So, NaNoWriMo officially ended yesterday. This was my first year attempting it, and guess what! I WON! I managed to write about 50700 words throughout the month of November. And, I know it distresses a few of you to hear this, it was an original fiction. However, if you are interested in reading it let me know and I will send you a link to where it is posted on FictionPress.

Now, on to why you're witnessing the birth of a new story when I haven't completed others (again!). To celebrate my survival of November, I decided to put in some work on my fanfics. So I opened up all my full length fanfics intending to get a chapter on at least one of them and start the ball rolling. As I was clicking on the little document icons, however, my gaze slipped to another title in the list. "Little Lupe." A document I started before even thinking up You're Pretty Messed Up Too. It was GOING to be the next story I posted. But then imagination took over. So it was saved and briefly forgotten about.

I ended up opening it and having a read, realising that I couldn't go with my original plan for the story because it paralleled YPMUT to a great degree. However, as I sat considering it, a new plot came to mind and I promptly set about tweaking the first chapter (which was already written) to fit the new direction.

And that's why I'm posting it now. I promise I will continue to work on the others. In fact, after this is up I'm going straight over to work on That Froghurt Guy. If a chapter for it isn't up by Monday you have permission to shoot me.

Anyway, now that you've practically heard my life's story, I'll let you get on with reading.

Chapter 1

There's something to be said for being a girl and a youngest child. For one, I get treated like a princess half the time, and as barfy as that might sound, it can be very beneficial. For example. Lawn mowing? Not my job. Taking the garbage out? Not mine either. Cleaning the downstairs bathroom? Okay, that one is mine, but it beats cleaning the upstairs bathroom. On the cleanliness scale where one is clean and ten is the standard a health inspector would shut a business down for, the upstairs bathroom tends to rate at about a seven and a half about four days after being scrubbed clean. Downstairs, on the other hand, manages to reach a three if left alone for about a fortnight. So I wasn't really complaining about that one.

Where was I?

Oh, right. It's pretty good to be me. I don't get the dirty, retch-inducing chores. I don't get yelled at for sitting on the furniture directly after my jog. And I get the last of the good cereal. That last one isn't really a perk that has been arbitrarily bestowed upon me, although I do tend to finish off the box quite often. No, this was merely coincidental. It helped that my older brother was rarely out of bed before I left for school in the morning.

I was finishing the last of my juice when Dad sauntered into the kitchen, fresh from his post-morning-run shower and swiped up the empty cereal box that was sat in front of me, dumping it in the trash can in the same swift movement before grabbing his granola off the shelf and sitting at the side of the table adjacent to mine. I wasn't quite sure how he always knew if the box was empty, but I'd learned not to ask. Asking about such things often brought me an enigmatic and somewhat confusing reply. I didn't need to start my day off with a brain ache.

"Morning, Little Lupe," Dad greeted as I tossed him the business section of today's paper.

Dad's always called me Little Lupe. At first it was a simple shortening of my name. Regina Guadeloupe Garcia. Yep, Guadeloupe. Spanish for River of Wolves or something like that. Also a reference to the Virgin Mary maybe? I don't know. It's been a few years since I did the research. Anyway, most people just call me Reggie. Except Dad. Apparently he's fond of using middle names. Like, he goes by Ricardo, despite his first name being Carlos.

Anyway, recently Little Lupe has come to be a reference to my wolf like tendencies – no, I'm not a werewolf, but how cool would that be?! I've been jogging for fitness since I was about eleven, but never really thought I was very athletic. Apparently though, I'm good at sprinting. This I found out in my first high school P.E. lesson, where I was then labelled as their last hope on the track. Embarrassing, I know, but only like six people ever turn up to watch track training

Another aspect of my wolfiness is my reflexes. I prefer to refer to it as ninja skill though, because how awesome are ninjas? This one time, I slapped a piece of cake out of my brother's hand just as he was bringing it to his mouth. It caused him to bite down on thin air, his teeth clacking together painfully. Serves him right since he'd pinched the cake from my plate in the first place.

"Morning," I replied, taking my bowl and glass to the sink and rinsing them.

As I began preparing sandwiches for my lunch, Dad started up a conversational tone. "I'll be home a little late tonight," he informed me.

I nodded, scooping peanut butter out of the jar and slathering it onto the bread. "It's Steve's turn," I replied.

Now Dad nodded (ever so slightly) and as if on cue, Stephen Carlos Garcia – otherwise known as my dear brother – stumbled into the kitchen, scratching his bare chest and yawning, his hair sticking up at odd angles. He mumbled something that might have resembled a greeting and plonked into a chair at the small kitchen table. Blindly, he reached out and grabbed the cereal box from the centre of the table and managed to pour a handful onto the table before cursing under his breath and glaring at me, like it was my fault.

Of course, part of the reason for his annoyance was my fault, since the only cereal on offer was Dad's tasteless, healthy stuff. The other part was the lack of bowl, sitting, waiting patiently and obediently to catch his cereal. That was entirely his own doings.

Without speaking, Steve walked past me to the cupboard and grabbed a bowl. On his way back to the table he shoved me aside in order to fish a spoon out of the drawer.

"What's wrong with that one?" I asked, pointing to the recently cleaned spoon in the drainer as he sat back down.

