The social worker opened the car door for the little girl in the back seat. She cautiously got out of the car and looked up at the grand mansion in front of her. Anxiety which had been the background music of her life suddenly amplified and her hands shook and her knees knocked beneath her cut off shorts. The social worker with the overworked strained smile put a hand on the little girl's back.
"You'll be okay here I promise." She led the little girl up the drive towards the front door. Before they could make it to the door it opened and a young blonde woman opened the door. Her eyes were warm and blue and her smile was genuine.
"You must be Samantha." Jerrica said happily. Samantha nodded and clutched her book bag that held every stitch of her worldly possessions a little tighter against her chest. "My name is Jerrica Benton. Come on in." She reached out and Samantha eyed her hand wearily. Every time a hand had been held out towards her it had done something harmful or shameful to her. But there was something about this woman with the pretty earrings that made Samantha feel less fearful. She took Jerrica's hand and allowed herself to be pulled from the social worker into the huge house.
Inside the house was alive with commotion, girls her age and older were all over the place, talking, watching television, working with other adults on homework or in the kitchen helping with the dishes. "Are you hungry? The girls just finished supper, we can fix you a plate if you would like." Samantha looked up at Jerrica and shook her head.
"No thank you Miss Benton." She said softly. Jerrica knelt down in front of her.
"Samantha you can call me Jerrica." Samantha nodded and looked around. "Are you sure you aren't hungry?"
"I'm sure. Thank you Miss Jerrica." Jerrica gave a tight lipped smile, nodded, and showed her up the stairs and into her new room.
"Here you are young lady."
"This is all mine?" she asked after taking in the room with a bed and clean bed sheets and a dresser and a desk in the corner.
"Yes, it is all yours." Tears, which were always close to the surface, fell down the little girl's face.
"Thank you Miss Jerrica."
"When you get all of your clothes put away, come on down stairs and I'll introduce you to the rest of the girls." Samantha nodded and stepped a little further into the room. Jerrica left the door opened and the anxiety that had abated upon seeing Jerrica crept back into her body and her hands began to shake again.
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Jerrica was startled awake. She grabbed her robe, grabbed a bat, made sure her earrings were fastened tightly, she never knew when Synergy would be needed, and she began creeping down the stairs. She got to the bottom and looked left and right, looking for anything out of place. When seeing nothing, she started towards the kitchen area of the house and that was when she saw the light. She crept forward a little more and a little more until she was able to push the door open, and there she found, on her hands and knees, little Samantha. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor with only a rag and a mop bucket.
Jerrica put the bat down and walked in a little further. Samantha's back was toward her and she made a conscious effort to make a noise so the girl wouldn't be startled almost to death. As it was, Samantha startled and the rag flew from her hands and she drew her knees up to her chin in a defensive posture.
"It's just me." Jerrica said softly and got down on the floor with the small girl. "What are you doing?" she asked mirroring the girl's posture.
Samantha relaxed marginally and shook her head.
"You cleaning? When I'm upset I work. I don't care what kind of work, I just work. Are you like that?" she asked. Samantha's scared brown eyes darted to Jerrica and she gave a small nod. Jerrica nodded. "And usually when I'm upset I can't sleep either. It is awful. There was a week not too long ago I think I slept only an hour or two each night. I just had so much to worry about. You know what I mean?" This time the nod was a little bit stronger. "Then I opened up to my little sister. Kimber? You sat next to her at supper tonight. The one with all of that red hair and can talk until your ears fall off?" Samantha's face came up a little from where it was buried in her arms. "I love my sister. But once, when we were kids, I put in ear plugs because I just couldn't stand that chatter."
Jerrica stood and went to the drawer and pulled out another cloth and dipped it into the water that Samantha had made.
Jerrica got onto her hands and knees and began scrubbing the kitchen floor. "Truth of it is I couldn't sleep either. I was going to get up early and go to the office and work." She scrubbed circled around the island. "But this works too. Do you mind if I help you?"
