Freshmen Year
Kendra reviewed her list again. She had made three. One for packing everything up. One for the night before she left and another for the morning of the trip. She had been meticulous with her lists using the one sent to her by the college, looking up suggested packing lists online, and asking everyone she knew who had been to college within the past decade. Afterall it was her first semester of college, how could she not take it seriously?
Once every item had a check next to it she decided to take a break and go downstairs. When she was rummaging through the cabinets for peanut butter she heard the back door open. She mumbled a soft "hello" to whoever walked in just loud enough for them to hear and then continued with her search. How could they be out of peanut butter? It was a household necessity and made for the best snacks! She made a mental note to always buy it in bulk when she left.
That was when she realized who it was that walked in the back door.
"Kendra Marie, I have told you a dozen times this past month alone not to climb up on the counters. You'll fall, off and break your skull." Her father scolded. "Did you even look for the stepstool?"
"Yes." She lied peeking her head around the cabinet door to view her father standing next to his own father, and Dale. She addressed Dale specifically next.
"Do you know where the peanut butter is? The skippy, not that runny all natural stuff."
"So you couldn't find the stepstool is what you're saying?" Dad interrupted before Dale could respond. His tone indicated that he already knew the answer.
"I don't know where it is, I looked everywhere." She attempted once more, hopping down from the counter now that she had been caught.
"You didn't check the pantry where it's been every other time you chose to climb up on the counters?" He crossed the kitchen to right in front of the pantry door and stopped in front of it without actually opening the door. She had one last chance. She considered her options.
"You know this is technically your fault. If you had married someone tall instead of Mom I'd be at an average height and would be able to get around conventionally sized houses easier. You've doomed me." She said without breaking eye contact. And without saying a word her father opened up the pantry door, someone had left the stepstool so it was awkwardly leaning against the door, causing it to tumble out when the door opened.
Kendra turned back to Dale.
"So where was the Skippy?"
"It's actually on the top shelf of the pantry." Dale answered, him and Grandpa had watched the entire encounter trying to hide their laughter. Kendra turned back to her father. He sighed but still reached over and tossed her the peanut butter.
"It's like you and Seth have swapped personalities lately" He commented.
"Whoops." She shrugged.
The three men started to exit the room.
"Remember that we leave tomorrow at 5 A.M. sharp." She reminded her father.
"I know, I got your hard and e-copies of the travel itinerary." He responded.
"Seth would never make one of those." Kendra pointed out to her grandfather.
"It seems like you're only swapping the best of personality traits." With a wink her grandfather disappeared before Kendra could realize what he said, when it hit her she took only a few moments to be horribly, heartbreakingly offended before laughing it off.
Kendra walked over to the silverware drawer and fished out a spoon, she looked around to make sure no one was watching and dipped the spoon directly into the jar. The she did it again, and again. She went for one last spoonful of peanut butter before she felt her phone buzz in her back pocket. It was a text from her her mother.
Remember that we are having dinner at the Larson's tonight! At 6:30!Love you!(:(:(:(:(:
Ever since Mom had gotten her new phone she had been going with emoji's and such. It made Kendra laugh every time. She texted her back.
Okay. Love you too.
It was four thirty now. Kendra slid her phone into her back pocket and put the peanut butter away deciding that it was time to get ready for her families "surprise" going away party for her.
Her family had done a very poor job of actually keeping this party secret, especially since she hadn't even actually tried to find out anything about it. On Thursday Kendra came home from a grocery run to find a huge banner stating "WE'LL MISS YOU KENDRA" written in huge box letters with flowers decorating the inside of each letter. Friday she had gotten back from her morning jog and walked down into the kitchen to find bags from a local party supply store on the countertops. She didn't bother poking around in them and when she came back downstairs later for lunch the bags were gone. Saturday she had made the trek over to her Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's only to find the biggest surprise, people. Warren, Vanessa, Tanu, and Maddox were all staying with her relatives. They were all enjoying breakfast and seemed surprised to see her. While her Grandparents started to come up with excuses and explanations Kendra just nodded and pretended to accept them. Then later that very night Kendra had seen Grandma Sorenson put out ingredients for the Brownies. And all day today, Sunday everyone had been at the Larsen's even though she had been cautioned not to come over.
So now as Kendra got ready for her "surprise" party she practiced surprised faces and vaguely wondered how her family was part of such a secretive community when they couldn't keep any aspect of this a secret. She kept her makeup light. Just a swipe of mascara and a touch of eyeliner and she was good to go. She hadn't even dressed up, opting only to wear a sweater she had stolen from Seth's donation pile this winter that hadn't fit him since he was fourteen but fit her perfectly.
The trail that they took to the Old Manor had been made when Fablehaven was reestablished and only took fifteen minutes. It was also extremely protected and scenic. It was one of her favorite paths to she was approaching the manor Kendra noticed all the lights were off. Right before she opened the door she practiced her surprised face one last time.
