Penned by: Lovely Midnight

Began: June 8th, 2005

Disclaimer: Don't own them; never have, never will.

Don't Break Her

Over the years, many families had moved in and out of the house next door, for various reasons. They moved because of five broken windows a day from Reese's baseballs, of flaming piles of dog crap on their door, or maybe they just couldn't handle Mom screaming every morning. One way or another, no one ever stayed. A few months after a moving van would drop off furniture, it could come back to stuff everything back in. Because of this, I was never really able to form any close friendships. And truth be told, it was hard for me in the first place, as I always felt out of place in Special Ed.

There was no difference when the Andersons moved out. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were getting a divorce, I guess. That wasn't out of the ordinary- we drove a lot of families that crazy. I'd often hear them in the backyard, arguing over who was going to tell us to shut up or who was going to deal with the cops if called. Those fights became quite interesting with the Andersons, as Reese could throw his voice to match Mrs. Anderson's. Maybe the vulgar things he blurted in her name caused the divorce. Who knows?

They moved out in the summer before I went into tenth grade. It took five months for that house to be sold again… I'm guessing the neighbors warned any prospective buyers about us. It was mid-October when a new moving van parked outside the house next door.

"Oh! I think I see it!" My father, Hal, cried enthusiastically.

We had been sitting at the table, eating breakfast at the time. Dad, however, had glued himself to the window at 5:30 am, and hadn't moved. We always waited for him to announce the new arrivals, and then the majority of us would get up to look. Reese stayed behind to gulp down the remainder of our breakfast. At the ripe old age of 22, he stilled lived at home and worked at a local fast food joint. Though we didn't really expect more of him, mom was always on him about getting a job, a wife, and a house. I don't know if even she truly believed he would actually do it one day.

I reached the window first, as I was taller than Jamie and faster than Mom. Dad was hogging the glass, though, so I had to duck under his arm to see anything.

"Will you look at that couch?" Mom commented, squinting her eyes. "It looks like she inherited it from their grandmother."

My mother had apparently forgotten that we had, indeed, inherited our "brand new" sofa from our grandmother after she had died. But I suppose she was correct about theirs- it had a brown and pink floral pattern, with what looked like large yellow daises on the armrests.

"Maybe they're old," I suggested.

"No." Dad stuck his tongue to the side of his mouth, signifying he was deep in thought. "Why would an old woman need a three bedroom house?"

"Maybe she lives with her kid," I mused.

After a few minutes of comments being exchanged, Mom finally spoke.

"Alright." Mom grabbed Jamie and my shoulders, pulling us back. "You two need to get to school. You'll be late as it is."

"Can't we watch?" Jamie questioned, sticking out his bottom lip. I suppose he hadn't learned that that never worked.

"Because you've missed too much school. Don't forget, Mister, you had the flu last week."

After a small argument, Jamie gave in and I, being the older brother, had to walk him to school. He toted his lunch bag in his hand; inside it contained an apple, sandwich, juice box, and Fruit Roll Up. A stereotypical lunch that parents gave out, not understanding that only the Fruit Roll Up and sandwich would be consumed. If you looked into a school dumpster, I'd bet you would find an apple matching every kid in that school. Except the Krelboynes- they throw out the Fruit Roll Up. Except Malcolm.

Malcolm, being the genius he was, invented a microchip you could insert into remotes. Once you lose the remote, you press a button on the television, and the remote would start playing a high pitched noise. He'd made a few million in his first year. But, knowing our luck, Reese had played an April Fools Joke at the factory. He programmed them all to swear, and next thing Malcolm knew thousands of soccer moms were screaming for thousands of dollars. Their children had apparently been so scarred by the "F" word, they needed $100,000 worth of psychiatry each.

Needless to say, he currently lived in an apartment with Craig, and was desperately trying to rebuild his empire of beeping chips.

I didn't go to school that day. After dropping Jamie off, I jogged back to my house and peaked inside the windows. Like normal, the house was empty. Mom and Dad had gone to work, and Reese was off somewhere causing trouble. He really hadn't grown up in 10 years. I think simply the idea of growing up and being on his own scared him horribly. Malcolm told me that he suspected Reese had formed a mild case of Agoraphobia, the fear the leave your house, a while back. It was quite plausible for a while, but after a few months he had begun leaving the house at will again.

I went through the back door, since the front was crowded with newspapers that no one cared to pick up. Our house was garbage- complete garbage. The floorboards were missing, the wallpaper pealed, electrical sockets were broken completely open. After Malcolm lost the business, Mom seemed to give up on trying to keep everything looking nice. Now she simply did only wanted she wanted, when she wanted. That explained the army of old paper plates sticking out of our trash bags.

The house was garbage.

I opened the glass doors that had somehow maintained their glass, and walked inside. I'd seen the movers pulling a King sized bed out of their truck, so after grabbing a Tupperware full of rice out of the fridge, I moved to the window. Sitting on the ground, I could see just above the sill. Over the next hour, I ate the rice with my hands while watching odd objects come out of the truck. A flamingo lamp, a 50s style record player, a large pink bar that took three movers and a neighbor to carry.

