Nobody said it was easy...
Chapter 1 – The Bakers Again"Sarah, if you hit Jessica one more time, you will be in big trouble! Sarah?"
"Whatever Mom," was the snide reply. Kate Baker groaned and moved onto the next sinner.
"Jake, if you don't stop crashing out that urban junk at top volume you will be minus a hi-fi system. Hello-o, JAKE?"
"Take a chill pill, Kate." he moaned.
Kate stifled a scream.
"Look buddy, just turn down the music, and don't call your mother Kate," Tom called from their bedroom. No reply.
"I can't cope, Tom. It's over two years since we moved to Evanston, and they've gone totally haywire. I don't know what's going on, but-"
Tom put his arm around his wife's overrought back.
"It's not the move, Kate. Well I mean, it's them! They're growing up, finding themselves. It's a tough process."
"I know, I know, it's just, I wish they could be children forever, y'know?"
A little later on, all the Bakers were gathered at the table for supper.
"So," Kate mused, as she handed out the lemon-and-sugar pancakes, "anybody got any family news they'd like to tell us?"
There was a short silence as the children pondered this.
"Kimmy got an A- at school!" grinned Jessica. Kim kicked her.
"Thanks," she snarled, glaring, as the family giggled at this phenomenon. Jessica and Kim had never got below A in their lives. Kate predicted the general bad feeling that would ensue if the topic was kept up.
"Uh, OK, has... anybody else... got any news?"
More silence.
"I won ve mooosicy clawinet fingy at shkool an i won moooshic vaachers ter buy me moooshic booksh!"
Kate smiled wanly.
"That's great, Henry. But please don't talk with your mouth full, honey, you've, er, you've topped Lorraine's pancake with a whole load of chewed up pancake."
"ARGH, HENRY!" squealed Lorraine.
"Look, sorry, Barbie!" Henry groaned, following his apology with a loud burp.
"Yes, well, uh, any other news that isn't going to result in a world war?"
Yet more silence...
"New people are moving in opposite," said Jake.
"Really?"
"Next to the Shenks?"
"Cool!"
"What are they like?"
"Where are they from?"
"I dunno," replied Jake to the shower of questions, "Dylan told me at school that the current people are moving out."
"Hopefully they'll be a little more like us," Tom put in, finishing his pancake in one large gobful.
"Is that likely," shuddered Lorraine, watching her father guzzle down Nigel's discarded pancake.
"Not really," said Sarah, rolling her eyes.
"It sucks, nobody round here knows how to loosen up," exclaimed Mike, unwittingly squeezing lemon juice all over the table cloth.
"Well we're not from round here, are we?" Kate said, quickly scooping the offending lemon from Mike's soggy hands and dropping it neatly into the bin.
"Well perhaps the new people will be from somewhere else, too?" Mark suggested.
"Unlikely," Jessica said, flicking her hair behind her shoulder and taking a small but hard bite out of Kim's pancake, "I think the percentage of people that move into Evanston from outside the Chicago area is pretty small."
"Well I think they'll be great," Kim finalised, pushing her plate away. Jessica tilted her head, raised her brows and looked at Kim.
"You think everyone's great, Kimmy." With that, Kim blushed and turned away towards Mark. Kate sensed the bad feeling brewing and quickly stood between it.
"Is everybody finished? Right guys, it's 9:30pm, Nigel, Kyle, Mike and Mark, you should be in bed. C'mon kids, hop it!"
The twins, Mike and Mark moaned as they traipsed up the stairs.
"It's 9:30?" asked Sarah incredulously.
"Yuh, it sure is. Have you got homework to do then, sweetie?"
Sarah reddened.
"Yeah, somethin' like that." She dashed upstairs looking more than a little anxious.
Lorraine was sitting in her room, flicking through a magazine. After a few seconds, she tossed it aside and set upon making her hair especially perfect. When it was, she turned back to her desk and struggled, tongue peeping out of her glitter-painted mouth, with her algebra homework. After a while, there was a knock on her door.