She opened the door and stepped inside.
The lights flicked back on.
"SURPRISE"
She spotted her parents and grandparents, Vanessa, Warren, Tanu, Maddox, Seth, Dale, Newel and Doren.
And Bracken.
"Oh my god! You guys shouldn't have!" She said just like she had practiced.
Slowly she made her way around talking to everyone and thanking them. At some point she was handed a plate full of food. She took a moment to sit then.
Her brother appeared beside her then with his own plate full. She was relieved. He was next on her list to talk to.
"Sorry I can't go with you guys tomorrow." He said. He was referring to the fact that tomorrow Kendra and her parents were leaving to take Kendra to college in Washington. She had invited Seth as well but he's opted out. Kendra shrugged.
"It's fine. I was just surprised that you didn't jump at the opportunity to miss a day of school."
"I'm going to try and take it seriously now. After all that time being homeschooled I kind of missed being in a classroom."
"Wow. Don't change too drastically too fast. They may think you're a sting bulb." That made Seth laugh.
"Anyways," she continued "You were there for all of the past important moments in my life."
"That's true," he nodded "leading a fairy army against a demon, middle school graduation, high school graduation, getting a driver's license, killing the Demon King, that whole "Slink back into your hole worm" thing..." He continued for her.
"All the moments a girl needs her brother for." Kendra finished . The two smiled. Seth wrapped an arm around his sister and she leaned her head onto his shoulder.
"I'm gonna miss you."
"Right back at ya."
"Mind if I steal her away for a moment?" Kendra instantly recognized the voice as Bracken's. Seth turned around.
"Go ahead. I think it's time for me to tell Newel and Doren to cool it anyways." Seth gestured over across the room where the duo were trying to chug a chocolate fountain. When he made his way over there Bracken took his place next to Kendra.
"Are you excited?"
"Yeah. I'm really excited to explore a whole new place, meet new people. Learn new things."
"The West Coast has beautiful weather."
"I am also excited to not be freezing in early April and instead get sunburns in November." That earned her a chuckle.
"Have fun in college Kendra. I mean it. Live, experiment, use the time to figure out what you really want. You only get to do this once." The two of them met eyes and she nodded. She was fairly sure she knew what he meant.
"I'll try." She promised.
A month and a half later, as Kendra looked around the fraternity house she was standing in she started to deeply regret her promise. She had tried living it up, she really had. But at heart she was a homebody, and these college ragers that her roommates kept inviting her to were just too much. They always played out the same. People drank too much, some really pretentious guy would lecture her for like fifteen minutes on "What music really is, like not this soulless top forty stuff but like real music", and then one of her roommates would throw up on another and they'd need to go home. Oh and Kendra would always wake up with a hangover after only taking a single shot.
So she waited for her roommates to reach the final stage of drunkenness in order to walk them home, and sipped water from a red solo cup while reading something on her phone. She ignored the two stumbling girls that had wandered into the kitchen just as she ignored the rest of the party raging on around her.
"Hey," one of the girls piped up her speech slurred, she was a tall Japanese girl with a pixie cut being held up by a slightly shorter friend.
"Do I know you from somewhere?"
Kendra looked her over, and then the other girl who appeared to be Latina.
"I don't think so." She said.
"Yes we do." The shorter girl said, directing her friend to the kitchen island where all the snacks and spare cups were. "You just don't know us."
"What does that mean?"
"You're Kendra Sorenson. You are like the Wonder Woman of the magical world. We saw you at the last Knights of the Dawn meeting in July. We wanted to talk to and like totally freak out and fangirl but you already had a crowd."
That checked out. The most recent united gathering had been this past summer, and she'd spent most of the night with people around her.
But still, after everything she had been through her first instinct was to panic, she wasn't sure what to do but helplessly watch as the shorter girl poured the tall one a cup of water. She looked back at Kendra and frowned while her eyebrows scrunched up.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out. I get the paranoia. If you want you could ask you family about us. It's not a huge community so it's easy to dig up info on each other." She pointed to the taller girl who was currently swaying to the muffled music coming from the other room and was in her own world.
"This is Mina Amaro. I'm Jocelyn Rodriguez. Our families are pretty well established," She paused for a second and bit her lip. "Also if you want to, there's three more of us, Knight's kids I mean. We hang out once a week in my dorm. It's pretty chill, nothing like this. But if you like take out and board games it's for you."
After making sure Mina had drank all of her water, Jocelyn led her out of the room .
Kendra immediately texted Warren.
About two months after that Kendra was struggling to carry three bags of chinese food up the stairs to Jocelyn's dorm. Just as she paused to try and re-adjust to a better way of carrying the bags she heard her savior coming around the hall She could always tell it was him by the sound of his boots.
