Thanks to Tif S and guest for reviewing.

This chapter is told from Sandy's POV

December the 26th, The mystery

"We were at the mall all day. Do you know how many times I told her that if she'd want anything she'd just had to tell me about it? Do you know how much we actually did get for her? And still. Five seconds before we're out there she goes off and tries to steal something."

Kirsten was more frustrated with what happened than angry at Annie. She was pacing back and forth over our bedroom floor while she was telling me about what had happened earlier. Just when she, Annie and Summer came back, Summer had gone back to hers and Seth where also Seth, Ryan and Sophie Rose were. I had only gone home to get some rest (I wasn't twenty anymore!) and heard Kirsten and Annie coming home.

Kirsten had seemed frustrated and showed Annie to go into her room the first thing she did. Annie had obeyed and Kirsten who usually hated it when somebody else just left the bags and continued and gone to do something else, had left the bags in the hallway and come to me to tell me what had happened when they were about to leave the grocery store.

"I'm telling you Sandy. This girl is trouble. She is a thief and she's caused… she's barely even been here for forty eight hours. And why do we barely know anything about her? Like first of all, she is in foster care. Second of all- we don't know anything about her. What is this Douglas Anderson trying to hide from us? Are her parents criminals? In prison? Is Annie a criminal? Who knows what have happened to her before she came here but obviously…"

"My parents are dead."

Both I and Kirsten flinched at the sudden voice interrupting ours. Then turned when we heard that voice from right outside the room. And it wasn't until then I realized that Annie must have been standing there listening. And heard exactly what we had said.

"Come here Annie." Kirsten said, a bit too harsh if one would ask me. Annie obeyed and showed herself in the door and came over to me and Kirsten. She looked up on us, but was obviously trying to hide her fear. For getting a lecture or a punishment. Or just embarrassed for what she had done.

"Go on then."

Annie was wearing an expression when I stood up and faced her. Something with anger and callous stubbornness. Mixed with a glimpse of fear that I could tell she was trying so hard to hide. It made me want to wrap her in a big hug rather than giving her a lecture.

"Well go on." Annie said rudely again. "What are you waiting for?"

"Waiting for? Go on? What is it you want me to do?"

I wasn't so sure I wanted the answer to that question. Maybe I already did know what the answer would be but only not wanting to admit that I knew. I really knew.

"Well, you're going to hit me. Aren't you?"

Yep. There it was.

"Annie." I sat down on the bed so I'd be closer to her height and not seem as frightening. "Look. What you did today was very wrong. And you're nine years old so I know you know you're old enough to know that. I don't know what it has been like where you have been before but as long as you're with us we are never ever going to hit you or… touch you physically in any kind of way that is meant to hurt you."

"But that's what people do. When they're angry with someone they hit the living crap out of them."

I suppressed a hiss about the words Annie had chosen. After everything I had heard as a lawyer. Hearing her, still only giving us a few clues about what she had been through somehow just… It just hurt.

"Well we don't." I forced back the shiver in my voice. "And neither would we Seth, Ryan or Sophie Rose. I know I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I'd ever hurt a child physically. And for me it's a question how anyone could do that."

"What do you do then? You've got to do something to let kids know they've done things wrong."

"Well. For Seth and Ryan we don't do anything anymore since they are adults now. But if there's anything then we'd ground them for a matter of time. We'd keep Seth from playing video games. Or make them do chores like dishes or laundry. They do that for a bit and then it's over and done and we can leave it behind."

Annie raised an eyebrow at me. Looking at me as if she thought I was a complete idiot. And she kept there, staring into my eyes until I was the first one to blink and look away. I opened my mouth to say something. Then closed it again when I couldn't think of anything.

"Can you take the bags into your room?" Thankfully Kirsten knew better. "Start taking off the store tags and put the clothes in the wardrobe." Annie nodded. "Then, if you want to then you can have a shower and start using whatever we have bought today." She nodded again. Kirsten sent a meaning glance towards me, she was discreetly trying to make sure Annie could get that smell off her. "You can come to us with those clothes later and we can put them in the laundry."

Annie- still in that stubborn, almost callous way looked from one to the other and met my and Kirsten's eyes with her own. Then at last she turned out into the hallway again and we could hear her continue into the hallway and take some plastic bags from the stores.

"What was it she stole by the way?"

"A bag of sour patch kids and a bar of Hershey's cookies and cream."

"Kirsten." I gave a short, nervous chuckle. "Stealing candy. Haven't we all done that when we were children? I must have done it at least five, ten, fifteen times. My mum wasn't too happy when she found out about it but I bet you there wasn't a kid in the whole town who didn't. Look, Kirsten." I patted on the bed next to me to show her to sit down next to me and calm down. "Sophie Rose told me something earlier and she said she'd told you too. Annie isn't acting the way she is to be annoying or trouble for us. But I bet the moment we find out why she smells like she does, we will get why her table manners are so bad and why she stole. But we can't ask her to change only because she is here with us if this is the way she's been living her whole life."

Not until then it hit me that Annie wasn't meant to stay here with us. That she'd only be here until after New Year's. After that we'd have no chance to help her more even if she so wanted it ever so much.

"I'll go see how she's doing." I stood up from the bed. "Don't worry. We have a few days but children can get more and change faster than we think. Get yourself something to eat or a cup of coffee."

And it wasn't until I left my and Kirsten's bedroom that it hit me that none of us had still told Annie she was only here for another few days. She must- like all of us be getting used to this as if she was going to stay here. Only the difference was we knew she wasn't, she didn't even know that.

