Chapter 5

I glared with a tiny pout at the cards I had in my hand, hoping to find what I was looking for. I sighed hugely and glanced at my opponent. "Do you have a three of diamonds?" I asked, hoping that he would have it. My opponent furrowed his eyebrows and glared at me, saying,

"Well...nope! Go Fish!" I sighed in frustration and drew a card from the little pile we had in front of us. I now had four cards in my hands, while he had one card. I glared at him intensely, and he just laughed at my expression. "Do you have the 9 of clovers?" he asked with a smirk.

"...Yes." I gave him the card, and he threw it and its pair down on the table, declaring his victory.

"I win!" he grinned in triumph.

"Awww, why can't I win?!" I yelled, complaining.

"You just have to be lucky, sis!" I pouted and began to play with my braided, black hair. I didn't like to lose to my brother. "You want to play something else, Liz?"

"No, it's okay." I put my cards into the card pile, then my brother shuffled the cards and put it on the big, living room table. It's been quite a few months since I've walked into this house, and I've felt right at home. Ronald and Leilani, which I now call Papa and Mama, adopted me and I've been happy spending time with them. I even got a new name, Elizabeth Belle Wood, but my family has been calling me Lizzy for short. I think they changed my name for safety, though I don't know the safety reason. I would probably know the idea when I'm older. Besides that, my new parent's son Jarod, who was three years older than me, liked having me around too and we would play games together all the time. He has playful hazel eyes and black hair, and he had a happy smile. I really like to see people smile, which I noticed even though I am six. If I didn't see a smile, it would make me feel sad on the inside.

"Hey, guess what?" Jarod said to me.

"What?" I asked curiously.

"James is coming over today!"

"James?" I repeated. I wasn't too familiar with a boy named James.

"Yeah, he's my friend from school," Jarod explained, getting excited. "He's come here a few times to the house. You don't remember him?"

"Uh, not really."

"Don't worry, you'll remember when you see him!" Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and my brother ran over to the door to answer it, leaving me by myself. I was thinking of who James could be and wondered if he was friendly or not. After living here for a while, everyone around me has been kind. Even when I started school, I had new friends and teachers who were nice to me. So, I assumed that whoever this James was would be nice to me. Jarod came back to the room with another boy following him. "Lizzy, this is my buddy James," Jarod introduced. "James, this is Lizzy. You remember her, right?" James nodded without making a sound. He was brown skinned, with dark brown eyes and black hair. He kind of reminded me of myself. I have brown eyes now, and black hair except my hair was longer than his and I had lighter skin. But that didn't matter to me because I was happy to meet him.

"Nice to meet you!" I grinned. I held out my hand so that I can shake James' hand. Mama told me that shaking someone's hand was a polite way of greeting them. I waited for my new friend's response, but he didn't shake my hand. He stared at my hand though, like it was unknown to him what to do. I dropped my hand to my side and turned to my brother, very confused. My brother mouthed out,

"Don't worry about it." I nodded, still smiling. I guessed it was okay for that to happen. Jarod suggested that we could go play outside, and I thought it was a perfect idea. James nodded again in agreement, and the three of us went out. Since we had a relatively big yard, my parents got a little playground set for us to have fun. It wasn't much: it was just a swing set attached to a slide, but I loved it. It was way better than what I had over in Sector 7. I preferred the swings since I liked going high up into the sky. I ran over to the playground and sat down on one of the swings, kicking the ground so that I could get a head start. I glanced over at Jarod and James, giggling.

"Come on, guys!" I exclaimed to them, swinging happily. "It's fun!"

"We'll be there!" Jarod replied. "But I have to go inside for a few minutes. I forgot Mom wanted me to do something."

"Okay, Big Brother!" He ran inside the house, leaving James to join me on another swing. I glanced at him to see his nonchalant self, swinging slowly on his seat. I stared at him, curious as to why he would act like this. I never saw anyone like that before, and it seemed sad to see him in that way. So, I decided to ask him a few questions to see if his expression could change. "Where's your house at, James?" He didn't respond but pointed at a red house that resided far away but still in the neighborhood. "That red house over there?" He nodded and sighed sadly. I glanced forward and remembered something that Mama told me a few weeks after I was adopted.

"Mama, can I go play with Jarod?" I asked her, hugging her leg as she cooked food. "He said that he was gonna play with the other kids that live around here."

"Of course, sweetie!" she smiled, looking down at me. "Just make sure you don't go near the red house when you're with them."

"The red house? What's wrong with the red house?"

"There's a red house in our neighborhood that has people that are not nice. Everyone in this neighborhood knows that and warns the children to stay away."

"Why do we have to stay away?"

"The people that live in that house might hurt you, sweetie. I don't want you or Jarod to get hurt so you must stay away, okay?"

