Daniel seemed to take pity on me for my situation, even though it was own doing, and he let me hang out in his room for a while. It´s one of the things I love most about him- his ability to empathize with someone else´s situation Crane is like that too, which is why I guess the two of them are so close, still to this day. At one point, he even went to the bathroom, retrieving the antiseptic cream from the cabinet and generously applying some to my scorched ears. We didn´t really talk about Gary Sykes after I gave him the note with Stacey´s number on it and asked him what he thought that the man who had killed our parents looked like. Instead, Daniel let me listen to the music he had been listening to- Willie Nelson- and he even told me a few stories about high school. It was nice, just sitting there on his bed, chatting and spending time with him.

As the hands on the clock edged ever closer to my bedtime, Daniel said quietly to me, "What you going to do at bedtime? About your ears?"

The two of us were lying on our backs on Daniel´s bed, side by side. I turned my head to look at him. "What do you mean?"

Daniel sat up slightly, leaning back on his forearms so he could see me. "Well, what if your hair falls back, away from your face when you´re laying down?"

"I´ll lie on my side, then," I said, more confidently than I felt.

Daniel chuckled softly. "Your ears look like a piece of meat. I doubt you´ll be able to sleep on them for a good coupla nights."

"Well, maybe I can bear it until whoever reads to us tonight leaves the room," I said, the butterflies having been awoken again in my lower tummy.

Daniel sat up properly now so that he was looking down at me. "You want my advice?" he said.

I shrugged at him, letting him know that I didn´t particularly want it but he continued anyway. "I think you should just come clean and tell them."

"But they´ll be so mad at me," I said softly.

"Probably," Daniel said. "But you´ll be punished, and then it will be over. Take it from someone who´s been in trouble way more times than you. They mostly always find out what you´ve done. And yea, punishment sucks, especially a tannin´, but once it´s done, it´s done. You know that."

My face must have given away how I felt about what he had just said because he smiled sympathetically at me. "Course, it´s easier to say when it´s not your butt on the line," he said.

"No kidding," I said.

I had heard him, but self-preservation is a strong instinct and naively, I still thought that I could get away unscathed.

/

It was Brian who came up to read to us that night. I normally loved our bedtime routine, someone coming to read to us and tuck us in: it made me feel safe and loved. But that night, for the first time in my life, I wished that we could be left alone. My hair is quite thick and it falls to my shoulders, so I had brushed it out and laid down in bed, on my back, arranging my hair to cover my ears. I had tried to lay on my side, but as Daniel had predicted, it was too painful- the throbbing in my ears reaching a crescendo when I put pressure on it.

The fact that I was already settled in bed, when normally I had to be ordered there firmly, did not escape Brian´s notice when he came into the room behind Guthrie.

"Good lord, this must be a first! Heidi McFadden tucked up in bed without being hustled there," he said, smiling teasingly.

I smiled back. "Very funny. I´m just tired I guess," I said, hoping my voice sounded light.

"Hmm," said Brian, prying Guthrie away from fiddling with a Lego model on our dresser, and gently pushing him into bed.

I was grateful that it was Guthrie´s turn to be sat next to that night. He seemed a bit out of sorts- burying his face in Brian´s chest. Brian rubbed the back of Guthrie´s head and neck soothingly. When he had finished the chapter, he said quietly to Guthrie, "You ok, buddy?"

Guthrie nodded. "Uh huh."

Brian put a hand on Guthrie´s forehead to check for a fever but Guthrie must have felt fine because then Brian got up from Guthrie´s bed. He leaned down and smoothed Guthrie´s hair back, kissing him on the forehead. "G´night partner."

"Night, Bri."

Brian crossed to my bed, pulling the covers up over me further before planting a kiss on my forehead. I lay stiffly, too scared to move in case my carefully arranged hair moved out of place. Brian looked at me strangely but only said, "G´night baby."

"Night," I echoed.

Brian turned off our night lights and then left the room. Sometimes, actually quite a lot of the time, Guthrie and I talked a bit after lights out until one of us would inevitably quieten first and then fall asleep. That night, Guthrie was out like a light almost the minute that Brian left the room, and I, being exhausted from a day of deception, passed out almost immediately too.

/

When we were little, Guthrie used to have terrible nightmares. He got them a fair bit when we were really young, and at 8, he still had them every few months. He seems to have grown out of them now, in fact he hasn´t had one since before Adam married Hannah. He could never remember, after he had woken up, what had terrified him to the point of screaming, but he would be completely distraught and it took a while to calm him down.

