all I got to say.

~4 days Later~

"Okay Jenny, we'll stop by your house so you can pick up anything you want or need," Mrs. Smith smiled as she pulled into the familiar drive way. Inside I went up to my mothers old room and grabbed her jewelry box and rummaged through her closet. I grabbed the clothes that I liked, my mom had a great sense of style, or at least I thought so. While going through the boxes I found a very large box in the very back and it was marked "Jenny's X-mas gifts" I grabbed it and put in my pile of to go boxes. I grabbed a few more special things that were my parents and mine. Soon I was helping Mrs. Smith pack my stuff neatly into her truck. Thirty minutes later we pulled up a drive way and saw Mr. smith and their five sons standing in the garage.

"A sister! Come on!" one of them complained, he had a short blonde Mohawk with red tips and blue eyes.

"That's Toby, don't mind him, he'll get over it soon enough." Mrs. Smith assured me. As I was

Introduced to my new family I wondered what my parents were doing with the big guy upstairs (god). For the brothers there was Toby, the twins, Jake and Aaron both had floppy hair and green eyes but Jakes hair was brown and Aarons bleach blonde. There was also Darrin and Jay. Darrin had floppy brown hair and brown eyes; Jay had golden hair and hazel eyes.

"Hey," I said.

"Whatever!" Toby said and walked into the house, Mr. Smith shrugged his shoulders before leading me to my new room. As I began to unpack Mrs. And Mr. Smith came in to see if I was settling in okay.

"Jenny… the boys knew that they were going to get a new family member but they didn't know it was going to be a girl, so you'll need to show them that you belong here," Mrs. Smith sighed as Mr. smith moaned and walked out.

"It's okay Mrs.-"

"Oh, please call me Sally," she said with a little caution, knowing not to mention the mom name since I just lost mine in a terrible car accident 4 days ago.

"Its fine, I can handle them, plus it'll be easier to deal with since I'm going to the same school so I can still hang with my friends if things get to riled up around here, so don't worry I'll be fine," I smiled as she walked to the door

"Okay," she nodded, and walked out of the room.

~The true meaning of brothers~

My friends always complained about having brothers, now I had five. And it showed the next day as the boys decided to give me a proper greeting, a welcome to the family greeting. This is how it went at night while I was sleeping the twins snuck into my room found my tampons and at five o clock in the morning were playing bowling with them down the hall and I woke up to the sound of the bowling ball crashing into my door I got up with my black tank top and silky fruit pajamas and opened my door to the twins setting up my tampons and everyone else sticking their heads out of there rooms to see what all the racket was about. And smirks covered every face as mine turned red, that was until Sally and Mike (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) came out of their room and saw what had happened, I think now I'll get a lock on my door. Jake and Aaron were grounded from the birthday party they were going to this afternoon; they were until I talked my new parents out of it. But the boys all of them had to promise not to touch my stuff and that before anyone went anywhere and the parents were laying down some rules.

~The Family's rules~

"Okay these are new rules in this house," Mike stated

No touching Jenny's things

No sexual contact, Jenny is to be thought of as a sister

'Wow that's it? That's not a lot of rules but I can't think of anything else…yet' I thought as the family went their separate ways.

~3 days later~

I was walking home from school and I saw Aaron and Jake in the middle of a large circle of people, they were bloody and had bruises everywhere that I could see. I ran up to the group and forced myself to the front and saw the twins battling it out with a couple of older guys', way older. My brothers were 11 and the people they were against were in their 20's. So I had to help because apparently my brothers were the ones taking the beating… so I lunged at one of the older guys and when they saw me they backed off immediately, this scared look in their eyes.

My brothers looked at me in awe as everyone around them also started to back up. See in my life before my parents died, I was in a gang with Johnny I was the most feared person in this city and now I'd have some explaining to do and my new parents wouldn't like it even though there oldest son Toby was in a gang himself. And not to mention we had to leave and fast the police were coming and I didn't want to get busted so I grabbed Aaron and Jake's hands and I dragged them as far away as possible. As soon as we got home I realized no one was home so I'd have to take care of the twins myself. I brought them to the nearest bathroom and started searching in the cupboards for some band aids and peroxide. As soon as I had finished explaining why people were scared of me and that I had been in a gang everyone was silent, until….

"Are you still in touch with them?"

"Are you still in the gang?"

