This is the sequel to "An Afterword". It's advisable that you read that first so that you understand why things are the way they are in this story. However, if you're daring, I will not stop you from reading this without it. The idea came into me head after re-reading some of my olderstuff, and I thought the concept was humorous. Let me know what you think and if I should continue.

Twice as Much as Half

I've often fantasised about being a normal kid. I've dreamed of it ever since I started school and realised I wasn't. In my dream I have a mother who is a housewife and a father who works in a local factory and they both love and adore me very much. In the evenings mum will make a pot roast or meat loaf and we all sit down to eat as a family at exactly six o'clock without fail. The family dog comes to meet me at the door and licks my face in greeting when I arrive home from school each day and sleeps at the foot of my bed at night. Mum teaches me to cook and sew and we have tea parties in the living room with all my dolls as guests. Dad takes me to the park on weekends and helps me climb the monkey bars even though Mum says I'm too little. When it storms we sit together in the kitchen playing board games by candle light and when I have a nightmare I crawl between them in their big comfy bed and they both wrap their arms around me until I fall asleep again, whispering words of love and comfort.

The reality of my situation is that my father is a homicide detective with the Trenton Police Department and my father is the owner of a security company named Rangeman. Yes, you read that correctly, I have two fathers and they're complete opposites, let me tell you. Dad (the detective) was a by the books kind of guy, he was all rules and regulations and you can't do that it's illegal. Papa, on the other hand, introduced me to a gun at age twelve, taught me the fine art of breaking and entering at thirteen and last year on my fourteenth birthday sat me down for a bit of a toke. Sometimes I think he does these things just to get on Dad's nerves, other times I think that they've just always been under each other's skin anyway and there wasn't a lot either one of them could do about it. After all, old habits die hard.

The living arrangements in my patchwork family are rather complicated. My permanent residence was listed as a vacant lot, the same as Papa's, this was another of those things that got on Dad's nerves. During the school term I lived with Papa in the apartment on the seventh floor of the Rangeman building. This was for stability, I had been informed when I enquired after the arrangements. Both my guardians' work schedules could be unpredictable and often were, but the fact that Papa lived in a building with many other permanent residences, including most of his employees as well as Ella, the housekeeper, and her husband, the property manager, won the stamp of approval for sufficient supervision from my grandparents, all three sets of them (but we'll get to them later). School holidays, crime rate permitting, were generally spent with Dad and Bob the dog in his two story house. New Year's, Easter, Christmas, 4th of July and any other major holidays that may have slipped my mind were spent together and Grandma and Grandpa Plum's.

That's the basic break down, but it's a whole lot more complicated than that. For the sake of your sanity, though, I'll leave it at that and add to it later on when it's absolutely necessary. For now we'll just move on with some relational details, shall we?

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned my biological parents. This is because I don't know them. I don't even know of my father. Nobody seems to know who he is, so we don't talk about him. My mother, on the other hand, was a hot topic when she was mentioned. Everyone had stories to tell me about her and there was an endless supply of photos of her. She had died when I was barely 

a year old of an inoperable brain tumour. Dad and Papa say that she was one hell of a woman (this is the only thing they ever seem to agree on).

Apparently I had inherited her sense of adventure as well as her unruly curls and vibrant blues. Great Grandma Mazur loved to regale me with tales of Mum's days as a bounty hunter. Her favourite story to tell was when she had blown up the funeral home, of course every other story came as a close second. We would sit for hours in the living room, her going on and on about how mum used to roll in garbage and me listening raptly. Grandma Plum would cross herself and roll her eyes to the ceiling every time she overheard her telling me about the penis that Mum had once received by special delivery. It made me wonder if Great Gran was off her rocker like Grandpa said, and all the events she told me about were just a product of an overactive imagination. She certainly seemed to be the only one to ever talk about them. I tried asking Papa about them once and he'd just laughed and shook his head. Dad's reaction was to change the subject immediately, so I guess there must be some kind of truth to it.

The Plums were my blood Grandparents and Great Gran was Grandma's mother. In addition I also had Papa's parents, whom I called Abuela and Abuelo, and Dad's mum and grandma, Nan and Nana Bella. We had to give them all specific names like this so that I was spending half my time clarifying which grandparent I was referring to. I had a few cousins that I didn't particularly like spending time with, which was okay by Dad and Papa, so we never went out of our way to see them.

So that's all the background I can think of to give you at the moment. Anything else can be added in as needed. Right now, however, I guess I should get on with my story:

I sat on the bench outside the front entrance of my school, waiting. Papa had arrived a minute ago and was making his way across the crowded car park toward me. Dad was late as always. Tonight was the part of my life that I really didn't like. Parent night. Each year at the end of the first term schools held a night where teachers and parents could meet and go over anything that may concern them. My particular situation caused a plethora of weird stares all night, which I had learned to tune out quite early on, they were now no more than a backdrop for my life. Of course the assumption most outsiders made on first finding out that I had two fathers was that they were gay. Which, for the record is soooo far from the truth it's laughable.

My friends all thought it was cool that I had two fathers. Unfortunately, this year saw me changing schools and leaving those friends behind. The tale of why I had to change schools is a long one, so suffice to say that "KABOOM!" is not the favourite sound of a principle, even if it was an accidental KABOOM! So I had been thrust into a new environment with new people who weren't all that ready to accept my differences. My old friends and I had been together since kindergarten, my differences had become normal to them. These girls, however (and I use the term loosely. One could liken them more aptly to serpents, but we won't go into that), sought me out each day to ridicule my life. I ignored it of course, but it still gets on my nerves to know that these pompous girls won't accept me for me because of my family status. It makes me want to kick them in the teeth, but I know that that would put me in the naughty column of the admin register, so I tamp it down. Tamp it down.