Slowly the little girl unballed herself and shook her head. She grabbed the rag that she had thrown in her fright and dipped it into the water and went to the other side of Jerrica and began scrubbing circles.
"I had a bad dream." The newest Starlight girl confessed after some time of scrubbing.
"Oh?" Jerrica said nonchalantly.
"It scared me."
"What did you dream?" Jerrica asked.
"That my step dad came back from the dead and came after me." Jerrica heard the little girl scrub harder at the kitchen floor.
"Oh." Jerrica said softly. Samantha didn't talk any more. She and Jerrica spent the wee hours of the morning scrubbing the kitchen floor on their hands and knees. And when it was finished, Jerrica took the little girl's hand and led her to her bedroom and tucked her in.
"If you have any more bad dreams, knock on my bedroom door, and you can sleep in my room. Mean people can't get into my room. It's a bad person free zone." Samantha nodded. Jerrica took one last look at the little girl and left her to sleep, hopefully in peace.
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"Jem! What took you so long to drag yourself out of bed this morning?" Kimber asked when Jem drug herself into the Starlight Mansion's studio.
"Well, Jerrica was up all night with Samantha scrubbing the kitchen floor." Shana furrowed her eyebrows.
"Why?"
"She had a bad dream, and when she can't sleep, apparently she has to do something."
"I know a certain blonde woman who is very similar." Aja said with a laugh in her eye as she tuned her guitar.
Jem sighed and rolled her eyes towards Aja. "Yeah, and that certain blonde woman stayed up all night with Samantha and cleaned the kitchen floor. And because of that, I, Jem, am tired."
"You want to rehearse later?" Kimber asked.
"No. No. I'm good. We have a concert that needs to be prepared for. One or two sleepless nights aren't an excuse to shirk our responsibilities."
"You don't think that the floor cleaning session was a one night deal?" Shana asked.
"No. I don't. I think a lot happened to her before she got here and I don't think she's going to have an easy time of it."
"I'll get up with her next time." Kimber said. "Maybe that hot milk recipe mom used to make for us would do the trick."
"Maybe." Jem said and pushed pink bangs out of her eyes. "I know it took hours to wear her out cleaning."
"Did she say what the dream was about?" Aja asked.
Jem shook her head and said, "Just that her step dad came out of the grave and came after her."
"Did the social worker say anything before she dropped her off?" Kimber asked.
"No. She just said that she was quiet and hadn't been a problem at her other placement. But that they just had too many kids there and they asked that she be moved."
"Well, room we have. I just hope that we can help her too." Aja said.
"Me too." Jem took a deep breath and straightened herself up. "And we better get rehearsing, because without sales we can't feed the girls. So, we better get busy."
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That night all were in bed, and Jerrica was just putting the paperwork for the latest band she had signed to Starlight music into her bag and was turning out the light, when she heard Kimber in the hallway talking softly. Jerrica got out of bed, put on a robe, and went to her door.
"Miss Jerrica said that when I have a bad dream I can stay in her room." Jerrica heard Samantha say.
"Jerrica is asleep sweetie, why don't you come into my room." Kimber pled softly, trying to coax the little girl away from Jerrica's door.
"No." Samantha's voice seemed more strained and had a small frantic edge to it. "Miss Jerrica said I could go to her room when the dreams got bad." Kimber heard her sister's door open and she turned around. Jerrica stood there looking tired and worn. Her blue eyes had the light bruise under them of one who hadn't slept properly in several nights, and she looked thin inside her dark blue robe. Kimber struggled not to shake her head. Ever since Jerrica took on the Jem mantle, Jerrica looked tired and a little fried around the edges, and sometimes Kimber wished that she could take some of her sister's burden from her. And tonight, with Samantha standing in front of her, Kimber thought she could help her sister out, maybe allow her to get more than four hours of sleep put together.
"I've got her Jerrica." Kimber said softly urging her sister to go back to bed.
