Note ~ Ahh! I did not mean to keep everybody waiting so long for the next
chapter. I have been uber busy, and this chapter didn't like me very much.
If it helps, it's a bit longer than usual. And also, I'm getting to the
whole Jenny House part and I may bring in some of the old characters with
guest appearances. So there will probably be spoilers in the chapters
ahead, just in case you haven't read the Jenny House part of the One Last
Wish series. Anyway . . .
Mrs. B ~ I'm sorry you don't like the vampires, but I did have several warnings about a crossover and even gave the series name and the author. There was nothing else I COULD do unless I wanted to ruin any surprise this story had. The vampires are staying, but I will change the genre to drama/supernatural now that the surprise is over. Will that help at all?
Sky-bleww ~ Oh my goodness! Such high praise! I really honestly don't know what to say but thank you! You've made my day!
Kristen ~ Thank you! I'm glad you like my story.
And now here it is . . .
Chapter 9
Now that plans had been settled, the next week was spent finishing school and packing for Emma's three week stint at camp. The plan was that the whole family would drive down to North Carolina from Chicago. Emma would have protested them doing all that for her, but knowing that she would never see them again made her be quiet about it.
Her last final was physics, and her family was leaving later that afternoon. At that moment, Emma wasn't thinking that far ahead. She was hugging Raquel goodbye.
"Camp for three weeks, you're the lucky one again," Raquel told her, "I'll miss you, you know. You'd better write to me."
"You know I will," Emma told her, looking at her best friend carefully. It was just dawning on her that she would probably never see Raquel again and she wanted to remember every detail of the Ecuadorian beauty, from her dark sparkling eyes to her pitch black tresses.
"Raquel?" she ventured, "This might sound a little weird right now, but I just want you to know that you're my best friend in the entire world. I could never forget you."
"Me neither, Ella. I'll see you in three weeks, okay?"
Emma gave a wan smile, unable to lie to Raquel, but unable to tell her the truth.
Max came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I'll be seeing you," he whispered in her ear.
"I know," she whispered back.
"My cue to exit," Raquel grinned as she waved to Emma and Max.
Emma stifled a sob as Raquel disappeared from view. "Things are going to be so much different."
"You're a strong girl, Emma. You'll make it."
But as Emma headed home to make the drive to North Carolina, she didn't feel strong. She felt like a scared little girl. What am I doing? she thought. She knew that in reality, she was only doing what she could do in a situation like this. She just hoped that she was making the right decision.
Michael insisted on sitting next to her in the van and insisted that she play magnetic chess with him. Neither one of them was especially good at the game, and kept making stupid mistakes, which Sean, who was sitting behind them, felt free to point out.
"Look, Mike, her queen's unguarded. Get it and you'll have checkmate."
Michael grinned and followed Sean's advice. "I win."
"Congratulations," she told him sincerely.
Before she could blink, Michael had wrapped his arms around her in a big hug. "Emma, you're such a nice stepsister. I'm going to miss you!"
Emma looked down at Michael's brown head. Poor kid, to be only ten and to have to deal with all this. Emma realized with a pang how much her stepfamily meant to her. "I'm going to miss you too," she told him, hugging him back.
The family made an overnight stop in Frankfurt, Kentucky, and got up bright and early the next morning to finish the trip to Jenny House. Although they nearly got lost trying to find the exit, once they reached their destination, Emma had to admit it was impressive. The main building was big and spacious, and looked like a resort. This is the last place I'm going to see as a human, she thought with a sense of awe.
Everyone was checking in inside the main lobby, and that's where Richard Holloway met them.
"I'm Emma Kinney. I'm here for three weeks," she told him.
"That's right," he told her, "You'll be sharing a room with three other girls. Susanna, your big sister, is already there of course, and I think the other girls are too." After giving them directions, the family traipsed upstairs.
They were met by a girl who had a sleek cap of short, black hair. "Ah, here's our last boarder. Now we can all start to get to know each other."
Emma directed Mark and Sean to dump her bags on the last empty bed and gave everyone in her family a hug. Even Kristen.
