Chapter 1: A Typical Brewer-Thomas Morning

Kristy

August 14

In just a couple of weeks, I am officially going to be a college student. It's insane. I've always considered myself mature, and responsible, and everything like that, but I don't know about this whole idea of living on my own for a full year. OK, so, fine I'll be home at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas, and there's always spring break and summer, so I won't be gone the whole year, but that isn't the point. The point is that I won't be living at home and I won't have my crazy family and friends to keep me company. It will be all new people that I don't know anything about and who don't know anything about me… and I don't know that I am quite settling into that idea.

And yet, I'm sure that I'm just being ridiculous about the whole thing and worrying about absolutely nothing. I worried so much about high school (and even middle school, now that I really think back on it) and that turned out fine. More or less. Besides, it's not as though living in a dorm could be any less crazy than living at home…

oOo

"Hurry up and get out of the bathroom!"

"David Michael, just how many bathrooms do we have in this house?"

"Open the door, Karen."

"Find another bathroom!"

"My toothbrush is in there."

"I don't care. Elizabeth!"

Ah, the sweet, sweet sounds of morning in the Brewer-Thomas household. As I dared to open my eyes, I heard my little brother pound angrily on the bathroom door just down the hall from my bedroom. I smiled as I heard my stepsister Karen throw the old fashioned bolt-lock on the door and scream even more loudly for my mother. My door slammed open and I had just enough time to sit up as a bundle of slobbering, barking fur came barreling towards me.

Now is the time to press the pause button and allow me to explain a few things. Contrary to what I'm sure you're picturing, I really do not live in an insane asylum. Oh, it definitely feels like it sometimes, especially today, but I can promise you that our home is only the residence of the crazy people known as my family.

First of all, there are my parents. Well, my mom and my stepdad, Watson. My biological father skipped out on us when I was a little kid and I've only seen him a handful of times since. To be honest, Watson has been more like a father to me and my little brother David Michael than I think my biological dad has been. It's a little more complicated with my older brothers, Charlie and Sam, who were older when Dad left. It's been a few years since Mom married Watson and my brothers don't seem to have any ill-feelings towards our stepfather, but I think there are times when Sam, especially, really wishes that it was just Mom, Dad, and us kids again. Without all of the complications that come with people getting divorces, and remarrying, and having more kids, etc. There are moments, too, when I almost find myself sympathizing, but then I find myself snapping out if pretty fast when I remember that I wouldn't have the amazing family I have now if things were the way they used to be all those years ago.

I know. I've mentioned my brothers, but I haven't really said anything to describe them besides saying a little bit of what they think about my Dad. Truth be told, it's not really a fair assessment of any of them, since my biological father is such a little, tiny part of our lives. Fact is, most days, I don't even think about him. At least, I don't consciously make the effort to think about him; thinking about him right before I fall asleep at night or in the early morning when my dreams are just fading into wakefulness doesn't count.

My oldest brother is named Charles, but nobody ever calls him that, ever. I don't even think I can remember my mother calling him that and she has always called me by my full name whenever I'm in really deep trouble. Everybody calls my brother Charlie and everybody loves my brother. He's that cool older brother that everybody laments not to have and that those who do have idolize and adore. I suppose that I'm no different. Charlie has always been cool, handsome, and he has this quality of always being surprised to discover these things about him. It's as though he forgets that he's good-looking and is startled anew every time someone does something to remind him. Being that he's my brother, it took me years to figure out why Charlie always seemed to have girls flocking around him, even when he did absolutely nothing to encourage them, but after an especially enlightening conversation with one of his girlfriends, I started to see Charlie is a whole new, mildly disturbing, light.

Then there's my brother Sam. If Charlie is always surprised when a girl shows interest in him, Sam is the exact opposite. I took an honors biology course this past year and almost burst out laughing in the middle of class when our teacher began talking about the mating rituals of birds. Yes, that's right, birds. The moment a peacock flashed on the screen, I almost had to clap my hand over my own mouth to stop myself from shouting out "Sam!"