"How's it going?" A lot had happened already today, so I decided to tell her in the morning instead. "Did you get some nice things?" Annie just nodded, pouring out a hoodie and a couple of pairs of pants onto her bed from a bag and then folding the bag and putting it to the side. "Oh don't worry about the bags. You don't have to do that so nicely." I grabbed the bag and tied it. "They go in a drawer in the kitchen."

Some of the smallest details were just puzzling about Annie. Sometimes she just seemed so careless with rude ways when she threw all food into her mouth by the table, or just glared in that very way. But this was another story- after she pulled off every stores' tag she put them in a pile on the bedside table. Then folded the clothes neatly and put them in her wardrobe.

"I'm sorry about your parents…" I tried weakly. "…In all honesty. We weren't told much before you came here. So we didn't know they were…."

"Dead?" After a few seconds in silence Annie answered the sentence for me. "Don't worry about it. They never were much of parents before that either." Without looking at me, Annie poured out what was in the last bag on her bed and folded each piece of clothing in it neatly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I hadn't noticed I was staring at Annie before she asked me why. I shut my eyes closed and shook my head.

"Sorry. I just dreamed away for a moment." I picked up more plastic bags from the floor. "Wow. I bet Kirsten and Summer were happy they got a day of shopping too. I'll go with these to the kitchen. Is there anything else you need?"

"Maybe a towel if I'm going to have a shower."

Duh!

"Did she drown in there or what?" Two hours later when a movie we were watching ended Kirsten looked up and when I thought about it. We could still hear the shower water falling towards the floor. "We started to watch the movie just as she went in."

"Calm down Kirsten." I moaned. "Well I guess she likes showering then and that's good isn't it. Don't worry." We could suddenly hear steps on the porch steps and the door opening. "HI GUYS."

"Hello." Sophie Rose came into the room and hugged her mum. "We're finished over at Seth's and Summer's." Soph smiled mischievously. "And they wanted to be left alone." She giggled. Well what was it with six-year-olds when they understood things adults didn't want them to?

"It's way past your bedtime young lady." I told her. "Go brush your teeth and get into pyjamas and I'll make you a bagel."

"We already had bagels at Seth's" Sophie Rose crawled down from the sofa again. "Where's Annie?"

"In the…" I was about to answer shower but then realized I couldn't hear the water anymore. "Well. She was in the shower at least. Now go get your pyjamas on and you can say goodnight later." Soph nodded and then left the room. "Well that seems to be the answer to your question then Kirsten. Annie has not drowned in the shower."

Kirsten only glared back at me. Then turned to Ryan and started talking about the day that had been. Until suddenly, just after Sophie Rose came back to say goodnight we heard the bathroom door unlock and then Annie's footsteps towards the living room. What came into the living room in all honestly looked like a whole new person. Without all the dirt covering her face and arms, her long, dark hair at least brushed and put into a ponytail instead of that dirty, messy plait from before. And most importantly- in new clothes and not smelling anymore- it did seem like a whole new person.

"Did you have a nice shower?" Kirsten asked. "You were in there for quite a while. Two hours actually."

"Yeah. It was nice." Annie pulled her collar over her nose and mouth and breathed in. "And I don't smell anymore. Summer can come over tomorrow and won't have to puke from coming close to me at least. She looked down on the wet towel and dirty clothes in her hands. Where should I put these?"

"I can show you." Ryan got up from the couch. "The laundry room is in the basement. Follow me."

"She said she had a nice shower…." Sophie Rose stated. And I wouldn't have cared about it if she hadn't continued. "I thought she hadn't showered because she was afraid of water or something. But she wasn't. And she still smelled really badly. So badly it made Summer feel sick. So if she wasn't afraid of the water, and she knew that she melt. Then why didn't she do something about it earlier? I mean- she could have used my shampoo too if she hadn't had her own."

Normally I wouldn't really have given such things that Sophie Rose noticed a second though. She sometimes just wondered and noticed things with a child's innocence. But this one kept on spinning in my head and again. Sophie Rose was right- if Annie knew she had smelt so awfully. Why wouldn't she have done something about it earlier?

I had once went to school with a girl who was in foster care. When we started third grade she had just come to her new family. And she had told me all about how she, and some of her friends were literally doing anything to make the parents and families like them. Only so maybe they'd find their favorite homes. Now wasn't that the way it was supposed to be.

I had had heard more stories in my years as a lawyer too. And Ryan of course standing to cook omelet one of the first mornings he was with us.

So why did it seem like Annie was doing anything and everything to push us away? She was only nine years old. Was she going to keep on pushing people away until she was eighteen years old and out of the foster care system?

Or was there something else? I just had such a weird feeling that in the mess of table manners, smelling, morning sickness, helping Seth and Summer to move and Christmukkah. There was something- something major that I had missed.

Well as if there weren't enough unanswered questions and mysteries around this child since before…

During writing parts of the chapter I was watching a series called new girl. And one of the main characters- Schmidt is played by an actor named Max Greenfield. Max Greenfield also played young Sandy in the flashback about when he first met Kirsten. Peter Gallagher- who plays Sandy in the O. C. In New girl plays Schmidt's dad Gavin. Just thought I'd tell you haha. Now Gavin Schmidt is, in difference from Sandy Cohen- not a very good dad, at all.

Random fact

It feels a bit weird writing about all of these details that doesn't seem to matter anyway. Like how Annie eats, and stares yet folds all the clothes neatly as if there's something important in that. Well. I'll just have to tell you it will be brought up again later into the story and then it'll make sense. So I hope you can live with the random details until it comes back.