KAREN'S HERO

A/N: For story purposes, Karen is still seven, and when she's at her dad's, her mom picks her up at school and takes her to friends' houses. I don't own any of the characters, except the Everett family—Steve, Diann, Jason, and Bebe.

CHAPTER 1: Fall

Hi! My name is Karen Brewer. I'm seven years old and in second grade at Stoneybrook Academy. I'm actually supposed to be in first, but I skipped a grade after the first week. I also have blond hair, blue eyes, a few freckles, and glasses. Well, actually, two pairs: blue ones for reading and pink ones for the rest of the time, except when I'm sleeping. In fact, I have two of a lot of things. For example, two houses: a little one (Mommy's, which I'm at right now) and a big one (Daddy's, which I'll tell you more about later).

I was in the backyard with one of my best friends, Nancy Dawes, who lives next door to Mommy's house. My other best friend, Hannie Papadakis, lives across the street from Daddy's house. We're in Ms. Colman's class, and call ourselves the Three Musketeers.

Nancy and I were playing in the leaves, which were all these different shades of red, yellow, orange, and brown. It was gigundoly pretty.

"You know what?" Nancy asked me.

"What?" I asked.

"I've always thought that leaves looked like fireworks when they're in the sun."

"Really?" I asked. I'd never thought of that before.

Nancy nodded. "The only difference is, these fireworks don't blow up."

I giggled, then I got an idea. "Let's make our own fireworks!"

"How?"

"Watch this. You might want to stand back first."

Nancy took three giant steps backward, being careful not to step on a tree root. I knelt down, scooped a big pile of leaves up in my arms, and threw them into the air. "BOOM! KA-BOOM! FWOOM!" I yelled as they fell to the ground.

"Hey, cool!" Nancy said excitedly. "Let me try!"

She took two tiny handfuls of leaves and threw them into the air, too, but she added whistles to her sound effects.

"And the best part is, you don't have to use your indoor voice!" I laughed. (I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard, "Indoor voice, Karen.")

Nancy and I kept making fireworks until Mommy called from the kitchen, "Karen! We're leaving in five minutes!"

I knew what that meant. In just five minutes, Mommy would be taking me and Andrew, my almost-five-year-old brother, to Daddy's house.

"See you at school tomorrow, Nancy," I said as I headed up the steps to the porch.

"Fireworks tomorrow?" she asked.

"Sure," I grinned, then went inside to grab my knapsack. You see, the reason why we were leaving today is because Mommy and Seth were going to Nebraska to visit Granny for the weekend. They were leaving tomorrow, and coming back on Sunday. I kind of wished that Andrew and I were going, too, but Mommy and Seth said they didn't want us missing any school. Oh, well, at least we'd get to see more of our big-house family.