Because that's my brother. He went through the typical teenage years of awkward grotesqueness: pimples, cracking voice, body odor, and all. In fact, most of the family wondered if Sam had been kidnapped and replaced by some hideous mutant imposter that ate all of our food and flew into random rages at the drop of a hat. Then, by some miracle, he began to recover the summer before his senior year of high school and seemed to acquire the same good looks that our brother Charlie is blessed with. I think the difference between Charlie and Sam is that while Sam went through his Teen Wolf stage, Charlie was pretty lucky and managed to skate through high school without more than some oily skin and a couple awkward growth spurts. When Sam realized that he was starting to look less like something out of a Creature Feature movie and more like a member of the human race, he wasted no time in finding girls willing to date him. Unfortunately for me, some of those happened to be girls in my grade. There were times when I wanted to punch my preening brother in the face. There were times when I did.

David Michael is my younger brother. He just turned twelve a couple weeks ago and is beginning to dread having to start the seventh grade. I'm not entirely sure why, but maybe it's because he's also beginning to enter that weird and horrible world of puberty. Just last week, Charlie and Sam exchanged a snicker when David Michael's voice cracked while they were watching a rerun of Baywatch (though, what they see in that show, I couldn't honestly say). As of a month ago, David Michael declared war on my stepsister Karen, doing everything in his power to control possession of the upstairs bathroom that they share with me. I wouldn't normally mind the battles of the epic War of the Bathroom, but for the fact that they tended to wake me up and keep me up at all hours of the day and night.

Before Mom and Watson got married, Mom supported me and my brothers by working absolutely crazy hours and still never made quite enough money for the size of our family. We lived in a medium-sized house, except that with four kids, it was packed pretty tight. My older brothers shared a bedroom and while David Michael and I each had bedroom to ourselves, they were so small that I hardly remember being able to call them bedrooms. In fact, I'm almost certain that David Michael's bedroom wasn't really a bedroom at all, but a tiny storage room that Mom had converted into a nursery when she had discovered that she was pregnant for the fourth time. When I think back on how tiny our house was back then and how much our family has expanded since, the bathroom battles that my brother and stepsister wage every day seem even more ridiculous.

When my mother married Watson, I didn't just gain a stepfather and two stepsiblings. No, our entire lives changed that day. We moved across town into Watson's mansion (I forgot to mention that my stepfather is an honest-to-goodness millionaire, didn't I?), finally saw Mom relax about our financial problems, and began to find that the new couple weren't just interested in marital bliss; they had caught the baby bug and they had caught it bad.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should probably mention my stepsiblings, Karen and Andrew. They're Watson's kids from his first marriage. Except in looks, a brother and sister could honestly not be more different if you tried to make them that way.

Karen is the older of the two and my eleven year old stepsister. She's blessed with her mother's pretty features and it's clear that she's going to be gorgeous when she grows up. Her straw blonde hair falls down past her shoulders, and recently has begun to curl at the ends, while her dark blue eyes are finally fully visible now that her parents have given her permission to wear contact lenses.

While her physical features have begun to develop more dramatically over the past couple of years, her personality has always been big. She's a lover of story-telling, especially when it comes to ghost stories, and still likes to try and terrify her friends with tales of the old ghost that supposedly haunts the third floor of our mansion home, Old Ben Brewer. She has also always been one of the most affectionate kids that I've known, sometimes crawling into bed with me during thunderstorms, pretending to be afraid, but just wanting an excuse to cuddle up and be read to. Lately, she's been less warm, but I chalk that up to the beginning of teenage hormones and whatever other pre-adolescent weirdness that she's going through.

I remember being very aware of my body when I started to go through puberty and being embarrassed if I touched any part of my body against any male, even one of my brothers. In fact, when I was fourteen, a couple days after I started my first period, I brushed my fingers against Sam's as we were both reaching for a box of cereal for breakfast. I was so flustered, and immediately angry, that I grabbed the box, flung it at him, then stormed from the room, refusing to speak to anyone for days afterwards. Hopefully, since she doesn't share from the same genetic pool as I do, Karen won't be quite as dramatic as I was.