"I'll miss you," she said as she hugged her mother extra tight. Stephanie may have been slightly crazy, but that didn't mean Emma loved her any less. The last remaining member of my family, Emma thought, and I'm never going to see her again.
"I'll see you in three weeks, Emma. Have fun," her mom said, kissing Emma on the forehead. Emma choked back a sob as her family disappeared from view.
"Three weeks?" questioned one of the other boarders, a blonde girl sitting on the bed next to Emma's.
"Yes, due to circumstances, I'm only here for a short time," said Emma, "But I wanted to come."
"You must be Emmanuelle Kinney, then," said the girl who had greeted them.
"Emma will do," Emma said.
"Emma, okay," she smiled, "Well, I'm Susanna Chen, and I'll kind of be like a big sister to you girls this summer. I'm nineteen, and I'm in remission for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I'm sure my other cancer victim can help explain." With that, she looked almost expectantly at Emma.
"What are you looking at me for? The only kind of cancer I know anything about is metastatic pancreatic cancer, and trust me, I know WAY too much about that."
"I thought only old people got pancreatic cancer," said a young looking African-American girl.
"I guess I'm the exception then," Emma said, "Wait, if you two don't have cancer, then what're you in here for?"
The girl who made the remark about Emma's pancreatic cancer was the first to reply.
"I have a disease called sickle cell anemia. It's a blood disease; basically if something goes wrong, my red blood cells change shape and it's not fun," she grimaced, "Anyway, I was born with it, so I'm used to dealing with it and all."
"How old are you?" Emma asked curiously.
"Thirteen. And my name's Adora Foster," she added, "Just for reference."
"Like She-Ra. That should be easy to remember," said Emma. She turned to the blonde girl on the bed, "And you?"
"Courtney Graczyc," she said, "I'm sixteen and I have kidney disease."
"You're waiting to go on the beeper aren't you?" Susanna asked gently.
Courtney nodded.
"What's a beeper?" Emma asked in confusion.
"It means that I'll be able to have a kidney transplant. Mine are dying on me."
"Well, I'd give you one of mine, but I'm sure mine are even more bum than yours," Emma said.
"It's okay, I'm sure another one will come along," Courtney said with a smile.
"Well, now that we know each others names, why don't we go more in depth?" said Susanna, sitting cross legged on her bed.
"Why?" Emma asked shortly. Yeah, the other girls seemed nice enough to stay with for these three weeks, but she didn't want anyone getting too close to her; it might ruin her secret plan. Besides, they all seemed so . . . cheery. It was almost too much.
"Mr. Holloway put me up to it," Susanna said, "So why don't you just grin and bear the torture so I can honestly tell him I followed his orders on this ice-breaker thing."
Now it was Emma's turn to break into a smile. So there was more to Susanna than all the sweetness and light.
"We're supposed to tell three truths and one lie about ourselves, and then the others have to guess what the lie is."
"Sounds simple enough," said Courtney.
"I'll start," said Susanna, "I'm an only child, I'm more fondly referred to as Susie, I was diagnosed with my cancer when I was fifteen and right now I'm attending college and majoring in paleontology."
"You mean working with dinosaur bones?" asked Adora in awe.
"Well, any fossil remains, but yes, dinosaur bones works."
"That one is a little out there," mused Courtney, "especially compared to the others. And I know how much school you miss when you're sick. I'm going to have to say that one."
Adora agreed.
"Are you kidding?" said Emma, "You haven't been watching what she's doing well enough. She's totally the kind of person that would kick your butt if you called her Susie."
"So what is it?" asked Courtney.
"Emma's got it," she said, "And that's a fair warning. NEVER call me Susie. It's Susanna."
This was almost fun, Emma thought. "You go next, She-Ra," she nudged Adora.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Adora asked in confusion.
"You're probably too young to know," Susanna said, "She-Ra was a cartoon in the '80s. She was He-Man's sister. And her real name was Adora."
"She rocked," Emma added.
Adora smiled. "That's cool. Well, I like peanuts, I like bananas, I like tofu and I like zucchini."
"You're TRYING to make things difficult," Emma pouted.
Adora shrugged. "Whatever works."
"That is a tough one," said Susanna, "All of those are things that different people dislike. I would have to guess it's tofu, then."