"He's not here yet," I said simply as Papa approached. "He's late. He's always late. We should have told him an earlier time."



"We did tell him an earlier time," Papa deadpanned.

"Where is he? He knows he's supposed to be here. Why can't he be on time just this once?"

"Relax, Genny, he'll be here. He knows how much this means to you."

Sirens blared in the distance, slowly getting closer. That would be Dad, no doubt. "I hope he turns that off before he gets here!" I groaned into my hands as I hid behind them. Papa was on his cell phone in an insant, probably calling Dad to tell him to shut the damn siren off if he ever wanted to be allowed anywhere near me ever again. He has a real way with words. Minutes later Dad pulled into the lot and ran swiftly through the cars to where we stood. He hugged me, and I allowed it before taking a steadying breath and turning to lead them both through the front doors to the small assembly room just down the hall. All heads turned to stare as we entered, but none of us took any notice, we were good like that.

"Well," the woman I had come to know as the year co-ordinator began. "Now that we're all here I suppose we can get started." She rubbed her hands together. "As most of you know, tonight is about smoothing over any concerns you and your family, or your teachers may have concerning school life. Each family is required for a five minute session with the councillor over here to the left of the stage. The times are listed on the back of the map you were handed on your way in. The teachers will be stationed around the room. You should each have a list of which teachers require time with you, so don't let me eat up any more of your time, go mingle."

"Gen, which of your teachers want to see us?" Dad asked, a pained expression on his face. I totally understood his apprehension, this was a new environment and there would be a lot of questions to answer and weird looks to ignore. I was old hat at my previous school. The only teachers I ever had to see at these nights there were the ones that thought I wasn't performing up to standard. Here every man and his dog wanted an interview, just for the curiosity factor. Curiosity killed the cat, my friends. I know this. I've seen this. It wasn't pretty.

I held up the slip I had received in form that morning so that he could see it. "All of them," I sighed, just in case he couldn't put two and two together. "When's our time?" I asked, referring to the most dreaded event of the evening. The councillor visit. That's where all the most embarrassing questions came out.

"In about five minutes," Papa said steadily. He was always like that. Never conveyed his emotions out in public, especially at school functions, unless it was that he was proud of me, or pleased with something I had done. Dad had a bit more trouble with the task. There was a lot of teeth clenching and knuckle cracking on his part. Me? I just tried to zone out as much as possible. It seemed to work for me.

"There you are!" came an excited voice from behind me just before I was seized in a hug. "Great Freya, I thought you were going to skip out on me and leave me alone to behold the stares of rejection. I'm so glad you came!" Carefully, I extracted myself from the vice like grip and turned around to face my attacker. It was Hailey Stewart. She was in all of my classes. Why she was hugging me like an old friend was beyond me, we'd never even spoken to each other, unless you count me asking her whether staying awake during English was worth it and her saying, 'Probably not'. I knew absolutely nothing about her, other than that she liked a bizarre flavoured of gum and her hair was 

never the same colour three days in a row. "How many teachers do you have to see?" she asked in barely more than a whisper. Her eyes were intense on mine, silently begging me to play along.

I did, mainly because this was the first time any of the girls who went here had spoken to me for any reason other than to ask if I really had two Dads. "All of them," I told her. "How about you?"

"All of them. Not that I'm surprised. I always have to see all of them. You'd think they'd be sick of me by now." She twittered out a little laugh and I did the small imitation laugh I had perfected at age five. A man cleared his voice behind her and she jumped, startled. "OH!" she exclaimed, "This is my caretaker, Henry, and his wife, Georgia."

I held out my hand politely and told them it was nice to meet them. They returned the favour, looking past me, searching for something. "Where are you parents?" Georgia asked.

Great, I thought, let the freak show begin. I sought Dad and Papa out over my shoulder, but couldn't see them. A sigh escaped me and I asked for a moment to go find them. They were only a few feet away, but a pot plant that looked more battered than a leaf on the horse racing track. Dragging them back to where Hailey and her caretakers were I heard Dad mumble something, but ignored it. "This is Joe Morelli, my dad," I started, indicating to my left. "And this is Ricardo Manoso, my-."

"You're that girl?" Hailey asked before I could finish. "I thought it was the dyke from our science class that sits a row in front of you!"

"Papa," I breathed in resignation. "Yeah, I'm that girl."

"Cool."

"Hailey, where are your manners?" Henry admonished.

"Oh right! This is Magenta Plum, she's new this year. We're in all the same classes." She thrust her hand out to Dad and Papa and continued. "I'm Hailey Stewart. It's a pleasure to meet you both."

Dad looked at his watch and coughed, prompting me to glance at my own. "Well, we should get going, our councillor appointment is right about now. See you tomorrow Hailey."

"You said you hadn't made any friends yet," Papa intoned.

"I haven't," I replied through gritted teeth. "That was only the second time I've spoken to her. The first was three weeks ago outside our English classroom, and the entire conversation consisted of about ten words."

"Watch your back around her, Genny, she may be up to something." This was Dad's comment. He always said stuff like that when Papa got that suspicious tone in his voice. It was mostly to lighten the mood a little, but tonight I was taking his words to heart. Everyone knew that I was the girl. That she seemed to be the only one that didn't worried me.