Disclaimer: I don't own any of the actual characters from the book. The children however are all my OCs.
When I was younger, my mother used to tell stories of her Liars and as I got closer to the age of 4 she would break down in tears admitting they'd died by her hand. It was obvious how, the fire that killed the pets killed them too. I never told her I remembered once I got older, never told her that I knew she named me and my brothers after them a fact that Uncle Will and Uncle Taft had told me. I was Mirren and my brothers were Johnny and Gat, I was the heiress as she was before me but we spent our money wisely. Kept our family close, I was on great terms with my cousins, my uncles and aunts. They'd seen what had happened to our grandmothers/their mothers and our great Grandfather and no one wanted that.
My cousins and I as well as my brothers all had a system, it was an 'I get you something, you don't have to pay me money. Just do something kind' system. It was based off my namesake's moto but we had all started giving gifts back to one another when we bought something too.
We made dares to how much money we could raise in a single week and then how much of that money we could give to the homeless people we saw walking around our home cities at least once every 4 months. We all lived close even if we were in different cities and unlike our parents, we all made time to see each other when we weren't on the island.
The Island was private and small but big enough to have hidden areas. Most of them my mother had shown, others we'd found. We called ourselves the Imps. Me, Gat, Johnny, Caleb and Anne. Anne was the youngest and all of our younger cousins weren't interested in hanging out with us so while we were bigger than the Liars, we were smaller than our family. Cuddletown was what my mother gave to me since none of the family wanted it but me and my brothers. She lived with the twins and the twins didn't mind, I'm pretty sure it was because she helped raise some of my younger cousins but I never mentioned because she was happy. Gat, Johnny and I all helped Caleb and Anne move in thus giving the Twins and Uncle Will another room in their houses to play with.
We kept it the same even after we got the place refurnished, changed the furniture when it got uncomfortable yes but apart from that it stayed the same and looked like it did back when mum was my age, it just worked better than before. Anne and I shared a room and we put our beds up against either wall and had the rest of the room to do with what we wished, her bed was close to the door and when we wanted to be alone we pushed her bed against the door to block the boys entry while my bed was in front of the window so we could make a quick getaway if we needed to and believe me we'd needed to a few times
My brothers shared a room and Caleb slept on his own but I suspected that Caleb would drag a sleeping bag into my brothers room and sleep there sometimes just so he wasn't so alone or at least that what it thought his reason was, I never asked him about it and he never brought it up.
We kept the fridge well stocked with ginger ale and soft drink and the shelves were filled with things that weren't good for us but we were happy, we ate most of our main meals with the family and chatted with our other cousins about the things we'd done and it kept the younger ones eating while they listened which I'm sure our other family were thankful for.
Anne and I made up stories sometimes, I'd found this document on my mother's computer and it was filled with fairytale stories she'd come up with. Some were morbid but others were nice and Anne and I get inspired by those. I printed the stories out secretly and Mother was never the wiser.
I remember the first night we ever printed them out and made them into a book, we were hyped up on caffeine and Anne and I couldn't sleep so she grabbed her notebook and I grabbed my laptop and we moved into the main room. We finished off writing our stories and ended up waking the boys up with our printing and giggling, Caleb had made a Tom Riddle diary over the past summer from a youtube video and knew how to make a nice cover so we showed him how big it needed to be and he worked his magic. We gave it over to my brothers so they could draw some pretty pictures (Johnny) and write all the titles in beautiful gold font (Gat)
We all looked at the book when it was done and beamed at each other and then we spent the rest of the morning re-organising the bookshelves in the main room we had had a place to put it, we all collapsed into bed and slept till late afternoon. I think my mother was going to scold us when we turned up for Dinner but when we showed her what we'd stayed up all night doing, she'd praised all of our hard work and had showed the book around saying 'look at what our little imps have done, they made such a wonderful thing' and I remember her turning to look at us and all of us beamed at her and just like that everyone wanted to look at it.
We ended up making another bunch of books with a different bunch of stories in each for our parents so they could have something to read the littles to sleep every night and so every little cousin of ours could have something special just for them. We still have our first book, it's sitting in our bookshelf but Gat is the only one who reads it. Johnny was never the reading sort and Anne and I could recite those stories in our sleep from how many times we read and re-read them.