"Yeah, tofu," agreed Courtney.
Emma shrugged. "Why not?"
"Actually, I'm allergic to peanuts," Adora told them.
"Gah, that figures," said Emma.
"Can I go next?" Courtney asked cheerily.
"Why not?" Emma replied.
"Okay. I have two older brothers, I used to take ballet classes when I was 5, my dad wanted to name me Rhonda and I got my wisdom teeth pulled last summer."
"Rhonda Graczyc? Maybe it's better they decided to go with Courtney," laughed Susanna.
Emma looked at her. "You don't have two older brothers," she said.
"You think? It was kind of early for her to get her wisdom teeth pulled," Susanna said.
"Positive."
"And you're right," Courtney sighed, "I only have one older brother."
"Your turn, Emma," Susanna told her.
"I'm all set," she said, smiling, "I won first place in a choral competition last year, my favorite color is blue, I was born on Christmas and I'm part Mexican."
"The Christmas thing is probably true," said Susanna, "Her name IS Emmanuelle."
"Tricky," Courtney continued, "But she doesn't really seem Mexican either. I guess I'd have to go with that."
"But that's just the kind of thing she'd use to trick us," said Adora practically, "And I'll bet she can sing. So my vote goes that your favorite color is NOT blue."
"Right on, She-Ra. My favorite color is orange," Emma smiled, "I did win a prize for chorus, my birthday is Christmas, and my mom's dad, my grandpa Merlo, was from Mexico."
"I would have never guessed that if you hadn't told us," said Courtney, "You don't seem Mexican."
Emma shrugged. "In some ways, I'm not. It was hard for my mom when she was a kid. She was the only one in her neighborhood who was half Mexican, the only one whose dad was an immigrant. So I guess she didn't think it was that important to pass that heritage on to me. She used to sing me lullabies in Spanish back when my dad was still alive, but after he died, it all kind of just stopped. I can't even speak Spanish myself. I guess that's one thing I regret. If I could have done it over again, I would have tried to pursue my Mexican heritage more."
Of course, now she DID have the chance to do it over again. Looking at her roommates, Emma made a promise to herself that once she was used to the whole vampire thing, she would learn Spanish and embrace her heritage. For now, until Max arrived, she would have fun with these girls who weren't too bad after all.
Mrs. B ~ I'm sorry you don't like the vampires, but I did have several warnings about a crossover and even gave the series name and the author. There was nothing else I COULD do unless I wanted to ruin any surprise this story had. The vampires are staying, but I will change the genre to drama/supernatural now that the surprise is over. Will that help at all?
Sky-bleww ~ Oh my goodness! Such high praise! I really honestly don't know what to say but thank you! You've made my day!
Kristen ~ Thank you! I'm glad you like my story.
And now here it is . . .
Chapter 9
Now that plans had been settled, the next week was spent finishing school and packing for Emma's three week stint at camp. The plan was that the whole family would drive down to North Carolina from Chicago. Emma would have protested them doing all that for her, but knowing that she would never see them again made her be quiet about it.
Her last final was physics, and her family was leaving later that afternoon. At that moment, Emma wasn't thinking that far ahead. She was hugging Raquel goodbye.
"Camp for three weeks, you're the lucky one again," Raquel told her, "I'll miss you, you know. You'd better write to me."
"You know I will," Emma told her, looking at her best friend carefully. It was just dawning on her that she would probably never see Raquel again and she wanted to remember every detail of the Ecuadorian beauty, from her dark sparkling eyes to her pitch black tresses.
"Raquel?" she ventured, "This might sound a little weird right now, but I just want you to know that you're my best friend in the entire world. I could never forget you."
"Me neither, Ella. I'll see you in three weeks, okay?"
Emma gave a wan smile, unable to lie to Raquel, but unable to tell her the truth.
Max came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I'll be seeing you," he whispered in her ear.
"I know," she whispered back.
"My cue to exit," Raquel grinned as she waved to Emma and Max.
Emma stifled a sob as Raquel disappeared from view. "Things are going to be so much different."
"You're a strong girl, Emma. You'll make it."