Jerrica shook her head and came out of the room, tied her robe tightly around her thin middle and went to Samantha, rested a hand on her shoulder, trying to tease the little girl's eyes open. "Samantha. It's Jerrica, you can open your eyes." She said softly. And slowly the vibrating little girl opened her eyes. When she saw Jerrica the intense anxiety eased a little as she looked up at Jerrica. "Did you have the dream again?" She nodded. "Kimber can take you downstairs and make you a glass of warm milk, it is what our mother gave us when we were scared and couldn't sleep."
"Yeah," Kimber said and knelt on the floor next to her sister. "I am really good at it. When Jerrica can't sleep, she has me make it for her too." Jerrica nodded, blonde wisps of hair escaping the headband that she had haphazardly thrown in her hair while she did paperwork.
Samantha cinched her eyes tight again and hugged the pillow tighter against her chest and shook her head violently.
Jerrica knew right then that any attempt Kimber made would be thwarted by this intensely anxious young lady. Jerrica couldn't let Samantha be so scared, even if it meant that she would lose another night's sleep, even if it meant getting to the office late, even if it meant drinking gallons of coffee so she could be as perky as the Jem persona would look tomorrow night at a promotional event. That little girl standing in front of the Benton sisters was why Jem even existed. That little girl was one of the now thirteen reasons that she and the others worked so hard. Jerrica turned her eyes to her flame haired little sister. She put a hand on Kimber's shoulder and with a soft smile she said, "I've got it Kimber."
"You sure sis?" Kimber asked wishing that she knew what to do, wishing she knew how to take at least one burden off of her sister's shoulders. But, again, like always, it was Jerrica taking care of everyone, and despite all of her attempts, Kimber wasn't able to help her sister….again.
"Yeah." She nodded to her little sister. "Come on sweetie, let's get settled down and see if you can sleep." Samantha finally opened her eyes, saw Jerrica's hand extended, and finally relinquished the death grip on her pillow and took Jerrica's hand and the two crossed the hall and went into Jerrica's room. Jerrica turned to her sister and mouthed 'thank you'.
Kimber shook her head. Thanks for what? Kimber wondered. Her shoulders slumped and she turned and shuffled down the hall to her own room.
XXXXXX
"Where's Jerrica?" Shana asked the following morning after all of the girls had been sent to school.
"She left early for the office," Kimber said as she washed the morning dishes. "She was up all night with Samantha again. So God only knows how much sleep she actually has gotten this week."
"We've got to do something. She can't be burning the candle at both ends like this forever." Aja said as she dried the dishes that Kimber was washing.
"Don't you think I've tried to do something?" Kimber snapped, her own inadequacies rearing their ugly head. "Don't you think I want to do something for her?"
"Hey, hey Kimber. No one is accusing you of not trying." Shana reassured "You know Jerrica.."
"Yeah, once she feels like something is her responsibility she will see it through." Aja completed.
"Maybe if we encourage her to be Jem for a while…"
"What do you mean Shana?" Kimber asked looking up from the bowl she was washing.
"Well, when she's Jem she doesn't seem to feel that intense responsibility. She is a little bit more care free."
"She wouldn't do that. And if we pressure her, it won't help because she already has that weird jealously of Jem." Kimber added.
"True."
"Then what do we do?"
"There isn't anything really that we can do." Aja sighed. While the other Holograms went back to their respective chores, an idea formed in Kimber's mind, an idea, that might just work.
XXXX
The evening was a whirlwind. Jerrica didn't even come home from the office, she simply went to the party that evening, as Jem, and she mingled, she socialized, she smiled, and she played her part as if she had slept and hadn't worked all day. It made Kimber doubt that her sister needed the rest, made her second question the idea she wanted to propose to her sister, made her wonder if was more selfish than a desire to help her older sister who helped everyone else.
However, once inside the Rockin' Roadster, and the illusion of Jem removed, and Jerrica's silence, and watched as she fell asleep within minutes of removing the Jem mantle, that Kimber decided to propose the idea to her sister. But she would wait, she would wait until the morning, when Jerrica had slept, before she said anything.
However, for a third night in a row, the little girl needed Jerrica's attention, and another night went without sleep.
It was then that Kimber decided to take matters into her own hands.
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