Karen's little brother, Andrew, is nine years old and looks very similar to his sister, though he's very small for his age while Karen is in the middle of a growth spurt. Andrew has a mop of dirty-blonde curls that fall down the back of his neck and into his midnight blue eyes. Both his mother and my mother always seem to be following him around with a pair of scissors, trying to convince him to let them try to cut it back, but wanting to keep his unruly curls is one of the few things that my stepbrother is stubborn about. My mother mentioned something once about a bad experience at a hairdresser's when Andrew was little, but it's become one of those memories that I'm not quite sure if I actually recall her telling me or if I've created the memory to make sense out of Andrew's hatred of having his hair cut.

While Karen is bold, dramatic, and sometimes a little overbearing, Andrew is timid and sometimes bordering on silent. He spends most of his time with his mother and stepfather, but I have to admit that even though I don't see him very often, he is easy to miss when he is here. With so many other kids running around, and so many other things happening all the time, Andrew tends to blend into the background. It's as if he takes things in and processes them, waiting for later when he can play out his stories with his action figures. It's one of the few things he does have in common with Karen, an insatiable imagination that needs only the little bit of information to feed it.

OK. Here's where it gets really interesting.

When I was in the eighth grade, Mom and Watson decided to adopt another child, except they didn't see the need to tell any of kids waiting at home in advance. I suppose that they thought the whole surprise of it would make up for the fact that they were springing a totally new human being into our family. Admittedly, after the initial shock of meeting the little Vietnamese baby named Emily Michelle wore off, I was a little irritated. I love babies, don't get me wrong, but I would have liked to have been kept in the loop here. I know my older brothers felt the same way, but it wore off almost immediately as we got to know Emily Michelle better.

Though Emily Michelle was shy and timid at first, she gradually began to grow more and more boisterous as she grew older and more confident with the language (English not being her first language). It wasn't very surprising to anyone when Emily Michelle latched onto Karen and began to follow her around like a little puppy. Now that Emily Michelle is seven and a confident first grader, she shows a lot of interest in the things that I used to like as a little kid: hopscotch, jump rope, games of Tag and Hide and Seek, as well as organizing the neighbor kids into little games of their own inventing.

Then, when Emily Michelle was five, Mom found herself pregnant for the fifth time. I had to admit, some of us kids had our reservations. I personally was terrified because I knew Mom was way too old to being another baby. What if the baby developed some sort of horrible disease or something? Worse, what if Mom died as a result of trying to have this late-life child? Charlie, on the other hand, was more upset by the fact that Mom and Watson were having another kid when they already had so many to worry about. He would usually become angry when a bill would come in the mail for him and would start to complain about how he was going to afford to finish college when Mom and Watson kept adding more kids into the family.

Grace Marie came crashing into the world just two days before my sixteenth birthday and when Charlie set eyes on her, it was as if all of his doubts and worries about college, and money, and finding a job were forgotten. He'd drive around town with her strapped into her car seat and show her off almost as if she were his own daughter.

My little half-sister is only kid in our whole family who is a genuine ginger baby. She has the most blazingly orange-red hair that I have ever seen on anyone, child or adult. My mother is ridiculously proud of it, letting Grace's hair grow out so that her thick curls fall in a mane down her back. Grace's eyes, too, are different from either Mom or Watson. They're long and almond-shaped, almost like a cat's, and such a dark brown that they appear black when she's angry or upset. Karen, lover of all things supernatural, believes that Mom and Watson's real baby was stolen by fairies and that the baby we have now, Grace, is really a fairy-baby replacement. She's lost some interest in trying to convince the rest of the family that Grace is really otherworldly, but every so often she'll appear at someone's side with one of her books on the subject, citing facts that prove that she is right.

I thought things would settle down after Grace was born. Mom decided to stay home from work for a year to help Nannie take care of the younger kids, Watson took some time off, and everyone just seemed to try to settle into the routine of having a new baby in the house. After a couple of months, things looked like they were getting as much back to normal as things could in our crazy family. Of course, it was right about that time that my mother happened to come across an advertisement for foster parents.

