I woke up Monday morning at 7 a.m. School started at 8. I had an hour. I smelled coffee, waffles and muffins. I knew my mom and my older sister Molly, 19, were up, that my dad was still at the office. My youngest sister Claire, 13, was still asleep and my younger sister Margo, 15, was at ballet. She'd been there since 4 a.m. she always went early. She wanted a part in this year's upcoming performance of Dracula. She hardly ever ate. My dad wasn't home because he rarely was. We only saw my 4 brothers at night.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, I heard Mom and Molly talking with my friends Charlotte, Haley, Reba and Reba's older sister Jessi, 19.

I got up, took a shower, got dressed and went downstairs. As usual, I was dressed eccentrically, in a black leotard, long black skirt, lace-up black ankle boots and black scarf with gold stars on it. I had on my black lace fingerless gloves covering my red henna tattoos which matched my short, thick, fluffy dark-red hair. I knocked on Claire's door on the way down the hall.

I went out of my room, down the hall, down the stairs, through the living room and into the small kitchen, where Molly, Mom, Reba, Haley, Charlotte and Jessi were sitting around the circular, light wooden kitchen table, talking and eating.

Reba and Jessi were the only black females in the room but that didn't bother us. Reba was gorgeous. She modeled at the same place that Claire, Morgan's younger sister Ashley, and Ruthie did. Jessi was a dancer.

There were different varieties of muffins on a white plastic plate in the center of the kitchen table, as usual. No matter what my mom was doing, what kind of day she'd had or how the night before had gone, she always made us muffins for breakfast. That never changed.

Jessi was eating a muffin and drinking hot chooclate, Mom was drinking tea, Molly was drinking coffee and Reba, Haley and Charlotte were all eating fruit and waffles with syrup and butter. I went over to the waffle iron and started making myself a waffle. While I was waiting for my waffle I poured myself a glass of milk, ate a muffin as well as some raspberries from the fridge.

"Hello Vanessa," Mom said.

"Hi."

"Don't you smell lovely this morning."

"Thank you."

I'd sprayed some rose perfume on before I came down, along with using my rose-scented body wash in the shower.

"Claire still asleep?" Molly asked.

I nodded.

"Yeah. I knocked on her door though."

"Oh. Ok."

"Hey Vanessa," Haley said.

"Hey Haley. Hey Reba."

"Hey."

"Hi Vanessa," Charlotte said.

"Hey Charlotte."

Charlotte was gorgeous, with fluffy, thick dark brown hair reaching to her shoulders and brown eyes. Her hair was not quite as thick as mine however; mine was thicker. She was petite, thin, quiet and unbearably shy. She liked to read in her spare time. I kept telling her she should go out for modeling but she was too shy to. And she was afraid of what the men at the agency would do to her. I could understand why. Margo was afraid of men as well but for a different reason. Like Sierra, another friend of ours, she was pregnant.

I put the glass of milk on the table and sat down to eat my waffle.

"Hey I got volleyball practice after school," Haley told me; "and then gymnastics."

Haley, who had blonde hair and blue eyes, liked sports, most of them. At school she took cheerleading, volleyball and soccer. Outside of school she took gymnastics.

"And I have modeling, as usual," Reba said.

"I have dance," Jessi said.

"Ok. And I don't have anything," I put in.

We all laughed.

Mom turned her head toward the stairs.

"Claire, wake up! Breakfast is ready and you have half an hour," she called.

"I like your scarf," Jessi told me.

"Thank you."

Reba, Charlotte, Haley and I'd been friends for 10 years, since we were 7. We lived in the same neighbourhood. Our friend Kerry also lived in the neighbourhood and sometimes came over. She lived with her parents and her 2 brothers; Logan, 19, and Hunter, 16. Kerry, Reba, Charlotte, Haley and I were all 17, as were our friends Morgan, Sierra and Leo. Morgan, Kerry, Margo and I all suffered from Middle Child Syndrome, since we were all middle-children. I didn't have it as bad as the others, though. Middle Child Syndrome meant we all often felt ignored by our parents, although my mom tried to make time for my siblings and I. Morgan's mom had a lot to deal with and Sierra didn't know who hers was.