Chapter 1 ~ Google Maps

Margaret Flanagan rushed up the cramped stairs of her townhouse flailing her arms around, an envelope in her hands.

"Rory! Rory, dear! Rory, come here now!" she screamed as she banged on her son's bedroom door.

"Y-yes, ma'am?" the teenage boy answered, opening the door. "Am I in trouble? 'Cause I promise I didn't eat the cookies you baked for the bible study group, Seamus did."

"No, no, no, not that! But thank you for telling me. He's going to be in big trouble later. Anyway, I'm here to talk to you about this letter, young man."

"What letter, mom?"

"This one!" she screamed, shoving the letter into his hands.

The sent address read: Irish-American Foreign Exchange Student Program. Rory just mouthed an "Oh," and then stared wide-eyed at his raging mother.

"I thought I told you not to fill out that application, son! You knew I didn't want you going to America! There's nothing there besides a bunch of prostitutes and drug addicts and I am not going to have my little Rory exposed to such travesties!" Margaret paused to take a deep breath and then finished with, "You're not going anywhere." She triumphantly nodded her head and began to walk downstairs.

"But mom," Rory called after her. "I really wanted to go."

Rory's mother snapped around and charged back up the stairs. "I said no and that's final!"

"Why can't I, mom? I'm sixteen; I think I'm old enough to make my own decisions, don't you?" Rory knew it was a dumb thing to say as soon as he had said it.

"No, I don't, son. You are nowhere near being old enough to be able to make decisions this big, especially ones that affect the whole family so much!"

"But if I go, that's less food I eat, less space I take up, ma. This could be a wonderful experience for me. Shouldn't you be happy that I would have this kind of opportunity?"

"Yes, I am happy for you, son, but I don't think I could handle being away from you for that long." She began to tear up at the thought.

Rory wrapped his arms around his mother. "Please, ma, can I at least see if I got accepted? If not, you've been getting all worked up for nothing."

Margaret let out a heaved sigh, but gave in. "Fine, open the letter."

Rory took a deep breath and then tore open the envelope. He quickly scanned it and then said, "Umm…I guess I did get accepted."

Rory's mother threw her hands up in a huff. "Are you serious? Oh God, help me!" She grabbed at her heart, feigning a heart attack.

"Mom, stop overreacting! Everything will be OK!"

Margaret immediately stood straight up, a stern look on her face. "Everything will most certainly not be OK, Rory Flanagan! You deliberately disobeyed my order to not fill out that application and now my little boy is about to fly an ocean away for a whole year and I won't see him or be able to hug him!"

"Mom, please calm down," Rory patted his mother on the back. Then a grin swept over his face. "Wait, does this mean you're considering letting me go to America?" he asked, hopeful as ever.

"What kind of mother would I be if I stole an educational opportunity from my son?" Margaret said, still hyperventilating some. "I suppose I should begin to accept the fact that you are growing up. Just know that I am not happy with this and I expect phone calls every morning, noon, and night, and I demand to be able to talk to the principal at your new school and of course I expect weekly reports from the family you'll be staying with and-"

"Ma!" Rory screamed over her.

"What?" Margaret huffed.

"Thank you!" Rory wrapped his arms around his mother and squeezed.

"You owe me big time, Rory. But we will have to discuss all of this later when your father gets home from work, okay?" She glanced at the wall clock and gasped. "Oh, goodness, he'll be home in about fifteen minutes. I better get started on dinner." She kissed his forehead and headed on down the stairs mumbling something about how she was getting too old to deal with this kind of stress.

"Okay. I love you," Rory called after her, shooting a fist in the air. "Yes! I get to go to America!"

Rory ran over to his bed and sat down to examine the letter further and see just where in America he would be staying. The letter stated: You have been paired up with the family of Sam Evans, who currently resides in Lima, Ohio. Rory had no idea where Ohio was. He just hoped it would be as fun as New Jersey seemed to be, if the couple of episodes of Jersey Shore he had seen were any indication of the American way of life. He grabbed his laptop and headed to Google Maps to see how far away Jersey was from Ohio.


Mary Evans rushed up the spacious stairs of her home flailing her arms around, an envelope in her hands.

"Sam, honey, come here please!" she asked, knocking on his door.

"Yeah, mom? What's up?" Sam Evans said, opening the door with a grin.

"Guess what I've got!" his mother sang.

"That Star Wars t-shirt I've been waiting weeks for?"

"Ha! Guess again. "It's the letter from that exchange program I signed our family up for."