At first, she and Watson didn't say anything to us. The whole family was in the dark, again, until about a year and a half ago, when they brought home Benny Jacobs, a nine year old boy who had been bounced from home to home since he was four. Mom and Watson never really told us exactly why Benny was in the foster care system and I supposed none of us really had the nerve to ask. As far as any of us knew, kids in the foster care system were there for one, or more, of three reasons: they had awful parents, they had no parents, or they were awful kids. Charlie, Sam, and I were old enough to sense that Benny was a decent kid, if shy and not very open, so I guess we made it clear enough to the younger kids to stay off his back. In my mind, I always figure that Benny will tell us when he is ready.

It was hard at first to get him to mesh with the rest of the family. He flinched at loud noises, of which there was no lack of in our home, and tended to shy away from physical contact. Still, he seemed to enjoy spending time with David Michael and quickly developed a strong affection for my grandmother as well. Mom and Watson have been working on the adoption process recently so that Benny won't ever have to worry about moving into another home, with another family, and having to wonder what that new place will be like.

Sometimes, it's hard to imagine how Mom and Watson get up all the energy that they do to have so many kids. Don't get me wrong, I thrive on the energy that bursts at every possible seam of this mansion, but I don't know how people at their age can still manage it.

Oh, right. Back to the current scene.

And, play.

"Shannon! Get off Kristy!"

Oh, by the way, my name is Kristy. That's short for Kristen Amanda Thomas, but nobody ever calls me that unless I'm in big trouble, and then it's usually only my mother who gets away with calling me that.

"Benny, I thought I asked you to take Shannon downstairs," I heard Watson call as over one hundred pounds of happy wiggling dog crawled on me. I tried to shove her off and got a lick in the eye for my efforts.

"Well, I was going to, but then she saw that Kristy left her door open and I couldn't hold onto to her," Benny explained. I would've rolled my eyes if I wasn't being licked frantically, as though Shannon the dog and I hadn't seen one another in years instead of just a couple of hours.

"Oof!"

Watson hauled our Bernese mountain dog off me and gave her a swat on the behind to get her moving towards the door. Shannon crouched down like she was getting ready to play as Benny clicked his tongue and shook the leash he was holding in his hand. Our dog glanced between the two of them with a look so full of comic longing and confusion that a chuckle bubbled up out of my throat. She shot a look towards me as if to say that she would happily go back to washing my face awake again, but Benny shook the leash again with a call of "walk, Shannon?" Shannon bolted out the door without a backward glance and Benny took off after her. Watson shook his head and sighed before smiling cheerfully at me.

"Good morning, sunshine."

"What time is it?" I croaked, trying to wipe some of the dog slobber off my face with the corner of my sheet. "Is the sun even up yet?"

"It's nine o'clock," Watson replied, crossing over to one of the windows in my bedroom. With another grin, he flung open the blue and purple checkered curtains, letting in a flood of golden sunlight. I hissed like a vampire and flung my blankets up over my head. "They let you sleep in."

"How thoughtful of them," I groaned as I heard Watson turn and leave the room. As he closed the door behind him, I could already hear him yelling at David Michael and Karen to act like civilized human beings. I don't know why he even bothered.

Now that I was actually awake, I climbed out of bed and walked over to my dresser. I would've just liked to toss on a pair of denim shorts and a tank top like usual, but with the day's events I knew I ought to put on something a little nicer.

My friends and I were planning on having a day of nothing but pampering. Stacey, someone who I had known for a long time, had been obsessing over the stress that college undoubtedly would bring (can you believe I am friends with someone who would find a way to stress over stress?) and had decided that the cure to the pre-college jitters was being treated like a princess. I wasn't looking forward to a mud mask (if I wanted to slap mud on my face, I would just go outside and play with the little kids), but I had decided not to argue and to take things in stride today.

I selected a pair of khaki capris and a navy blue polo shirt. I slid on a pair of flip flops that looked like straw woven together. To top everything off, I used an actual hair tie instead of a rubber band to tie my hair back in a high ponytail. It was extremely preppy, or at least what I supposed preppy looked like, and not something I would usually wear, but at least it was comfortable.

Flinging my bedroom door open, I found Grace sitting across the hallway, happily coloring on the new paint job my mom had just finished a few days ago.

"Gracie!" I moaned and she turned around.

