It was a hot summer's day. Four year old Gordon was bored. His mum was looking after Alan. His father was at work. John and Virgil were at their friend's houses. That left his oldest brother, Scott, and said brother's best friend, Naomi. The two 13 year olds were sitting on the porch of his house eating ice blocks. All Gordon wanted to do was go for a swim. Hearing the laughter of Scott from outside he knew exactly what to do. He raced upstairs to his room which he shared with Alan. He got into his togs, grabbed his goggles and towel and raced outside.
"Hey Squirt," Naomi greeted him.
"Where do you think you're going mister?" Scott asked
"Swimming!" Gordon exclaimed.
"Is Mum and Alan with you?" Scott asked. Gordon shook his head.
"Can you look after me?"
"Sure Gordy," Scott smiled "This weather's killing me,"
"Agreed. I'll be back real soon," Naomi said. She got up and left the Tracy's front yard via the fence.
Soon Naomi, Scott and Gordon were sitting in the paddling pool. Three towels hung over clothes line. Water was splashing about and getting on the ground. Laughter could be heard at the end of the road.
"Stop it Squirt!" Naomi said, laughing as Gordon splashed her repeatedly. Gordon stopped.
"Why do you call me Squirt Nomi?"
"What's that Scott? I could have sworn I heard something," Gordon glared. Naomi had been pulling that trick for the past five months. It meant she wanted to called by her full name.
"Naomi? Why do you call me Squirt?"
"Well you see when you were born, the ambulance driver was looking after Scott, me and your other brothers while we waited for my uncle and your dad. When he first meet them he called us 'squirts' I guess I must have liked it so I started calling you that when I first met you. It soon became clear that it fit you. You always loved bath time but hated getting out. And then there was that one summer when you kept squirting me with your water gun all the time," Naomi explained.
"How did you get that scar Naomi?" Gordon asked as he came to sit next to Naomi and Scott on the porch after they had all dried off.
"Gordon…" Scott warned his little brother.
"It's okay Scott. Seriously."
"But what about your panic attacks?"
"I haven't had one in two months. I think I can handle telling Gordon what happened,"
"What's a panic attack?" Gordon asked.
"Well Gordon when my little brother was your age we were in a car crash…"
"You have a little brother? I haven't met him have I?"
"No you haven't meet my brother. Neither has Scott or any of your other brothers," Naomi answered "As I was saying. My brother and I were in a car crash with our parents. My parents died on the scene and my brother died shortly after from a broken neck. I could have just as easily died. A glass shard was lodged into my right arm. All I have is a scar from surgery. My parents and brother paid the ultimate price. Because in the wills of my parents it said that if anything was to happen to my parents and both I and Stephen or just Stephen were minors, we were to go to live with our uncle here in America. So I did just that. I moved in with my uncle and I've been living in the same house for the past seven years. Living next to my best friend and his family," Naomi rubbed her hand over the scar. While it had been bright red when she first obtained it, it was now a pale pink colour. Within years it would blend in with Naomi's skin tone and you'd only ever know she had one if she had told you or you felt it.
"Three years ago I started to have panic attacks. I guess it was because I never really talked about it. I still don't like talking about. If something reminded me, even little things, of my family or the crash or sometimes both I'd start finding it hard to breath. Scott devised a way to pull me back from the edge. I was to give him or anyone who was close by the full names of him and his brothers along with your ages and birthdays and a little bit about your appearances. It has always helped,"
"Tell him about Riley," Scott encouraged his best friend.
"Uncle Dean and your mum said we shouldn't tell Gordon,"
"Who's Riley?" Gordon asked
"Now you got the squirt intrigued,"
"What harm could it do?"
"Possibly a lot,"
"Who's Riley? Please tell me," Gordon begged. He gave his older brother and his neighbour the puppy dog eyes.
"Oh not the puppy dog eyes," Naomi complained
"Now we have to tell him,"
"Fine," Naomi sighed "You see Gordo, Scooter and I had decided to keep the panic attacks a secret for three months before we eventually had to spill the secret. So when we were ten our classroom window was broken by someone playing out on the field all I could see was the glass shard in my arm, the broken windows and window screen. I ran out of the classroom and Scott followed. I ran through Scott to you and got my breathing under control. I had a little break down. Unknown to both myself and Scott, our classmate Riley – who had been sent out of class earlier – was listening in,"
"During the next period of the day we were learning about different important national dates in other countries. Naomi here knew both the New Zealand and Australian national holidays plus…"
"ANZAC Day," Naomi supplied
"ANZAC Day." Scott said "But when our teacher asked what happened on July 14th, Riley blurted out that Naomi's parents had died,"
"So I punched him in the face. He then decided to insult in the principal's office,"
"So I decided to punch him. Broke his nose,"
"From that day on, Uncle Dean has been taking me and Scott to karate lessons and has been giving small self-defence class to us plus Virgil and John. You'll be able to join in with us once you turn eight,"
"Now promise you won't tell mum we told you that,"
"Otherwise we'll make your life hell,"
"Okay," Gordon agreed, storing away the fact that both Naomi and Scott didn't want this to get back to his mother. A silver car pulled into the Turner/Winchester household driveway.
"Well Uncle Dean's back from work. I should be going back," Naomi said, getting up from her position.
"Don't forget to use the gate," Scott said.
"Don't let the gate hit you once I've left," Naomi retorted. She frowned when she saw a second car pull into the drive way.
"You didn't tell me that you were having visitors today,"
"I didn't know we were having visitors today. I better go. Tell your mum I said bye," With that, the brown haired teen left the Tracy property.