"Brian, you better pick up the fricking phone this time!" I yell down my cell. I know shouting louder into Brian's voicemail isn't going to make him answer any quicker, but I shout anyway. Maybe one day I'll fully understand the psychology behind that, but I'm thinking anger as a great deal to do with it. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Alyssa sitting on my sofa. She seems really uncomfortable. I think that she's starting to think she's to blame. I'll need to reassure her she's not. I keep shouting insults and threat, the occasional obscenity slipping in, for easily forty-five minutes, during which time somebody has knocked on my door, but I'm still too wrapped up in yelling at my brother's voicemail to answer. "Brian, I swear to God, I'm going to kill you." I can faintly hear somebody saying my name but I ignore it. "Seriously Brian, I'd be worried." I think the calling of my name is getting louder, but I'm still ignoring it. "You know how freakishly strong I am when I'm mad!"

"Elliot!"

The shouting is so loud I can't ignore it this time. "What?!" I snap as I whip my head around.

Alyssa and Carla are both looking at me with weird looks on their faces, a weird mix of surprise and horror. And this is the point when I realise I'd agreed to go out for a couple of drinks with Carla. Frick.

"Hey Elliot, who's this?" Carla asks, pointing at Aly.

"Carla, meet my niece Alyssa. Alyssa, meet my friend Carla."

They quickly exchange pleasantries before I say, "Carla, can I have a quick word?" I drag her into the kitchen. "I'm freaking out here. Please help me."

"First of all, calm down," she answers in that 'den mother' way that pisses us all off yet we all seem to love so much also.

"Calm down! I'm in the middle of a freaking crisis here! My niece is going to be staying with me for at least six months! Help me out here!"

Initially Carla looks shocked. "Wow, six months. And you didn't know about this?"

I shake my head.

"Damn. Bet you're glad you've got a two bedroom apartment now, huh?"

"Well I would be if the spare room wasn't holding all of my crap!"

"Okay, Elliot, you're going ultrasonic!"

"Sorry."

"Okay, you know what we're going to do," Carla begins. I suddenly feel a little more relieved. Carla always has a plan. "We're going to help you clear out that room and then we'll take it from there."

"Okay, okay."

"Okay," she echoes, as she ushers me out of my kitchen and back into the living room.

"Wow, you speak Spanish. That's really cool." I think I quite like Elliot's niece. She looks a lot like her aunt, so, to be honest, I was expecting Alyssa to be another little uptight spoiled Connecticut girl.

"Yeah," Alyssa says. "I lived in Mexico for a while my parents were doing… something. I think it was some kind of doctoring thing. Anyway, I learned some of the language down there and kept taking classes when we moved back to the States. It became my way of calling my parents nasty names without them realising."

"Your parents lived in Mexico for four years and they never learned Spanish?" Elliot asks disbelievingly.

"My parents? Are you kidding? They think the rest of the world should be made to speak English and the they think that the American Government is the ruler of the world."

Elliot, Alyssa and I are trying (that being the operative word) to clear up Elliot's spare room. It's a lost cause. Elliot's got that much crap in here that really, we're just moving mess to be mess somewhere else in the room.

"So what do you want to do when you're older?"

"I think I want to be a doctor. I've been looking around a lot of medical schools. They all want some evidence of community involvement or relevant voluntary work. I was looking for stuff back home. That was, of course, before my parents fled the country."

Alyssa then mutters something which I swear is 'sons of bitches' in Spanish. "Why don't you try to get the volunteer work at Sacred Heart. Dr Kelso was just talking about how he could people to do some work cheaply… or freely. He's setting up a volunteer programme."

"Who's Dr Kelso?"

"Chief of Medicine." And world-class bastard.

"You think I'll get a volunteer job there? Aunt Ellie, would you mind me volunteering there?"

"No. What harm will it do?"

"Cool."

"There's actually a volunteer open day on Saturday" I remember. "You should go down to that."

"Thanks Carla. I think I will."

It goes silent as the three of us concentrate on tidying the room. That is, however, until Alyssa drops a lamp on her toes.

"¡Joda!" she shouts. She then gasps and puts both of her hands over her mouth when she realises someone actually understands her. "Spanish also became a way for me to curse without my parents realising it," she says quietly.

"Alyssa Reid, you badass!" I say.

"What? What did that mean?" Elliot asks. I think she's feeling a bit left out.

"It's the world you replace by frick."

She smiles. "Huh. What's 'frick' in Spanish?"

"Frick," Alyssa and I answer at the same time.

"God, my toes really hurt!"

"That's what you get for wearing open toed sandals," Elliot says, looking at Alyssa's shoes.

"Do you have any ice?"

"I'll check the freezer," Elliot says, walking out of the room.

"Check the oven too," Alyssa shouts.

"Okay!"

Alyssa looks at me incredulously. "Did she really just say okay to checking the oven?"

"You'll get used to all the weird goings on around here."

Saturday Afternoon…

"I got the job, I got the job!" Alyssa walks into my apartment singing, and as I said a couple of days ago, she's as bad a singer as me. "Aunt Elliot, I got the job!"

"You got one of the volunteering spots!" I say. "When do you start?"

"Next Friday afternoon."

--