Odd.

I sat there the majority of the school day, criticizing these people's furniture. A psychiatrist would probably say I was doing that because I was unsatisfied with my own life, and had to make a point to single out other people's misfortunes. But oh well, I'm not a psychiatrist so I wouldn't completely know.

Finally, after another flamingo shaped lamp left the truck, I walked away from my post and sat down on the sofa. It was an ugly brown plaid object that we got last year, when Grandma "finally shut up," as Reese kindly put up. I didn't really care when she died, as she stopped paying attention to all of us once Jamie said his first sentence. He told my mother she was stupid, right in front of Grandma. Next thing we knew, he was showered with the Christmas presents she had locked away in her closet. Luckily she died before he could rub it in our faces. My other brothers and I said a silent prayer at the funeral, thanking God for taking her, so we wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

Malcolm was the one who took me to meet the new neighbors. We hadn't seen any movement in the house for three days, and so when he came over, he did a little investigating. This investigating included bringing a plate of brownies, and me, over to the house.

"Why do I have to come?" I asked.

"Because it'll make you look more neighborly. And if they have someone around your age, it'll look nice if you offer to show them around."

"Look nice? Since when do we care if we look nice?"

Malcolm pressed the doorbell, and stayed silent. After what felt like five minutes, I opened my mouth to tell Malcolm I was going home unless he told me what was up. However, the door opened, interrupted my question. My slightly ajar mouth turned into a gape.

A woman in her mid-thirties stood in front of us, in a pair of overalls. That's it. No t-shirt. Overalls. I knew then why Malcolm wished to make a good impression. This woman was the epitome of gorgeous. Curly blonde hair, tanned skin, blue eyes… big boobs. Gorgeous.

"Hello," she smiled. "Sorry, you caught me and my kids in the middle of painting the family room."

There were, in fact, yellow paint stains on her.

"Oh, we don't mind." Malcolm flashed a toothy smile.

Her eyebrows rose slightly, making my brother flush. Then, like normal, he became absolutely speechless. After a moment of silence, he flashed another grin and held up the plate.

"Cookies? Uh, I mean: brownies?"

The woman must have taken pity in him, as she returned the smile and stepped aside, letting us in. Malcolm and her made idle chat as he became more relaxed, but that bored me, as I had nobody to mentally taunt. After standing by a green coat rack for ten minutes, the Goddess realized I was still there.

"How old are you?" She quizzed.

"Fifteen, almost sixteen."

"My son's sixteen. Want to go meet him? He's in the den with my daughter. Just around the corner and to the right."

As it did not seem like I had a choice, I thanked her and followed her directions. The house reeked of paint fumes, and the color of the walls seemed to blind my eyes. The woman looked like she was trying to go for a late 70s, early 80s motif. Neon colors sat everywhere you could look, along with grotesque furniture that should have never lived past the fall of the Soviet Union. Well, it shouldn't have lived past the exiting of the factory, but…

The den turned out to be painted brown. Instead of a door, beads hung from the ceiling. Bean bags took the place of everything, besides a sofa. That's where the brown, daisy armrested lump sat. Once stepping onto the carpet I noticed it was shag.

"Hi?" I found two figures crouching over a paint can, dipping their brushes in. They calmly turned around, and stared at me blankly. It was like something out of The Shining. Finally, the girl cracked a smile, revealing a slightly crooked and bucktoothed mouth. She was cute, for an eleven year old.

The boy next to her looked like he was my age; maybe a bit older, but not much. He brushed his blonde hair out of his face before stepping forward to shake my hand. He seemed to have paint splattered all over him. I didn't get why they just didn't hire a professional painter, as it looked like they all had gotten half a paint can on themselves, and the walls looked very badly done.

I accepted the boy's hand. "I'm Dewey; I live next door."

"I'm Mark." The boy smiled slightly, as if to be relieved I wasn't just dropping in just to taunt the house, or something. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Donna!" the redheaded girl popped up from under his arm, trying to not be excluded from the conversation. "I'm in seventh grade."

"Hey Donna."

"What do you do for fun here?"

"Uh…" I trailed.

I shouldn't tell them about my brother and my exploits into sewers, crashing carnivals, stealing movie reels from movie theatres, only to find out there's no way we could get them to work at our house. I wanted to impress them; I wanted friends. I wanted people to hang out with outside of school besides Reese and Jamie. I didn't care if it was a girl 4 years younger than me, and what seemed like an overzealous boy- I wanted friends. Especially ones who weren't in Special Ed.

Don't get me wrong- those kids were nice and all, but they depended on me too much. And yes, I knew I wasn't the smartest kid- I was never a Malcolm, and never have been. But I wanted someone to talk to about things besides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Let it be just about an episode of Ren and Stimpy, or even Spongebob Squarepants. So, I replied to her question with the only reply I could think up: "Stuff."

After talking to them for a half hour, I found that they have moved here from Indiana, did not know their father, both shared the favorite color- blue, and were planning to see the new Star Wars movie next week. I was invited along.