I was bombarded with questions; I silenced them and answered the questions that I had heard

"Umm… yes I'm still in touch with them, yes I am still considered in the gang and no we don't steal or do drugs or anything like that…"

~The speech~

I was spread out on my bed which was covered with Egyptian cotton sheets, when there was a knock on my door.

"Who is it?" I called

"It's Jay… can I come in?"

"Yeah… sure," I answered. The door slowly opened and Jay gave me a funny look when he saw me on the bed spread out like I had been hit by a bus. He walked over, sat on the edge of my bed, and I sat up.

"What's up?" I asked

"Nothing…. I just…" Jay's voice trailed off
"you just what?"

"I wanted to say thanks for getting my brothers out of trouble…"

"No problem," I answered when a short awkward silence followed. I looked at Jay when he didn't say anything more and thought 'why is he still here?' then he looked at me and saw admiration in his eyes.

"You know ever since you became apart of this family everyone seems to have lightened up, no more awkward silences at dinner, Toby doesn't get into as much trouble as he used to and I haven't been slapped by dad once since you came, it's like a miracle has come to the family." And with that Jay got up and left me to think about what he just said.

~The phone call~

The next day I got up at 9 and thought 'oh crap I'm late for school' then realized it was a Saturday. So I went downstairs to see everyone lazing around in the den, they looked up when I walked in and every face looked relieved to see me, even though Toby and I had only talked 2 times since I came. As I settled down on the couch between Toby and Jake, Aaron handed me a card that was blue and had "thank you" on the front of it and when I opened it I read a short letter from Aaron and Jake that read,

Thank you so much for getting us out trouble, we hope

you enjoy being in the family, because we enjoy having

you for a sister.

Signed,

Aaron and Jake

I reread the letter 3 more times before in sunk into my head, they enjoyed having me as a sister, I looked up in amazement at Aaron then over at Jake they both had smiles on there faces, I looked back at Aaron and he had his arms spread wide open signaling for a hug, I wrapped my arms around him and Jake joined in. I let go of Aaron and Jake let go of me and when I looked around everyone had a smile on there face. Just then, during the happy moment that I wished would never end the phone rang and when sally put it on speaker phone, that happy moment ended.

"Hello is Jenny there?" asked a very familiar voice.

"yes, she's right here, and you're on speaker phone," Mike answered'

"Oh thank you, hi Jenny!"

"Who is this?" I asked

"It's your grandma silly,"

"Oh… hi grams,"

"I'm calling to let you know that you can still come to Tokyo, if you like I know how much you like my cookies and we'll have them every day if you like," grams bribed, my mouth fell open and I picked up the phone which automatically stopped speaker phone when I put it to my ear, I walked out of the room to talk to my grandma alone. When I came back in nobody looked at me and when I went to sit on the couch I saw every body either had a dark look on their face or a blank expression. As I sat down Darrin glared at me and stood up.

"Are you going to leave to go stay with your precious grandparents?" he snapped

"Hey, why are-"

"Well go ahead, nobody wants you here, the letter thing was moms idea to make you feel more comfortable, and at home!" he screamed, and I stood up.

"well if that's how it is then I will leave, I'm sorry that I've been such a burden and I'll go call my grandma back and tell her that I've changed my mind, I mean I was going to give up her famous chocolate fudge cookies for you people, but since you don't want me here then why waist my time here when I could eat cookies every day?" I snapped calmly, and with that I walked out of the room, leaving the shocked Darrin standing in the middle of the den with blaming eyes looking upon him.

~The Choice~

I sat at the airport, waiting for my grandparents to fly in and Mike Smith was standing not to far off watching me, he was only there to see me off and make sure u wasn't hurt while waiting for my grandparents. Soon the plane was on the ground and I was wrapped in my grandmas arms.

She looked kind of guilty as she sat down next to me waiting for our plane to arrive that would take us back to Tokyo.

"You know jenny its not to late you can still stay here with the family you always wanted, I'll be fine, I just wanted an excuse to fly to America." She said while taking my hands into her own. I thought about what she said then looked back at mike. I gave a small smile at my grandma and she smiled back

"I'll send you my cookies, and enjoy Christmas its right around the corner,"

"Are you going to go home?"

"No…. I'm going to stick around for a bit and stop by to meet your new family," she said with a huge smile.

~Back Home~

I walked into the den.

"I miss Jenny already…" I over heard Toby say.

"Your not going to go all soft on me are you?" I said with a look that said please don't. Everybody spun around in their seats and laughed when they saw me standing there with my bags and the look. I never imagined that family would matter so much.