But as Emma headed home to make the drive to North Carolina, she didn't feel strong. She felt like a scared little girl. What am I doing? she thought. She knew that in reality, she was only doing what she could do in a situation like this. She just hoped that she was making the right decision.
Michael insisted on sitting next to her in the van and insisted that she play magnetic chess with him. Neither one of them was especially good at the game, and kept making stupid mistakes, which Sean, who was sitting behind them, felt free to point out.
"Look, Mike, her queen's unguarded. Get it and you'll have checkmate."
Michael grinned and followed Sean's advice. "I win."
"Congratulations," she told him sincerely.
Before she could blink, Michael had wrapped his arms around her in a big hug. "Emma, you're such a nice stepsister. I'm going to miss you!"
Emma looked down at Michael's brown head. Poor kid, to be only ten and to have to deal with all this. Emma realized with a pang how much her stepfamily meant to her. "I'm going to miss you too," she told him, hugging him back.
The family made an overnight stop in Frankfurt, Kentucky, and got up bright and early the next morning to finish the trip to Jenny House. Although they nearly got lost trying to find the exit, once they reached their destination, Emma had to admit it was impressive. The main building was big and spacious, and looked like a resort. This is the last place I'm going to see as a human, she thought with a sense of awe.
Everyone was checking in inside the main lobby, and that's where Richard Holloway met them.
"I'm Emma Kinney. I'm here for three weeks," she told him.
"That's right," he told her, "You'll be sharing a room with three other girls. Susanna, your big sister, is already there of course, and I think the other girls are too." After giving them directions, the family traipsed upstairs.
They were met by a girl who had a sleek cap of short, black hair. "Ah, here's our last boarder. Now we can all start to get to know each other."
Emma directed Mark and Sean to dump her bags on the last empty bed and gave everyone in her family a hug. Even Kristen.
"I'll miss you," she said as she hugged her mother extra tight. Stephanie may have been slightly crazy, but that didn't mean Emma loved her any less. The last remaining member of my family, Emma thought, and I'm never going to see her again.
"I'll see you in three weeks, Emma. Have fun," her mom said, kissing Emma on the forehead. Emma choked back a sob as her family disappeared from view.
"Three weeks?" questioned one of the other boarders, a blonde girl sitting on the bed next to Emma's.
"Yes, due to circumstances, I'm only here for a short time," said Emma, "But I wanted to come."
"You must be Emmanuelle Kinney, then," said the girl who had greeted them.
"Emma will do," Emma said.
"Emma, okay," she smiled, "Well, I'm Susanna Chen, and I'll kind of be like a big sister to you girls this summer. I'm nineteen, and I'm in remission for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I'm sure my other cancer victim can help explain." With that, she looked almost expectantly at Emma.
"What are you looking at me for? The only kind of cancer I know anything about is metastatic pancreatic cancer, and trust me, I know WAY too much about that."
"I thought only old people got pancreatic cancer," said a young looking African-American girl.
"I guess I'm the exception then," Emma said, "Wait, if you two don't have cancer, then what're you in here for?"
The girl who made the remark about Emma's pancreatic cancer was the first to reply.
"I have a disease called sickle cell anemia. It's a blood disease; basically if something goes wrong, my red blood cells change shape and it's not fun," she grimaced, "Anyway, I was born with it, so I'm used to dealing with it and all."
"How old are you?" Emma asked curiously.
"Thirteen. And my name's Adora Foster," she added, "Just for reference."
"Like She-Ra. That should be easy to remember," said Emma. She turned to the blonde girl on the bed, "And you?"
"Courtney Graczyc," she said, "I'm sixteen and I have kidney disease."
"You're waiting to go on the beeper aren't you?" Susanna asked gently.
Courtney nodded.
"What's a beeper?" Emma asked in confusion.
"It means that I'll be able to have a kidney transplant. Mine are dying on me."
"Well, I'd give you one of mine, but I'm sure mine are even more bum than yours," Emma said.
"It's okay, I'm sure another one will come along," Courtney said with a smile.
"Well, now that we know each others names, why don't we go more in depth?" said Susanna, sitting cross legged on her bed.