"Okay, Mama."

"But there is one other thing I want you to do."

"What is it?"

"Be friends with the boy that lives in the red house. He won't hurt you a bit and has been through a lot recently. Okay, Lizzy?"

"Oh okay, Mama!"

"Oh, I get it!" I exclaimed with a smile, looking at him now. "You live in that red house! Mama said not to go near it, but I can be friends with you though!" James brought his swinging motion to a halt and got off, walking away from me. I tilted my head and jumped off of my swing. "W-Where are you going?" I called out, running after him. "Big Brother might come back soon." James didn't stop walking. I still went after him in hopes of getting an answer until we ran into a bunch of kids that I didn't know. I peeked at them from behind James, and they glared at him.

"Give us whatever is in your pockets!" the leader exclaimed. "Or else we'll beat you up!"

"Wait, he's the kid from that red house!" one of the other kids said. "Our parents said that we shouldn't go near the house, or anyone in it. I see him leave the house sometimes." I saw James clutch his fists tight and my eyes widened a bit.

"Is this gonna be a fight?" I thought. I wasn't familiar with fights, except for a few that I've heard of from Papa Ray. So, I wondered what was going to happen. But somehow, I knew that someone was going to be hurt, and I didn't want that.

"I don't care if he's from that house!" the leader snickered. "I want what he has. His parents won't care. They don't care at all! So, give me what's in your pockets!"

"No!" James exclaimed. It was the first word that I have ever heard from him.

"Fine, then I'll just take it from you!" The leader and James began to fight as the others encouraged the leader to win the fight. I backed away a tiny bit and thought of something I could do to help James. For a little girl like me, it was hard to find a solution because boys would usually fight and I wouldn't. That's what my brother told me: girls don't get into fights. I meekly agreed with him, but at this point, I desperately wanted to help. I ran into the battle without hesitating and bit the leader's arm hard. The boys yelled in pain and threw me to the ground. I whimpered a little but stood up and bit his arm again harder. The leader threw me down once more, but this time I blacked out.

The first thing I heard after going unconscious was Mama talking to James. I could barely listen to what they were speaking about, but I'm sure it had something to do with me. I opened my eyes and sat up on the couch, whimpering again. I looked at myself and found a few bandages on my arms and legs. I discovered that there was no one in the room and got scared.

"M-Mama!" I cried. She came into the room quickly and sighed in relief. James followed her into the room and smiled a little.

"I'm so glad that you're okay!" Leilani exclaimed, hugging me tightly. "What happened, sweetie?" I explained what happened as best as I could and Mama listened to my story. "All right, next time don't get into a fight like that, okay? You'll get hurt again if you keep this up."

"But I wanted to help, Mama!"

"I know, but you're too young to get into fights and sometimes a fight isn't the solution to a problem."

"Really? So, what could I do?" Leilani thought for a while and said,

"When you are older, you'll be able to see that love and sacrifice is a way that you can help people."

"Love and what?" I hadn't heard the other words before so I was curious to listen to what it meant.

"Love and sacrifice. Sacrifice is when you give something up to help a person," Leilani explained.

"Oh, I see!" I replied, understanding what she said.

"Good. Now I have to get dinner ready. so stay in the house, okay?"

"But I wanna play outside again! Could I, please? I promise I won't go out of the yard."

"Well...oh, all right. But stay in the yard."

"Yay!" I stood up and immediately ran outside to the swings, sitting down on one of them and kicking my feet again. I laughed as I swung very high. James and Jarod soon joined me, racing to see who would get the last swing first. It turned out that Jarod won the race and sat on the swing, slowly swinging up and down. The two boys laughed as the latter sat on the ground against one of the poles that held up the swings. I saw him smile as he watched us and I began to have an unsettling feeling in my heart. I was sure that he wanted to have fun with us and I wanted everyone to have fun. I then remembered what Mama told me about sacrifice and jumped off of the swing, landing on my feet.

"Are you done already, Liz?" Jarod asked, still swinging. I shook my head and ran over to James, who was still watching us. I grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the empty swing. He looked at me in shock, and I said,

"Get on, James! It's your turn to swing." He gave me a warm smile and sat on the swing. I tried to get out of the way so that he could start swinging but he picked me up. I giggled, not knowing where I would be taken to, and he placed me on his lap. I gasped and turned to him with a happy smile.

"Are you ready?" James asked me.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed with a huge grin. He started to kick his feet, and I held on to the swing's two chains tight as we began to swing together. The warmth of having someone with me on the swing made me have a happy feeling inside of me. I didn't know how else to describe that feeling, but I was delighted. "What Mama said works!" I thought. With the sacrifice I made, love began to exist.