Steve just gave me a look as he swept his spilled cereal into the bowl before topping it up from the box. He'd just taken his first bite when Dad spoke again, in that same conversational tone that so wasn't at all like him.

"I'll be home a little late tonight," he informed Steve.

A grunt and another accusing glare at me. I'm sure you're getting the impression by now that Steve was not a morning person. And you would be absolutely correct. Sometimes he doesn't muster the verbal dexterity for human speech until one in the afternoon, which made arguing my case much easier when convincing him to cover my dish duty on weekends.

"Seven o'clock," Dad continued.

"Mmhmm," Steve murmured.

Dropping my butter knife, I interrupted their repartee. "Just a moment, Dad," I said. "I'll translate for you. Oo, oo-ah, ah-oo, oo-oo, ah-oo, oo-ah-oo," I grunted like a monkey, waving my arms above my head and walking toward Steve on legs that were bent, adding to my ape impression.

He snatched up the tissue box from the centre of the table and half-heartedly lobbed it at my head. I caught it easily, grinning as he went back to his breakfast.

"I want dinner on the table."

"What?!" Steve exclaimed, dribbling milk down his chin. Ah, there's nothing like a shock to the system to bring on the ability to form whole words. "That's so not fair! It's not even supposed to be my turn to cook!"

This was true, but there was nothing he could do about it. I'd covered for him on four separate occasions in the past month and the conditions were that I could claim repayment at my chosen time. At that was now. Whether he liked it or not he was cooking dinner tonight.

I finished making my sandwiches, wrapped them up and put them on the table next to my biology text book. Before I'd even taken another step away from the table to collect my pre-prepared salad from the fridge, Steve had snatched the sandwiches and set them on his other side, out of my immediate reach. Popping my hip, I put my hand on my waist and stared at him pointedly.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You have a choice," I told him. "I can either make your sandwiches and I chat on Facebook while you slave over a hot stove all on your lonesome. Or you give me back my sandwiches and I won't help you with dinner."

Dad eyed us suspiciously, not that I could blame him. For one, while Steve had trouble with mind fog in the morning, Dad had been awake for at least an hour already and was perfectly capable of full human communication within the first ten seconds of awaking. My double negative was not lost on him. Of course, he had actively encouraged my manipulation skills for a time, telling me that they were valuable, that they would get me where I want to go in life. That all ended when he realised that I'd started using them on him, though. It was a weird moment. He was, at once, angry with me, and immensely proud of my progress. I'd been given an ice cream sundae and then sent to my room for the rest of the weekend. Then there was the fact that he didn't approve of us working together. Not unsupervised at least. And especially not in the kitchen. With the hot things. And the sharp pointy objects.

Steve rolled his eyes, just like Mom, and shovelled another bite of cereal into his mouth. I thought – or perhaps hoped – that this meant he was stalling while he weighed his options. To my gag-reflex's horror, however, he began speaking with his mouth full.

"That's gross!" I exclaimed before he'd garbled two words around his granola. "Dad, make him stop!"

Dad – God bless him – looked like he wanted to sigh. Instead, though, in some ninja type move, he handed me my sandwiches, while he simultaneously pulled two tissues from the box that was now once more in the middle of the table, handing them to Steve and raised his own spoonful of cereal to his mouth. I swear Dad has an extra hand hidden somewhere, not that I want to think about where it could be hidden, because I'd seen him walking around in just boxer shorts.

"Stephen will be making dinner by himself tonight," Dad decreed causing Steve's mouth to hang open in disgust (empty this time, thank God). "And making your own lunch."

"But she got her sandwiches back!" he exclaimed.

"You're old enough to make them yourself," Dad said. It wasn't much like him to step in between us like this. Usually he just let us work it out ourselves. Then again, usually, he didn't have to deal with both of us first thing in the morning.

That reminded me.

"What are you doing up, anyway?" I asked.

"I couldn't sleep," he deadpanned. "Someone had the radio on full blast."

"I like to hear the news over the sound of water gushing out of the shower head," I explained. "I can see why you wouldn't understand though, since you neither bathe nor keep up with current events."

He opened his mouth to retort but I cut him off swiftly.

"Twitter doesn't count."

"Enough," Dad said. There was no force behind the command. He didn't need it. We knew all too well what happened when we didn't obey. It had changed a few times over the years, but still maintained the same level of screw-with-your-day. He pointed his spoon at me. "You're gonna be late."

I nodded, grabbed my lunch and textbook from the table, dumped both into my back pack and nabbed my jacket from the hook in the hall on my way to the door. I'd just opened the security screen when I felt Dad's presence behind me. Turning, I found he was two steps away, but that changed as he pulled me into a hug.

"Dad?" I asked as he loosened his grip.

"Happy Birthday, Lupe," he murmured, turning me around and pushing me out the door as the bus pulled to the curb.

I managed to stumble down the porch steps and jog to the bus, stepping on and flashing my pass before turning back to the house only to find the front door was already closed. Shell shocked, I made my way down the aisle of the bus to an empty seat. I may be the only fifteen year old in the history of the twenty-first century to forget her own birthday.

Thanks for taking a chance on the new story. Please leave a review to let me know what you think and whether you'd like it continued.