Anne and I never really thought about what we wanted to do once we got older and finished school, I know I assumed that my mother would have something lined up for me and Anne's mother Liberty didn't often speak of that sort of thing so it was a shock to both of us when our mothers got talking about the two of us becoming professional authors. They discussed what type of degrees we'd need and how we'd need to get better at hand writing and how they might even get Johnny to give us drawing lessons.
Anne and I brought it up with the rest of the Imps later on that night and I was as nervous as Anne about it, being an author would be fun but it was hard work with the deadlines and whatnot. Johnny laughed at our worry
"Oh would you two just calm down" he said wrapping his arms around our shoulders "You both love writing and would be fools to pass this up"
"Yeah stop stressing and agree, we'll even help with the degree stuff" Caleb said and Gat threw a paper ball at him
"Speak for yourself, I'm going to be much too busy swimming" Gat said and I laughed before running over and pouncing on my brother before starting to tickle him which caused him to laugh loudly
"I'll keep tickling until you change your mind!" I threatened and he let out a fake-whimper and Anne bit her lip watching us
"Please Gat, our stories are nothing without Johnny's drawings and your amazing illuminations" She said and I paused my tickling but continued to hold my hands up threateningly
"Well you're not wrong about that so okay, I guess I'll help out too but! I want to have lots of hugs and you gotta promise you won't forget about us" He said and I looked at his face, he looked so serious. I hugged him tightly and Anne was giving him her 'oh cousin' look which showed no pity but lots of love
"Of course we aren't, your my brother and Anne's cousin and we both love you. All of you to pieces" I said and Gat hugged me back and we both shifted so we were sitting up and Caleb, Johnny and Anne all came over and made it a group hug "Plus if we do this, it'll mean we'll get to see each other and will have no excuse for cutting off contact"
I don't remember who cheered first but then we were all cheering and laughing and grinning, after we'd calmed down we'd all darted to our rooms and had grabbed our laptops, notebooks and stuff to write with and had sat down. Anne and I spoke about our ideas for stories and we hashed them out until the characters were made and Johnny had drawn all of them beautifully and Gat had made the most amazing border around the picture. Caleb then asked about what we wanted the outside of each book to look like and we hashed out the details with that.
It was around 3 in the morning when we all realized how tired we were and we'd set out a sleeping fort before curling up and sleeping around the coffee table.
That was last summer. We'd all kept in contact and had even met up a few times but I was excited as the summer drew closer. There was nothing like living with 4 other people who you loved dearly and Anne had so many stories she wanted to show me so I was going to be doing a lot of reading. I was even going to suggest that she get the boys to help her make the stories she'd written into proper books and I hoped she liked the idea.
Johnny was whining every day about how the summer was so far away and Gat and I kept reminding him it was only blah many days but it didn't change a thing, he was excited as I was. He wanted to show Anne and Caleb his newer drawings and I was itching to write stories based off them with Anne, Gat on the other hand had gotten even better at his illuminations. Had decided he wanted to do it professionally and Anne and I had spent day after day on the phone talking about it, we decided to ask him together if we could hire him and if he wanted to work alongside us? I knew I'd get to see him if he said no. He was my brother after all and I lived with him but Anne didn't get to see him as often and I knew that my cousin missed all three of us a lot. Caleb did too but we already knew that. He was the most vocal about it.
The morning on the day we were leaving the island, Gat, Johnny and I were all bouncing up and down in front of the door. Our bags were packed and we were watching mum finish packing herself and when she turned and saw us, she laughed and smiled.
"My three little monkeys, so excited to go back" She said, we tried to explain to her how the island felt like home but we'd given up a long time ago
"Of course! Anne and Caleb are going to be there and we have so much to do" Gat said and Johnny and I nodded in agreement which caused mother to laugh again
"Well I best not keep you waiting, on we go!" she announced and we all cheered before grabbing out bags and we left. Got into the family car and drove to where we knew Uncle Taft and Uncle Will-as well as Caleb- would be waiting for us for the beach. Mum had barely parked the car before all of us were getting out of it and getting out bags out of the boot. We heard a shout of our names and grinned at each other before racing down to the pier where we were greeted by not only our uncles and Caleb but Anne as well. Us Imps met halfway and we fell onto the pier in a tangle of limbs and laughter and the bright and warm feeling in my chest spread throughout my body. I could tell this was going to be our best Summer yet.