Kimberly Holmes held up a sad excuse for a bag. "Why? Why do I always screw up on the sewing machines?"

Her friend Matthew, who was sitting in the seat behind her, shrugged. "Maybe you're just not a sewer. Besides, it couldn't have been that bad."

"Oh, yes it could." chirped Katie, a petite girl fresh from a Christen Academy, "She sewed her sleeve to the pocket."

Kim banged her head on the seat. "I'm trying to forget that incident, if you don't mind. Why do we have to take Family Studies anyway? Like I'm ever going to use a sewing machine again. After this, I won't even be able to look at a needle!"

Matt snatched the bag, and looked it over. "It doesn't seen that messed."

"Try to open it."

He tugged at the top. It was sewn shut. He chuckled. "Correction. You're royally screwed."

Katie took the bag. "You could just take out the stitches over the top, than re-sew the hem."

"Easy for you to say." grumbled Kim, "You were done your bag two weeks ago, and it was perfect down to the eyelets."

The blond tossed the bag back. "So I can sew. Big whoop. I'm passing French by the skin of my teeth."

"Really? I'm doing quite well." said Matthew, smugly.

"And that is why you're in Immersion."

"True."

"I'm doing okay. It's Gym I'm worried about. Thank god it's marked for effort."

Katie winched. "Watch the G word."

"Sorry. I still don't get why you're so touchy about that."

"My dad's a priest, and I was taught by nuns for the past seven years. I wasn't exposed to a lot of swearing."

Matt tutted and shook his head. "So naive."

"You should have seen her during health class." That earned her a smack on the arm. "Hey! Love thy neighbour!"

"Hey! It's the church group!" hollered Darcy, the resident asshole, from the back of the bus. Although he most defiantly wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, he was quite popular, and was not someone you wanted to pick a fight with on the best of days. To put it lightly, he was Hulk Hogan, only a quarter of the size, and twice as ugly. Darcy, however, didn't seem to mind that although he had muscles the size of a baseball, he had a brain the size of a peanut. Then again, maybe he was too dumb to care. If ignorance was bliss, he was the happiest person alive.

"Was I talking to you?" shot back the girl.

The burly boy replied, "Does anyone ever talk to you?" This comment received a few chuckles from the back.

The bus stopped at her house, so Kim grabbed her sewing project, slung her book bag over her shoulder, and got up.

If this was anyone else, they would have stepped off of the bus with their head held high. But this was Kim.

She walked gracefully down the first two steps, and missed the third. She tripped, and fell into her driveway.

The school bus closed it's doors, and drove away, it's occupants laughing at the sight of her with a mouthful of gravel.

The fallen girl picked herself up, and ran her tongue over the metal brackets on her teeth. Good, none broken. Her mom would kill her if that happened again. She adjusted her black frame glasses, and picked up her book bag, heavy with homework for the weekend. It would get done between seven o'clock Sunday night, and the few minutes before class started on Monday morning.

Maybe a bit of a description would be helpful. Kimberly had mouse-brown hair, which she grew out in the winter, and got it cropped to her chin in the summer. She had blue eyes, not light blue, not dark blue, just blue.

She had pale skin, but that wasn't because she spent all of her time indoors. She just didn't tan, she freckled. They weren't all that visible now, in early April, but come July, her face, arms, legs, and any other part of her body exposed to the sun, would be covered in the dark brown spots.

She had a slim, okay, scratch that, scrawny frame, but she wasn't exactly a weakling. She wasn't bodybuilder strong, or superhero strong. More like practically-lives-in-the-water-in-summer strong, so she had some arm and leg muscles. However, her hand-eye coordination was about zip, which was the main reason she was barely keeping her head above water in gym (no pun intended).

She got good grades, but one would expect that from someone who forever had their nose in a book. She was quite clever, and had learned to read at a young age. According to her teachers, she could be very smart if she just applied herself. She didn't want to apply herself. The main things she cared about was when the next Harry Potter book was coming out, and how many days there were until the water at the cottage was at the temperature where she wouldn't catch hypothermia. And then there was the glasses, braces, and the occasional zit the size of Zimbabwe. Add these up and you get your classic nerd.

She jogged up the steps to her deck, and flung open the gate.

Her white husky/collie mix, for reasons unknown named Simone, almost mauled her to death.

After brushing aside the mutt, she swung open the door. "Home sweet home." she muttered.

What a laugh. There was nothing wrong with the house it's self. The Cape Cod house was of modest size, in good repair, and although painted a kind of ugly colour, was fine. It was the people who lived in it that was the problem. Her family.

Now, to get the full concept on why Kimberly's family drove her up the wall and beyond, we need to get a little deeper in family history.