"Cm'in," she mumbled, scribbling out question 4H for the 11th time. Sarah appeared in the doorway, looking a little sheepish.
"Lorraine?"
"Yeeeaaah?"
"Um, could you... no, don't worry, doesn't matter," she muttered, retreating out of her sister's room.
"Hey hey hey hey hey!" called Lorraine, only too happy to have a distraction from her miserable maths homework. "What is it? What do you want?"
"I was wondering, well..." Sarah hushed her voice, "I was wondering if you could, well, y'know, just temporarily, y'understand, just lend me, uh, some lipgloss?"
"WHAT?"
"You heard."
"Are you on pills, or something, Sarah?" Lorraine laughed, then catching a glimpse of Sarah's angry red-tinted face, stopped laughing gradually.
"Are you serious? Well, uh, OK, glad to see you've converted!" Sarah smiled sarcastically.
"See Sarah, it all depends on what impression you're trying to give. Shimmer is party queen, clear is casual, dark is sombre and sophisticated. What's the occasion?"
"Never mind."
"Ooooh, you've got a date, haven't you?"
"NO!"
"Sarah you're 15 years old, it's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not 15 for 3 weeks, Lorraine, and I've not got a date with some Evanston preppy asshole!"
"Wooo-hooh! Sarah's dropped the boyish lacrosse lady style at last!" yelled Lorraine, "SHE'S GOING OUT WITH DYLAN!"
"You bitch, Barbie!" shrieked Sarah, grabbing a strand of blonde hair and wrenching it tight with her iron grip. "I hate you!" she bellowed, before letting go abruptly and running out of the door.
"Fine!" yelled Lorranie, extremely tearful, "FINE! SEE IF I CARE! AND TAKE YOU DARNED STUPID LIPGLOSS! USE IT WELL! YOU SURE NEED IT!" A lipgloss flew niftily into Sarah's hands, a door slammed and Kate and Tom rolled their eyes at each other.
"Just ignore it," sighed Tom, "It's just Lorraine and Sarah having yet another catfight."
Back in her room, Sarah stripped off her polo shirt and cut-offs, and wriggled into one of Lorraine's old bra and knicker combos from many aeons ago. Then she squeezed into one of Kim's pink t-shirts and pulled on a tight black cardigan, and pulled on a denim skirt pinched from Jessica that came above her knee. Shoving her baby blue Phat Farms onto her feet, she brushed her hair swiftly and glided on the gloss that Lorraine had just hurled at her, thanking her lucky stars that she was small made and could therefore fit into her 13 year old twin sisters' clothes.
"I look like Barbie, she whispered to herself, as she crept into Jake's room.
"Jakey," she whispered.
"What?" he grunted from his pillow.
"Jakey," she hissed again, and this time he looked up. His jaw hit the floor.
"What the freakin hell-" he gasped, loudly.
"Shut UP! Jake, yeah, I know, I look like Lorraine, whatever. Just, please, I need you to cover for me, 'kay?"
"Why?" he whispered, still shocked beyond belief.
"No time to explain," she whispered, "I'm meeting friends, I need you to lock my bathroom and tell Mom I had a bad stomach. I'll be back around one."
"ONE? Sarah, what are you playing at?"
"Nothing, Jake. Stop giving me a hard time! I'll be back, just, do it, OK?"
With that, Sarah crept back out of Jake's room and disappeared down the corridor. Jake was just going to stop her, but as soon as he set foot out of his room, he saw a flash of brown hair fly up against the window, and heard a quiet clunk as Sarah jumped off her landing trash can and scuttled off down the street. Worried, but helpless, he slouched back to his room and turned up Blink 182 a little louder...
WHAT DO YOU THINK? PLEASE R&R TO LET ME KNOW! BIG STORYLINES COMING UP!