Chapter One
Ten Years Ago
"So Mom, we're REALLY going to go buy a new brother or sister?" a 6 year old Carlos asked his mother, who laughed when he said 'buy'. "Yes. We are going to the orphanage, and mommy, daddy, you and your friends are going to pick out someone to be your brother or sister." She said with a smile. "Do you want a brother or a sister?" Kendall asked from the backseat where he was sitting with Logan. Carlos thought for a moment, then answered "Definitely a brother. Girls are weird. And he has to be older."The other boys agreed.
Mr. Garcia opened the doors to a huge, gym-like space, where hundreds of children played. "We have to choose from HERE?" James whined, looking at the many children who were jump-roping, playing tag, or coloring. Suddenly, a girl wearing a faded pink dress pushed through the boys and parents who were standing at the door. "Excuse me" she said, running past them with a corndog in her hand and her platinum blonde hair flying behind her. The orphanage's cook was close behind her, yelling "THEIF! THEIF!" The girl ran through the whole gym and out the doors on the other side. The boys stared after her. "Was she carrying a CORNDOG?" Carlos asked. "I think so" Logan said in amazement.
After 3 hours of their parents talking to kids, and having the boys meet them and instantly reject them, the boys were dead tired. They were sitting on the floor of the gym, in a corner where none of the orphans were, watching Carlos's parents talk to ANOTHER snobby-looking kid. The nice lady from the desk when they had first come in walked in, carrying the girl from earlier, the one who had been chased by the cook, into the room. She didn't try to fight; she just glared up at her. The boys watched them closely, getting a better look than before. She had platinum blonde hair and blue-green eyes. She looked about their age. Now wearing a hockey jersey that fell down to her ankles and with the sleeves rolled up, she ran over to the opposite corner, where a make shift net and stick lay on the floor. She picked up a plastic ball and started hitting into the net. The boys looked at each other, and then ran over to meet her. Carlos ran up and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around. "Hi, I'm Carlos." He said, waving. "I'm Kaylee" she said, returning the. Each of the other boys also introduced themselves. "Did you build that yourself?" Logan asked. She nodded. "I don't have enough monies to buy one, so I made it out of some sticks and old basketball nets." "Cool." James said. "Can we play with you?" Kendall asked. "I only have one hockey stick." Kaylee pointed out. "That's okay, we can take turns shooting." Carlos said.
They all played hockey together for about a half-hour, and then Carlos's parents called them all over. "Bye" Kaylee said sadly. Nobody ever stayed and played with her for very long. Actually, nobody came to play with her at ALL. Maybe it was because she stole corndogs from the kitchen a lot, so people saw her as a bad influence. "Well kids, it doesn't look like any of the kids here are very nice so we can try another orphanage…" Mrs. Garcia said. "NO! Mommy there's this really nice girl who loves corndogs and hockey ad she's really really nice."Carlos said. "AND she built her own hockey stick and net." Logan added. "So can she PRETTY pleeeeaaasssse be my sister?" Carlos begged. All of the boys begged her to go meet Kaylee until his mother finally caved in and went to meet her. She talked to Kaylee, and she seemed very nice, so they decided to adopt her. They did all of the paperwork and found out that her birthday was on the same day as Carlos's, and that he was only 15 minutes older, making them twins! Lastly, they found out that the reason Kaylee was here was because her dad killed her mom and them killed himself, so she was considered traumatized. And so it happened that Carlos had a new twin sister, Kaylee Garcia.