"Why?" Emma asked shortly. Yeah, the other girls seemed nice enough to stay with for these three weeks, but she didn't want anyone getting too close to her; it might ruin her secret plan. Besides, they all seemed so . . . cheery. It was almost too much.
"Mr. Holloway put me up to it," Susanna said, "So why don't you just grin and bear the torture so I can honestly tell him I followed his orders on this ice-breaker thing."
Now it was Emma's turn to break into a smile. So there was more to Susanna than all the sweetness and light.
"We're supposed to tell three truths and one lie about ourselves, and then the others have to guess what the lie is."
"Sounds simple enough," said Courtney.
"I'll start," said Susanna, "I'm an only child, I'm more fondly referred to as Susie, I was diagnosed with my cancer when I was fifteen and right now I'm attending college and majoring in paleontology."
"You mean working with dinosaur bones?" asked Adora in awe.
"Well, any fossil remains, but yes, dinosaur bones works."
"That one is a little out there," mused Courtney, "especially compared to the others. And I know how much school you miss when you're sick. I'm going to have to say that one."
Adora agreed.
"Are you kidding?" said Emma, "You haven't been watching what she's doing well enough. She's totally the kind of person that would kick your butt if you called her Susie."
"So what is it?" asked Courtney.
"Emma's got it," she said, "And that's a fair warning. NEVER call me Susie. It's Susanna."
This was almost fun, Emma thought. "You go next, She-Ra," she nudged Adora.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Adora asked in confusion.
"You're probably too young to know," Susanna said, "She-Ra was a cartoon in the '80s. She was He-Man's sister. And her real name was Adora."
"She rocked," Emma added.
Adora smiled. "That's cool. Well, I like peanuts, I like bananas, I like tofu and I like zucchini."
"You're TRYING to make things difficult," Emma pouted.
Adora shrugged. "Whatever works."
"That is a tough one," said Susanna, "All of those are things that different people dislike. I would have to guess it's tofu, then."
"Yeah, tofu," agreed Courtney.
Emma shrugged. "Why not?"
"Actually, I'm allergic to peanuts," Adora told them.
"Gah, that figures," said Emma.
"Can I go next?" Courtney asked cheerily.
"Why not?" Emma replied.
"Okay. I have two older brothers, I used to take ballet classes when I was 5, my dad wanted to name me Rhonda and I got my wisdom teeth pulled last summer."
"Rhonda Graczyc? Maybe it's better they decided to go with Courtney," laughed Susanna.
Emma looked at her. "You don't have two older brothers," she said.
"You think? It was kind of early for her to get her wisdom teeth pulled," Susanna said.
"Positive."
"And you're right," Courtney sighed, "I only have one older brother."
"Your turn, Emma," Susanna told her.
"I'm all set," she said, smiling, "I won first place in a choral competition last year, my favorite color is blue, I was born on Christmas and I'm part Mexican."
"The Christmas thing is probably true," said Susanna, "Her name IS Emmanuelle."
"Tricky," Courtney continued, "But she doesn't really seem Mexican either. I guess I'd have to go with that."
"But that's just the kind of thing she'd use to trick us," said Adora practically, "And I'll bet she can sing. So my vote goes that your favorite color is NOT blue."
"Right on, She-Ra. My favorite color is orange," Emma smiled, "I did win a prize for chorus, my birthday is Christmas, and my mom's dad, my grandpa Merlo, was from Mexico."
"I would have never guessed that if you hadn't told us," said Courtney, "You don't seem Mexican."
Emma shrugged. "In some ways, I'm not. It was hard for my mom when she was a kid. She was the only one in her neighborhood who was half Mexican, the only one whose dad was an immigrant. So I guess she didn't think it was that important to pass that heritage on to me. She used to sing me lullabies in Spanish back when my dad was still alive, but after he died, it all kind of just stopped. I can't even speak Spanish myself. I guess that's one thing I regret. If I could have done it over again, I would have tried to pursue my Mexican heritage more."
Of course, now she DID have the chance to do it over again. Looking at her roommates, Emma made a promise to herself that once she was used to the whole vampire thing, she would learn Spanish and embrace her heritage. For now, until Max arrived, she would have fun with these girls who weren't too bad after all.