"Are you eating your teeth?"

Surprised, Mattie looked over at Gordie. He was sitting next to her on the kitchen counter. "No."

"Then what are you crunching on?"

"Nothing."

"Do you have peanut brittle?" he cried. "I can smell its sweet nuttiness!"

"No!"

"What's in your mouth?"

"Peanut brittle!"

Gordie's eyes lit up as if suddenly set ablaze. "Can I have some?"

"Ahh," she giggled, opening her mouth wide. "It's all in my mouth." She chewed thoughtfully for awhile, not paying him any attention while he stared at her in disgusted disbelief. "Will and Nicky made pie the other day. No one will eat it, so if you would like some, that would be nice."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well, the crust is the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted, for starters. Tastes like bile, but in a flaky kinda way."

He smiled benignly. "No, thank you, Mattie, I'm fine."

"Oh, I think you want some," she teased, poking him in the side. "Yum yum, Gordie!"

"No, no, Mattie."

"Want some cranberry juice?" she offered, flashing him a smile. "It's CRAN-TASTIC!"

"Oh dear God." He was about to say something else, but the front door opened, and a gale of loud, laughing voice burst inside. "People!" Leaping off the counter like hell was after him, he tried to land gracefully but slipped when his socks made contact with the hardwood floor. "OW! My diocese!"

Mattie toppled off the counter in a fit of laughter. "There's no diocese in the human anatomy for you to injure!"

"Hmm," a new voice said. The two peered up from the kitchen floor to see Sam, Chris, and a short girl standing above them. It was Sam that had spoken. "Am I allowed to ask what you're doing down there?"

"Mattie's making me eat shoes!" Gordie exclaimed.

"What!" she shrilled. "You damn dirty liar." Getting to her feet, Mattie tucked her dark hair behind her ear and grinned at the new people. "Hi."

Chris smiled back, but the girl he was with was too busy tilting her head back and sniffling to do much of anything. "Hi. Do you have any tissues?"

"Yes, please, tissues, I might drip all over your floor and I barely know you so I'd feel bad," the girl said in a rush.

Gordie scrambled to his feet as well. "I told you she oozed!"

Mattie retrieved some tissues and handed them over. "Um. Are you sick?"

"Nope, I'm Toby," she replied, blowing her nose gratefully. "And you're Mattie. My nose and I thank you. I have the runny nose from hell. I had to walk here most of the way practically bent over backwards."

"That's sad."

"You kidnapped my cousin," Toby said conversationally.

"I did not kidnap anyone's cousin," Mattie retorted adamantly.

Crumpling the tissue up into a ball, the other girl pointed at Gordie, and from the wide-expression on her face, Mattie expected her to cry, "Eureka!" But instead, she just said, "Gordie!"

Gordie smiled benevolently at her and petted her tawny coloured hair. "Toby, your flu has seeped into your brain. I think you should eat some pie."

Appearing alarmed, Sam cried, "Don't touch that pie!"

Her lips almost tickling Gordie's ear, Mattie whispered, "Is she friend or foe?"

Quite surprised he could even find his voice, what with her mouth barely inches away from him, Gordie muttered, "Worse. She's my cousin."

Mattie grinned with bright vivaciousness at Toby. "Could I interest you in some pie?"

Sam grabbed the pie tin, and they all stared in awe as the pie jiggled like no pastry ever should. Careful not to touch it, he dumped it into the trash.

"Well. Will and Nicky will be sad when they see their hard work in the garbage," Mattie said pointedly.

"Good going, Sam," Chris chided him.

"It was for the best," Sam assured them all.

"You have a lovely home," Toby said. "Is there anything in it to occupy our attentions?"

Chris turned to her and smiled widely. "Come and get it."

Smirking in return, she poked him squarely in the chest. "You wish."

Boredom finally found the five up in Sam's room. Chris and Gordie were flipping through Sam's sparse record collection. They didn't seem too impressed.

"Oh my God, what the hell!" Chris barked out a laugh. "The Mamas and the Papas. Why didn't you tell me you were a pussy?"

Sam glared at him. "Mattie listens to Simon and Garfunkel!"

"Mattie's a girl. Girls have bad taste in music." Chris shook his head, apparently saddened. He tossed the Mamas and the Papas record onto the pile of other previously declared crap records. "Bob Dylan. That's what you should listen to."