There´s no warning really: it´s not like some people who moan or cry quietly before the nightmare takes hold of them. Guthrie could be quiet one minute and the next he would be screaming as though he was being murdered, his arms and legs flailing. He would yell things as well, but they were mostly gibberish or incoherent.

That night, Guthrie´s shrieks of terror pierced the air and woke me with a start. His limbs were thrashing around uncontrollably and he was crying in between yelling. Although I was disoriented from having been jolted awake, instinct kicked in and I sprang out of bed, rushing over to Guthrie´s bed to try to wake him up and relieve him from his dream. I shook him, yelling for him to wake up, but he was dreaming too deeply. With his arms and legs still whirling in the air, as if to fight off an imaginary demon, his fist connected powerfully with my cheek, knocking me backwards slightly. It hurt, but because I was full of adrenaline, I didn´t feel it so badly, and I kept shaking him shouting for him to wake up.

Suddenly, the light in our room came on, and I heard a voice behind me say, "Heidi!". I felt an arm around my waist and I was pulled backwards, feet off the ground, away from Guthrie, and connecting with a firm body behind me. Adam was now by Guthrie´s side, and it took me a few seconds to recognize that the person who had pulled me away and who was holding me back was Brian. He set me on my feet but kept his arm around my upper chest so that I couldn´t rush to Guthrie´s aid again.

Adam, experienced in dealing with Guthrie´s nightmares, gently caught Guthrie´s arms, one in each hand, and pulled him up to a sitting position. He pulled Guthrie´s back to his chest, holding his arms down, not harshly or anything, but enough that he couldn´t hit out anymore. He spoke softly in Guthrie´s ear, telling him to wake up, repeating things along the line of, "Wake up, Guth, Adam´s here. You´re ok. You´re safe," until Guthrie came around, out of his nightmare. Like all the other times Guthrie had had a nightmare, he cried hysterically and uncontrollably upon awakening. Adam turned him round so that he could hug Guthrie properly now. Guthrie clung to him, like a much smaller child, wailing with abandon into Adam´s T-shirt. Adam rocked him slightly and rubbed his back and whispered comfort into his ear.

Seeing that Guthrie had woken up and was being taken care of, I relaxed into Brian behind me. One of Brian´s arms was still around my chest, and he used his other hand to smooth back my hair.

"Adam, maybe you´d better…" he said to Adam. Adam looked at him and seemed to understand what he meant.

"Yea," he said. He stood up with Guthrie still in his arms. Guthrie wrapped his legs around Adam´s waist, still clinging to him like a monkey. He continued to cry into Adam´s shoulder although his wails weren´t as loud now.

Adam carried Guthrie to the door, presumably to take him into he and Brian´s room. Brian loosened his arms around me and I turned to see Adam talking quietly to Daniel, Evan and Ford, who were crowded quietly, huddled together at the door of our bedroom in their pajamas, bleary eyed and disoriented looking.

Brian walked over to the remainder of my brothers, who were still hanging around, and said, "Back to bed guys; Guthrie´ll be fine. Adam´s got him now." He ushered them out the room and followed them, probably just to see them into their rooms.

My heart was hammering in my chest and I felt shaky. Even though I knew Guthrie was never in any real danger, when you´re suddenly awoken by screams, it´s not a pleasant or calming experience. My cheek was really starting to hurt- Guthrie had clocked me good. Combined with the dull pain in my ears, I was feeling really battered.

I climbed back into bed just as Brian came back into my room as I knew he would, just to check that I was okay. He sat down at the edge of my bed and smiled tiredly at me.

"Pretty scary, huh? You okay?"

I lay down properly and looked up at him. "Uh huh."

He touched my cheek lightly though his fingers felt abrasive against my skin. "What happened to your cheek?"

"Guthrie hit me when I was trying to wake him up."

Brian turned my face to the side so he could look at it properly in the light. "Looks like it´s swellin´ pretty good. I´ll go get you some ice for it."

He left my room again and returned a couple of minutes later with an ice pack which he gave to me and told me to hold it against my cheek. The cold felt soothing against my skin and I wished I could hold them up to my ears.

Maybe it was delayed emotion from the shock of being awoken so unpleasantly, but I suddenly felt exhausted and tearful about the predicament with my ears. I knew I would get into trouble but I just wanted to stop worrying about being found out. I started to well up a bit. Brian, thinking I was crying about my cheek, pulled me into a hug and I savoured the feeling of his arms around me comforting me, knowing that his reaction towards me was going to change when he found out what I had done.