"Aww!" Jarod shouted, looking at the two of us. I giggled again and looked at James, who blushed in embarrassment. I just laughed because I didn't know why his face was so red and turned to the sunsetting sky.

You know what? This past memory was way better than the previous one before it! I finally got to see Jarod and James in my memories. It seems that Jarod was who I expected to be, my brother. I don't know the entire case as to who James is to me at this moment, whether he is a good friend or a brother. But what I do know is that he lived in a red house, and from what I am seeing, he lives with us now. I'm sure it is better this way since his parents didn't seem to nice. I don't think I ever met them, and that may be a good thing.

Now this memory was about me playing with Jarod and James, and it seemed that it was the first time that I can remember meeting James. Now why I don't remember my first actual meeting with James is unknown to me at this point. But this second meeting was significant. Maybe it was the third or the fourth meeting, I honestly don't remember. But then again, I don't know too much of the past. Anyway, James wasn't too talkative, and he was sensitive to me talking about the red house. Could it be that he didn't want to talk about his parents? Could they have hurt him in any way? If they did and they're still in the red house, I will find them and expose them in their evil ways!

"Hey Liz, you doing okay?" Jarod asked, stepping into her room. "You look pretty upset."

"I'm fine!" Lizzy replied quickly, looking up from her journal writing. "Just writing on my recent memory dream."

"What was it about?"

"Well, it had you and James, and we were playing on the swings."

"Huh, we definitely did that as kids. What else happened?"

"There were neighborhood bullies, and they wanted to take stuff from James, so they started to fight, and I bit the leader's arm hard! I'm proud of myself for that!" Lizzy stared up at her brother with a gleam in her eyes, making Jarod a little worried. But he was relieved that she remembered him and James.

"So, do you remember James and me now?" Jarod asked curiously. Lizzy gave him a warm and comforting smile and answered,

"Of course, Big Brother." She got up slowly and hugged Jarod tightly. He, in turn, hugged back with tears in his eyes. He was finally getting his little sister back. "Mama and Papa are going to be home soon?" Lizzy asked, still hugging him.

"They'll be here any minute!" Jarod said, letting go of the hug and looking down at Lizzy.

"Hooray! I've been practicing walking to the stairs most of the day. I hope I can get down the stairs though."

"If all else fails, we'll just carry you downstairs." Lizzy nodded happily as James yelled from outside of the room,

"What are you guys doing?"

"Liz just had another memory dream!" Jarod yelled back. "We were in it, dude!"

"Really?!" James immediately ran to Lizzy's room where the other two were at and said, "I-I was there?"

"Yeah!" Lizzy smiled. "We were playing on the swings. Remember that we swung on the same swing together?"

"Oh yeah, I remember that!" James said in surprise. He sighed softly and then said, "Wow, that brings back a lot of memories." He frowned a little after he told them that.

"Hey, let's not focus on the sad things," Jarod said, putting a hand on James' shoulder. "All we can look to now is now and the future."

"Right," James said.

"Yeah!" Lizzy exclaimed. "Besides, Mama and Papa are going to be here soon." Suddenly, they heard the front door open from upstairs and a male voice who exclaimed,

"We're home!"

"They're here, they're here!" the girl yelled. "I'm going to go say hi." With most of her strength, she walked out of her room and to the staircase. The front door was near the staircase so Lizzy could see who it was from upstairs. There at the front door was Ronald Wood, carrying a few bags and wearing a military uniform. He looked up at Lizzy, and a happy smile sprang to his face.

"Lizzy!" he cried, putting down his bags and walking up the stairs.

"Papa!" Lizzy exclaimed in reply, slowly walking down the stairs. But it didn't matter how fast she was getting down the steps because Ronald got to her first. He hugged her tight and carried her down the stairs, holding her close. "Did you miss me?" the girl asked.

"Of course!" Ronald replied. "I haven't seen you since...since you first woke up. Your mother and I were so worried about you, but now I don't have to worry too much anymore. I'm glad you're doing good, and that you remember."

"I do remember but not everything. Hopefully, I can remember it all soon!"

"Honey, why did you leave your bags at the front door?" Leilani asked as she walked into the house. "It's complicated to get in if-" She stopped talking because she saw the two at the bottom of the staircase.

"Hi, Mama!" Lizzy said. "Wanna join the hug?" Leilani stared at her, forming tears in her eyes as she replied,

"Of course!" She dropped her bags and joined Ronald and Lizzy's hug, crying because she saw her girl. "Do you remember me?"

"Uh-huh!" I remember Jarod and James too!"

"We're a family once again!" Jarod announced, walking down the last step and joining the hug. "Come on, James!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" James said, walking down the last few steps of the staircase. "You gotta be patient sometimes, dude." He joined in the hug too, and they all were ecstatic to be together again.