"No, thank you. I like to be able to understand the words when I listen to music."

"The man's a genius!" he exclaimed.

"The man sounds like he's choking on his tongue!"

With Gordie serving as the referee, Sam and Chris' debate grew more and more heated over the following minutes.

"I'm growing impatient!" Toby yelled over the noise.

Gordie shifted around. "Wow. I'm apparently growing socks!" Looking proud, he held up a dirty sock that he'd been sitting on.

"Pay attention to us!" she pleaded, ignoring Gordie. A spoon hit her in the face. "Good grief, why are there flying spoons?"

"Sam never has been one for keeping a tidy room," Mattie said. "You'd be surprised at what you'd find in here if you really dug around. You could probably find a whole new food group."

"Sorry, Toby, I was aiming for Sam," Chris said, walking over to her, bending down and picking up the spoon again. He hurled it at Sam again, this time making contact.

Scowling, Toby's glare turned over to Mattie. Mattie looked concerned at being glared at in such a manner. "Do you have a room?"

"Um, yes I do," Mattie replied. "Why, what do you want to do in there? Keep in mind you have a boyfriend."

"Oh I'll try to resist your beguiling ways," Toby said sarcastically. "Lead the way."

Peering around when they were in Mattie's marginally more clean bedroom, Toby said softly, "Lots of pink."

"Yeah," she said. "Kinda makes your head spin, doesn't it? One of these days I'm going to paint the walls blue or something. When we moved in, it was like this. But it's the biggest bedroom in the house, and none of my brothers wanted a pink room so I got it. That was nice."

"It must blow having to live with a bunch of guys."

"Yeah, it doesn't smell very good either," Mattie giggled.

"Just living with Gordie and my brother make me want to run away and become a nun or a clown or something. I don't think I'd be able to live with four brothers for too long." Toby picked up a framed picture and looked at it pensively. "That's your mom?"

Not bothering to look over, Mattie smiled gently. "That's my mom."

She nodded, and then put the picture back down on the bedside table.

"Does it ever get better?" Mattie asked suddenly.

"My parents have been dead for two years," she murmured. "I guess it does get better. But you won't stop thinking about her everyday."

"I don't want to stop thinking about her," Mattie said. "I just want to be able to think about her and not hurt."

Favoring her with a sidelong glance, Toby said, "It'll get better." Spotting the bin Mattie kept her records in, she began to sift through them. "Your taste in music isn't that bad."

Mattie smiled. "I didn't think so."

"Except for Gary Pucket." She shuddered. "That's where I draw the line."

"That's not mine! That's Sam's! Get it away from the others! Gross! Good Lord, I hope it didn't leak and make my other music sound like shit too!"

Toby laughed. "Oh my."

Startling them, Gordie poked his head in the room. "Hello, ladies."

Mattie flung the Gary Pucket record at him. "Will you please give that to my brother?"

"Gary Pucket? Ew." Gordie studied the front cover, a look of contempt on his face. "He listens to this kind of music and yet he has the nerve to call himself a man. I'm shocked and disgusted."

"Can we help you?" Toby asked him impatiently.

"Make me a sandwich."

"Fuck a tree."

"I could get splinters."

Mattie laughed, but Toby just raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you want?"

"What do I want? What do I want?" Looking wounded, Gordie placed a hand over his heart. "Why don't we start talking about some of my needs?"

"Oh, go away," she said, but smiled anyway.

He frowned at her, but then looked over at Mattie and smiled. "Goodbye Mattie. I'm not talking to Toby."

When he was gone, Toby stood up and sat on the bed. "Speaking of Gordie…"

"I wasn't speaking of Gordie."

"Well, you were thinking about him." She grinned. "You were thinking of him unclothed, weren't you?"

Rolling her eyes, Mattie moaned sarcastically. "Oh YES, Toby, I just can't stop thinking about him naked. Except in some of my fantasies, he's naked, but he's also covered in honey."

"Dammit! Icky! Mattie how could you?"

"You're imagining your cousin naked, aren't you?" Mattie cackled. "Serves you right."

"I was just trying to prove a point," Toby wailed, unable to get the image out of her mind.

"What was that point?"

"That you like him."

"Why does everyone think I like him?"

"Hmm." Toby pondered for a moment. "Because you do?"