"Bri, I have to tell you something," I said into his chest, while his arms were still around me.

Brian pulled back and let me go. He looked at me expectantly. "What´s that then?"

I took a deep breath. "Yesterday, when I went out with Olivia and her mom to the mall, I got my ears pierced."

I watched as a cloud passed over Brian´s face and I hurried to finish saying quickly, "But then when I got home, I knew what I had done was wrong, so I took them out. They´re out now, see?" I pushed my hair back so he could see that my ears no longer held the offending gold studs.

Brian reached out to touch one of my ears and then the other. "They look pretty raw. Do they hurt?" he asked me.

"The left one is okay, but the right one is really painful," I said as I fingered my right ear lobe. The pain was really sharp and was spreading to the side of my head.

For the third time, Brian left my room but this time he didn´t tell me where he was going. He came back a couple of minutes later armed with some bottles and cream. He was silent while he put some saline solution on a cotton pad and dabbed it against my ear, using a different pad for each ear so as not to spread any infection. Then he applied a liberal amount of antibiotic ointment to my ears. I was also silent, not wanting to inflame his anger.

When he was done, he put everything down on my bedside table and then he took the ice pack from me and put it down on the table too. He pinned me with a hard look.

"Why have you chosen to tell me this information in the middle of the night, rather than yesterday or last night? he asked me in a steely tone.

I shuffled back against my headboard, away from Brian´s radiating irritation. He wasn´t livid or anything, but I could definitely feel his displeasure with me. "I didn´t want to get into trouble," I admitted in a small voice.

"But why tell me now, this minute?" Brian said.

I shrugged, even though I know it´s something that Brian finds maddening. I sneaked a look up at him and saw that he was still fixing me with the same stern look.

"Are you really mad at me?" I asked hesitantly.

"I´m very unhappy with you, yes. And I can´t imagine Adam is going to be thrilled either," Brian said.

My tummy clenched a bit. "Do you have to tell him?" I asked, giving him a pleading look. "Couldn´t you just punish me?" Although Brian was more unpredictable than Adam, and could go from calm to furious in a matter of minutes, Adam was the one who hated direct disobedience from any of us even more. Brian raised an eyebrow at me. "Don´t you think you´ve done enough lying for one 24 hour period?"

I felt my face grow warm and he continued sternly, "Yes, he has to know. But it´s the middle of the night just now; I want some shut eye and I want you to go back to sleep too."

"But I won´t be able to sleep knowing you´re mad at me!" I said, desperately.

"Then lay and rest. Anyway, you always say that and then 5 minutes later you´re conked out.

I gave him my most piteous look, but he ignored it and told me to lay back down. He pulled the covers over me and turned off my night lamp leaving the room and saying, "We´ll talk about it tomorrow." Maybe because I was feeling so sensitive, his words sounded ominous.

/

Like Brian had predicted, I did fall asleep. When I awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of Daniel and Evan roughhousing in the hallway outside my room. From what I could hear, Daniel was sitting on Evan and Evan was calling him all sorts of unsavory names and yelling at Daniel to let him up.

My middle of the night confession to Brian came rushing back, making my heart sink. I pulled my pillow over my head and buried deeper into the covers, wishing that I could wind back time. Brian had caught me when I was at my most vulnerable and tired in the middle of the night. I had a feeling of what awaited me and I wasn´t looking forward to facing him and Adam. I suddenly felt very sorry for myself. I knew I was wrong to go against my brothers and get my ears pierced but I´d taken them out straight after, so it´s not like I was blatantly walking around the house defying them. And then I started thinking about how unfair it was that I hadn´t been allowed to get them done in the first place. What was the big deal? Olivia´s mom thought it was alright so why were my brothers so against it? The more I thought about it, the more mutinous I became.

I pulled the covers up over my head so that I was cocooned. Presently, I heard Ford´s voice, telling me to come down for breakfast.

"I don´t want any," I told him from under my nest.

"How come?" I heard him ask. The covers were flung back away from me, and I saw Ford staring down at me.

"I´m not hungry, Ford," I said moodily. "Just leave me alone."

Ford shrugged and left my room and I pulled the covers back up over my head. I lay face down cuddling Rocket, my favourite stuffed animal to me. My cheek hurt and my ears hurt and I was tired. It just wasn´t fair!