"Kens!" Dominic called out from a few yards away. "Need some help?"
"Please." She said handing over a bag once he reached her, he grabbed the other one from her arms even though she didn't offer it.
Dominic Lopez was a wiry Filipino kid that enjoyed stomping around in his heavy boots, driving very fast in his loud car, and talking much too loud in any quiet place. Kendra liked him even if she had to shush him way to often.
"Wow good on you splurging on Chinese food. I can barely even afford the frozen pizzas from the dollar store." He commented. Kendra shrugged it off.
"I was craving noodles and egg rolls."
"And you wanted to show off that mad cash you're making at the coffee shop." He added in. Kendra tried to suppress a grin, a month ago she had started working at a coffee shop and bakery fifteen minutes away from campus. She had applied for the free coffee and stale pastries but quickly realized that all of the hipsters gave her amazing tips since anything better than the evil green and white corporate monster that was on every other block. So she nodded and pretended to care as they talked about the flavor notes that were just so subtle while pulling in around seventeen dollars an hour in tips plus her actual wages.
"It's not my fault you decided to go into retail instead." She responded.
When they finally reached the dorm and walked right in Kendra saw that they were the last two. Jocelyn and Mina were already there in addition to Miranda Smith, who was Canadian and once laughed at Kendra for fifteen minutes straight after referring to sixty degree weather as "chilly", and Miguel Santos who was Japanese Peruvian but couldn't quite speak with either Jocelyn or Mina in their native tongues without making a face like he had just drank sour milk.
After everybody had served themselves they all started to partake in conversations updating each other on everything. School, work, family, and roommates everything was on the table.
Well almost everything, while everyone wanted to be honest and open there was always just a little bit of holding back, after all they had all spent years being taught caution with sharing any information or else there could be life threatening consequences.
So even when Miguel mentioned that his mother was doing work on a preserve he wouldn't say which one.
And Miranda brought up her brother being trusted to move and important rekic but she didn't say which one or where to. Even though she missed some of the intimacy associated with full disclosure she liked the comfort of never being pressed for secrets.
Once they had all finished eating came the very important decision of picking what game they would play or movie they would watch that would take up more time than the actual activity.
After forty minutes of deliberation they decided on watching a movie over playing a game, with Jocelyn growing increasingly frustrated at everyone's indecision, and then took another twenty five minutes to decide on what movie.
While Mina set up the DVD player Kendra took her spot next to Jocelyn on the couch and cuddled up close. As the opening credits played Miranda interrupted.
"Guys I actually think we should play Catan tonight."
"Oooohhh" Miguel cooed "Let's do that."
"Uggghhhhhh I hate you guys." Jocelyn moaned.
Kendra reviewed her list one last time, it was nearly identical to the one she had made nine months ago when moving in. She had just finished her final final yesterday and was moving back home for the summer tomorrow. After that she was moving in with Jocelyn, Mina, Dominic, Miranda, and Miguel into a house near campus. She had signed the lease with them last week and was fully prepared to enjoy the last rent free months of her life. Her job had promised her the same position when she got back so she was going into the summer worry free.
She heard a stirring behind her.
"Hey Kens," Came Jocelyn's voice. "Do you have the check? The landlord wants them before he starts to get the house ready." Since Kendra was the only one of her friends to actually have a checkbook she had volunteered to write the check for the down deposit on the house
"Ummm, yeah. Gimme a second." With that Kendra dove into her desk drawer digging through her folder to find it. She finally found the check at the very bottom of the drawer.
"Thanks a bunch." Jocelyn said taking the check from her. "Are you excited to be home for the summer?"
"Yeah, I guess." She answered without really thinking about it. "What about you? Are you excited to see your parents again?"
"Kendra, my parents are dead." Kendra's heart skipped a beat. She whirled around. How do you respond to that?
"What? You never told me." Jocelyn shrugged.
"They were murdered by the Society when I was four. My mom knew how to access some crucial information on how to use one of the artifacts and refused to give it up. I don't tell anyone about it for a little while."
"Why?" Kendra's heart was in pieces for her friend.
"People look at you different. I don't want them to think of me as some tragic character. I want to be seen for who I am, not what they aren't." Jocelyn paused, she looked almost scared. "Are you mad at me?"
"Of course not." Kendra hugged Jocelyn. And then pulled back. "Don't worry, I could never see you as anything but a huge goofball."
Jocelyn laughed and squeezed Kendra tight.
"I'm going to miss you."
"Same."
About eight hours later Kendra was just waking up as the car pulled up in front of the house. She slowly stirred and stretched.
"Here we are," Mom announced and turned to Kendra "Same as ever, did you miss it?"
Kendra took a long moment to soak it all in. She let the memories flow back, oatmeal, pancakes, fairies, Yahtzee, Hugo, and her Grandparents and parents. Her brother.
"Yes."