The Holmes's had always been a little, okay, really strange. They had roots in Scotland, where they had lived by the coast as far back as anyone can tell. Even today, most members of the clan had waterfront cottages. As a result of living near the water so long, the Holmes's physically adapted to the water. Or at least that was one theory. Most children learned to swim at a very early age, they had a very high tolerance to cold water, and their eyes were strangely shaped, almost like almonds. Some people claimed they helped them see better underwater, and that it was thanks to them that salt water didn't affect them. No one really knew if this was true or not, though. But strangest of all, almost all members of the kin had webs. Not very big, just half way up to the first knuckle and over on the hands, and to the first knuckle on the feet. They weren't really that noticeable, unless she spread her fingers apart, but they helped somewhat with her one true passion: Swimming.

Of course, most of us know that humans evolving that quickly is impossible. A more likely theory is that the webbed fingers and almond-shaped eyes were the result of a mutation, probably caused by breeding among bloodlines. Then, the mutation was passed along though genes.

But try to suggest this to Kim. She never had really been open to other's ideas, and much preferred her own. You have no idea how annoying that is until you've tried to play a piece of music with her.

Now, her family. First of all, there was her father, Steven Holmes. A burly man, not Butler sized, but no midget. He had brown hair, though you'd never know because he almost always wore a ball cap. He one of those all-year tans the teenagers strive to get. He worked for the local landscaping company, and was quite good at math. The reason he drove his eldest daughter crazy was because he was always making light of things she took very seriously, and, no matter if he was right or wrong, always insisted he was correct. Another detail was that he was from Newfoundland, meaning he had a thick accent. Kim inherited some of this, though not as thick. Even though all of her close friends (and enemies for that matter) knew that when she got really angry, or really excited, you could barely understand her.

Then there was her mother, Margaret Geddes-Holmes. She had curly black hair, and the same colour eyes as Kim's, only not the same shape. She also shared the same pale skin as her. She was forever worrying, and always expecting the worst, as she used to be a nurse. She had left to be a stay-at-home mother after her second child was born. She was a neat-freak who couldn't even stand to look her daughter's room anymore. In Kim's mind, she was always nagging or worrying.

And most annoying of all, there was her kid sister, Hannah Holmes. No offence to any blonds who read this, but she was the definition of a dumb blond. She was only ten, but already a total ditz. She was always singing the few parts of songs she could remember, and thought she was the next Canadian Idol. Problem was, she sang like a smoke alarm. She always had her nose in her sister's business, and was basically a pain in the stern. She and her cousin John were the only members of that generation that didn't have the trademark webs and eyes.

But this weekend was different. This weekend, her parents and Hannah were going to a wedding, Simone was going to the kennel. As for her, she wasn't going anywhere. She had the whole house to herself. Heaven. Pure and simple heaven. She planned to have pizza every day, blast her music, and watch all of the R movies her parents had confiscated from her.

The first thing she heard when she came in the door was, "Can someone go get the newspaper?"

Kim sighed, and dropped her bag on the floor. She headed back out the door.

The stupid paperboy, or papergirl, she'd never really see them, had throw the newspaper on the lawn. Very smart. The whole place was a bog from the April showers.

"May flowers, my ass." grumbled the girl, as she stepped on the dry patches to avoid sinking up to her knees in mud. She bent over to get the plastic-wrapped paper, and lost her balance. She fell face-first into a puddle of wet soil and grass. She pulled her face out of the sludge, and wiped off of her face the best she could. As soon as she could see again, something caught her eye. It was a red stone. It looked like something that you'd put in the bottom of a fish tank. She picked it up and looked it over. It had scratches and dents all over it. There seemed to be a weird kind of pattern on the bottom, but it might have been the mud blocking her vision. She grabbed the paper, still gazing at it. She walked into the house.

Instantly, her mother was there. "Look at you, you're filthy! Go take a shower, and try not to trail mud all over the house. Hurry! We're leaving soon."

Kimberly sighed, and trudged upstairs, pausing only to chuck the stone on her bedroom floor. She could pick it up later. One shower and a fresh set of clothes later, the girl rushed downstairs.

Her family's suitcases were already packed in the backseat of her father's green company truck.

Kim often referred to it as a Rubbermaid container on wheels.

Margaret was giving her daughter a last minute briefing. "Now, remember to lock all of the doors. And don't open them for anything! Check the Caller ID before you pick up the phone, and don't tell anyone you're home alone!"


"Mom, I'm thirteen! And Mrs. Morton will be here in, like, two hours."

The lady sighed. "I'm sorry, dear, but I worry."

"I know. And don't call me dear!"

"Fine. I'll see you on Sunday."

Kim practically slammed the door behind her. She turned the lock, and looked unto the fortress she had been granted for a glorious three days. She was home alone, and she couldn't be happier.

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Everyone in this chapter is a real person, so I don't own anything. Kim's last name isn't really Holmes. The name Kimberly Holmes is taken from the Kimberly Holmes Reel, which is a very good song and belongs to whoever wrote it.