Sam scratched his head. "You signed us up for an exchange program? You mean for like a kid? To come here? And live with us?"

"Duh!" his mom said giggling as she gave her son a noogie. "I told you this weeks ago."

"Are you sure it was me and not Stevie? 'Cause you know that sometimes you mix us up when you're behind us."

"Well, it's not my fault that you both have bright blond hair in the same cut! Anyway, regardless of whether you remember it or not, I did sign our family up for this program. I figure it'd be good for you. You've seemed lonely lately. Why is that?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "I haven't been lonely, mom."

She gave him "the look." You know "the look" that mothers give you when they know you aren't telling the truth; the look that can potentially scar a child for life if done properly.

"Okay, fine, I guess I have been. Just a little bit." Sam stuck his tongue out on his mom who returned the gesture.

"You wanna tell me why, sweetie?"

Sam knew better than to say no. His mother was the persistent type. Whenever she smelled something amiss, she would hound on it and annoy the person until they spilled the beans about whatever was grinding their gears.

"Fine, I'll talk. Just make sure the kids can't hear me."

Sam Evans never liked to show any sort of weakness in front of his two younger siblings Stevie and Stacy. He had to take care of them often while his parents both maintained successful careers at a law firm, so he saw himself as a huge role model to the kids. He wanted them to know that strength and determination could get them through anything.

"It's OK, Stevie's at karate practice and Stacy is over at Megan's house playing. Come downstairs with me. We'll have a Coke and just chill," Mary said, attempting to use the language she had heard her son use a few times.

The two headed downstairs, almost tripping on a Barbie doll in the process. Sam plopped down on the couch and let out a huge sigh as his mother grabbed two glasses out of the cabinet and filled them with ice.

"So, what's eatin' ya, babe?"

"Well, as you so correctly deduced, I'm kinda lonely."

"And why is that, my dear?" Mary said, handing Sam his glass of soda.

"Don't laugh, because this may make me sound kind of selfish and girly, but I really just want a significant other. Someone to call my own."

"That's not selfish, Sam. It's kind of sweet, actually."

Sam blushed. "Thanks I guess. It's just kind of a bummer when I look at everybody in the glee club and they all have boyfriends and girlfriends and I'm just sitting there like a bum."

Mary reached over to hug her son. "It's alright; you're such a sweet boy, anybody would be lucky to have you."

"Thanks, mom," Sam said, smiling sincerely for the first time in a while. "So what's up with this exchange program thing you were telling me about?"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. Silly me." Mary got up and retrieved the letter from the counter. "Since you seemed so lonely, I decided that maybe a new friend would get you out of this little funk."

"So you decided to get me one from another country? Is Lima so destitute that I couldn't find any friends here?"

"Wow, you sure have been reading off that Word of the Day calendar I got you."

Sam playfully reached over and tapped his mother's arm. "Not the point, mom."

"I know, I know, I just like getting in a few jabs at you every once and a while." The two laughed, enjoying the fact that they just had some quality mother-son time to enjoy.

"So where's this kid gonna be from, anyway?"

Mary ripped the letter open and scanned it. "He's from Ireland. His name's Rory and he's sixteen, so just a couple years younger than you."

"Oh, sounds tolerable I guess."

"You know you'll have fun. I know it's hard on you having to take care of Stevie and Stacy all the time. I think it'll be good for you to have someone your own age to hang out with and maybe help you watch the kids."

"I think I can handle those little monsters just fine, thank you very much."

"What about monsters?" a voice screamed. Stevie Evans came careening through the living room at top speed, jumping right onto Sam's lap.

"I was talking about you and your little sister. You guys are totally monsters."

"Only to girls. They have icky cooties, remember?"

Everybody, including Sam's father, Dwight Evans began to laugh at the comment.

"So what's up, you two?" Dwight asked.

"We got that letter from that exchange program in the mail, honey. The kid's name is Rory and he'll be here in just a bit over three weeks."

"Oooh oooh oooh! You mean that I'm going to get another older brother to bug?"

Sam lightly punched Stevie in the arm. "You better be nice to him when he comes. Don't want to scare him back to Ireland as soon as he gets here."

"Isn't that the place where leprechauns come from?"

Sam laughed. "Yeah."

"Where is it?"

"Come on, let me go pull up Google Maps and show ya."

"I sure hope he's lucky. My teacher keeps telling me that I need to do better on my spelling tests."

Mary and Dwight just laughed silently to each other.

"Do you think we're ready to have another kid around here?" Dwight asked his wife.

"You know you like the madness we have here. What's another kid? We can handle it."