After the day had run out and everything was calming down, Alan, Sky, Petey and Ronnie dropped by the room Summer and I were sharing.

Summer squealed and dove under her blankets. "Sky Weaver! I'm plotting to murder you as we speak! It's going to be messy and I will not feel bad! Why would you bring people into my room when I look like I'm about to croak?"

"Because I thought it would be funny and I was right," he replied. He whipped the blankets off of her and she cowered on her bed in her matching white shorts and tank top. "Meet my friends, Sunny, don't be rude. This is Petey, Alan, and Ronnie."

"Grrr," she said to him, and then looked at the others. "Hi. I'm not usually this horrifying to look at."

I chirped, "It gets worse."

She threw a pillow at me and I toppled off my bed.

"Hey, do you ooze too?" Alan asked eagerly.

"No, I do not ooze," Summer said, quite appalled.

"Oh. I thought maybe you caught it from Lyric," he said, disappointed, and then winked at me.

Summer stared at me. "Did you ooze on this boy?"

"Maybe," I replied enigmatically, and smiled back at Alan.

"Lyric, don't tell people that you ooze," Sky told me impatiently. "It sounds wrong."

"Don't talk to me," I responded. "You know I can't stand you."

"This is the reason I make up rumours about my sisters," Sky explained to his friends. "One of them hates me and the other one looks like she belongs to the legion of the living dead."

"You belong to the legion of the living dead?" Alan beamed at Summer. "That must be exhausting."

"Not really. I sleep all day." She smiled at him.

His smile lit up his whole face and he sat down on her bed like he was right at home.

This was so typical of Summer. One measly smile from her and she had every guy in the room wrapped around her finger. I had to practically sweat blood to get a guy to notice me.

Looking for a little attention, I asked, "So you're feeling better, Alan?"

"Yeah," he answered, smirking lopsidedly. "Thanks to you and your water."

"Aww, Lyric, did you figure out how to pour water?" Summer teased.

I hurled the pillow back at her.

"Hey, I'm sick!" she protested.

"Right. You just don't want to pour the WATER because you're not smarter than the TAP."

Summer appeared to be wounded as she looked over at Alan, who was laughing with a hand over his stomach. "I don't know what I did to make them hate me," she said to him.

"You were BORN!" Sky said.

"SORRY!" she shot back.

Uncle Bill poked his head into the room and surveyed the room. "You boys are not supposed to be in the girls' room."

As Alan, Petey and Ronnie mumbled apologies, Sky stared at Uncle Bill angrily. I felt a wave of both embarrassment and dread go down my spine and he hadn't even said anything yet. Then he opened his mouth and the feeling of embarrassment and dread grew a little more. "What, do you think they're gonna have a big naked party or something? They can't do anything with my sisters while I'm in the room."

Alan announced, "Oh yes we CAN." He recoiled under Uncle Bill's sharp glare.

"I was just introducing some of the guys to them. Summer hasn't been able to leave her room to meet anyone," Sky explained, as always sounding like he thought he was all that and a bag of chips.

Uncle Bill shrugged, and I could tell he didn't like being the disciplinarian. "It's after curfew. And I don't think your mother would have liked the idea of three strange boys in her daughters' room, unattended."

"Don't talk to me about my mother," Sky barked. "You didn't even know her."

Summer tried to step in. "Sky, that's enough."

"I knew her before you kids did," Uncle Bill said calmly.

"But you stopped knowing her. And you don't know us. You never wanted to know us."

"If you want to talk about this later, I'll be more than happy to sit down with you to discuss it," he said in a slow, talking-to-psychos voice. "But I can't have a rational private discussion regarding our family in front of five other people."

"It's okay." Sky moved past him and out the door. "Don't bother, Coach."