"I make boat!" she reported, sounding so proud of her achievement that I couldn't bring myself to yell at her. Instead, I scooped her up in my arms and swung her around in a tight circle. She let out a burp that clearly meant one more turn and I'd have to change my clothes on account of toddler vomit. I quickly settled her on my hip and snatched a robin's egg blue crayon from her pudgy fist.

"You have coloring books, you know."

"No boats. I want to make boat," she explained slowly. I knew my sister considered most of us to be complete idiots, evident by the way she always explained herself with slow, deliberate speech. I nodded.

"Let's go find Nannie?" I asked, trying to distract her. I didn't especially feel like having to re-explain to her why she wasn't allowed to color on the walls, so I was relieved when Grace smiled with a nod of her own.

Oh, by the way, my house doesn't just consist of my parents and my brood of brothers and sisters. My grandmother, Nannie, also lives with us. Did I forget to mention that? She first came to live with us when my parents adopted Emily Michelle, but decided to stay, especially after Mom became pregnant with Grace.

"Nannie!"

"I'm in the kitchen, Kristy!"

I trotted into the kitchen, bouncing a giggling Grace on my hip as I went. She likes to play horsy and with so many older brothers and sisters, she has plenty of opportunities. I slid her off my hip and held her out to Nannie, who had her hair pulled back from her face with a kerchief. She set down a sponge before reaching out to take Gracie.

"Mom has to repaint the wall outside my door. Picasso has struck again."

"Oh dear," Nannie said, setting Grace down on the middle island in our kitchen. Grace shrugged nonchalantly and began kicking her bare feet. "Why don't you stay here and help me clean the kitchen?"

I started to leave as Nannie began to explain to Grace how to rub the sponge on the counter to pick up dirt the best when I was accosted by Charlie. I nearly fell on the damp floor as my older brother plowed into me, his arms full of boxes. Charlie let out an annoyed grunt as the boxes clattered onto the floor.

"Charlie!"

"Kristy, watch where you're going!" he snapped.

"What's up with the boxes?"

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck, shooting a glance in my direction. "I'm trying to pack."

"You're moving out?" Nannie and I asked at the same time. Grace pitched the sopping sponge at my brother and left a sudsy streak on his jeans. Charlie gave us one of those smiles where all he really does is make his lips thin. It reminds me a lot of Dad when he does that.

"You're expecting me to stay here?"

"Boats!" Grace shrilled loudly, smashing the sponge down onto the wet kitchen counter the moment Charlie handed it back to her. She began to chant the word in rhythm to her smashes. Charlie brushed a streak of suds from the lower leg of his jeans and rolled his eyes. I grinned at him and gave him a small shove.

"Only forever," I replied, dodging around him as he reached out to punch my shoulder. I let out a yelp as I felt the sponge hit the back of my head. "Gross!"

"Kristy! Come up here and get Karen out of the bathroom! I'm already late for work!"

Brushing the greasy suds out of my hair, I sighed. I was going to be late to "Stacey's Day of Pampering," but I didn't really mind. As insanely crazy as my household was, I knew I was going to miss it. I wanted to make the most of every moment I had until I was shipped off to college.

"Karen!" I yelled as I walked upstairs. "If you let David Michael in, I'll buy you a new bottle of nail polish!"

The door cracked open slightly and I could tell that Karen had her foot braced against it to keep David Michael from shoving it open any further. She gave me a suspicious look.

"Seriously?" she asked.

I shrugged then held out my hands, palms up. "Sure, why not."

She looked me up and down. "Three bottles," she countered.

David Michael let out a squawk of indignant outrage.

"One bottle, Karen," I said firmly. "And, if you don't open the door right now, I will begin a full-on siege with you myself and you so know you don't want me as your enemy in this war."

"OK, fine!" she snapped, eyes darting between me and my brother. The door shut and for a moment, I wondered if she had simply retreated back into the bathroom. Then I heard the clatter of bottles and containers being moved around. "Deal!"

The moment the door opened, David Michael shoved Karen out of his way and slammed the door behind her. Guiding a whining Karen back to her room, while debating with her about which shade of polish to buy, I realized that there wasn't anywhere else I would rather be.

I sure hoped this college thing wasn't going to be as awful as I worried it might be.