Hey everyone, sorry for the late update. I've been busy with school and color guard. Senior year is tough and I am working to bring my grades up. I've been working on chapter three for a while now and I'm piecing together different bits of the chapter that I've been writing during my free time and when I'm bored during classes. So I hope you like it, enjoy.
Update 9/27/17
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. This is the last chapter from 2012 and from here on out will be 2017 and whenever I update in the future. I hope you like the story so far and I'd love to hear your thought so leave a review!
Chapter Three
A month had passed since Alex moved in with her uncle. Almost every day she would go visit the Mercers wanting to play with Jack. And no matter how many times she spent time at the house Jack never said a word. Once she had asked Evelyn if he had lost his voice like Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Evelyn laughed and told her that he just wasn't ready to say anything. Bobby had looked slightly mad, in Alex's opinion, when she had said it.
Alex skipped across the street, her trade mark stuffed rabbit in her hand, to the house she knew so well. She rang the doorbell when she reached the front porch and was greeted by Jerry.
"Hey, Alex. Did you come to see Jack?" he asked.
Alex nodded with a smile and walked in when Jerry stepped out of the way for her. She could hear Bobby shouting from the living room so she walked over to where it was. She found Bobby sitting in one of the arm chairs, a coca cola in hand, yelling at the TV. She saw that it was a hockey game on, which she learned was the favorite sport in the Mercer house hold, especially Bobby's. Jerry walked past her and sat on the couch next to Jack, who was hiding behind one of the pillows on the couch.
Jerry shook his head as Bobby yelled again and Jack cowered further behind the pillow. "Come on man, stop yelling at the TV. The players can't hear ya. Plus, you're scaring Jack over here," he said, motioning to their little brother.
"Sorry, Jackie," Bobby said, giving his youngest brother a sympathetic look. The oldest Mercer brother looked up and spotted Alex standing in the doorway. "Hey, Cinderella!" he called out, making Jack look up from his pillow and behind his shoulder at the little girl. "What's up?"
Alex shrugged in response when hurried footsteps could be heard coming from upstairs. Alex whipped around to face the staircase to find a young girl with caramel skin, who looked to be about Angel or Jerry's age, running down the stairs. Alex heard Bobby groan when the girl reached the last step.
"Oh my god, I finally get to meet you!" the girl said, rushing over to Alex.
Next thing she knew the girl had gathered her in her arms and hugged her causing her to drop her rabbit. Alex was slightly frightened at the fact that a stranger was hugging her.
The girl let her go and looked her up and down. "You're just as cute as I pictured you," she said gleefully. Alex noted that she had a strange accent to her voice. "Angel has told me so much about you! Finally, there's another girl to have around the house, besides Evelyn of course. I'm Sofi," she said and hugged the little six year old again in a bear hug.
"Stop trying to suffocate her, La Vida Loca," Bobby shouted from the living room, annoyance clear in his voice.
"Can it, Bobby. I just wanted to meet the little girl from across the street," Sofi replied harshly.
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Alex and Jack were sitting quietly in the living room watching TV, Alex playing with her stuffed rabbit while Jack stared, mesmerized, by the cartoon that was on. The sound of a hammer outside brought their attention to the one window in the room. The two got up, climbed onto the couch, and peered through the curtain to investigate where the noise was coming from.
Outside the window they saw Jerry surrounded by many different sized and shaped pieces of wood, two of which he was hammering together.
Alex climbed off of the couch and made her way out the door, Jack staring at her confused for a few seconds before following after. The two stood on the porch steps, watching Jerry as he carried the pieces of wood he had just nailed together to the big tree that was on the side of the house. Alex tilted her head in curiosity.
"What are you doing to the tree?" she said as Jerry hammered the pieces of wood to the tree, which now had other pieces of wood trailing up the trunk looking like a ladder.
Jerry turned around and smiled at his little brother and the little girl with a smile that looked like a smile a little kid would have when meeting Santa Claus. "I'm finally building a tree house; something I've been wanting to do for so long," he replied.
"A tree house?" Alex exclaimed in amazement. "Really?" she asked, hopping off the porch steps and running over to Jerry, her stuffed rabbit bobbing up and down with each swing of her arm.
"Yeah," Jerry said, looking at what he had built so far. "Mr. Sermonta had a bunch of wood he didn't want and said I could have it and now I get to build a tree house."
"Will we get to play in it?" Alex asked as Jack walked up between her and Jerry.
"Sure ya can," Jerry said with a smile. "Once I'm done anyone can hang out in it."
Alex jumped up and down at the thought of getting to play in a tree house. She'd always seen some houses with tree houses down in Florida, but none of her friends had one. She was excited beyond belief at the fact that she will get to go up in an actual tree house for the first time.
"Will it be done soon?" she questioned.
"Probably not soon, but hopefully before dinner," Jerry explained. "You and Jack can go back inside if you want and I'll come get ya'll when it's finished."
Okay," Alex said and followed Jack back inside the house.
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Ever since Alex Grayson moved in with her uncle across the street she had been visiting the Mercers frequently, wanting to play with Jack. Jack had been wary since the first day she had come over to play, especially when Alex fell down on the drive way. He had been terrified! He didn't want to be blamed for her getting hurt. He was worried that he would get hit believing someone would think it was his fault. He knew that Bobby had been the only family member in the house at the time and out of all his brothers he scared Jack the most. He didn't want his oldest brother to hit him; however, he needed to get Alex help. So he hid his fears as best he could and ran inside the house.
Having gotten Bobby's attention he flinched when the seventeen year old ran towards him, fearing the worst. But Bobby kept running past him making Jack believe he would get hit later once his brother saw Alex. At the end of the incident some fears had been lifted from the six year old knowing that he wasn't going to get hit and that Alex was alright.
As Jack and Alex played together, hesitantly in his case, Jack noticed that Alex was always smiling and treating him kindly, not that Evelyn wasn't nice to him or his brothers (even if they scared him). One instance was when Alex and him were given the last two cookies Evelyn had made and Jack had dropped his. Jack had stared at the baked treat on the kitchen floor remembering Evelyn didn't like it when Angel ate something that had fallen to the floor. Alex turned to him and held out her uneaten cookie to the blonde boy. Jack wanted to say that she didn't have to, but kept silent not wanting to say something wrong and took the cookie.
Now, the two blonde children were sitting in the living room after having found the source of the hammering noise. It had been maybe two and a half hours and Jerry hammering and sawing wood was still echoing into the room and now the six year olds were watching a movie on TV. Then the noises from outside stopped and Jerry walked into the house.
"God I'm tired," he said as he walked up the stairs, practically dragging himself.
Alex jumped up. "Is the tree house ready?" she asked excitedly.
"Sorry, Alex, no. But, there's not much left to do so I'll finish tomorrow," Jerry answered and went to his room.
Alex pouted and sat back down next to Jack and began to fiddle with her rabbit again. At least ten minutes later Alex caught a whiff of something fowl. She turned towards the boy next to her.
"Jack…," she said slowly. "Do…do you smell something burning?"
Jack began to sniff the air and his eyes slowly grew wide. The two children looked around frantically, scared that something inside the house had caught fire. Alex had turned towards the window in the room and saw a small glow coming from outside that didn't mix with the daylight. She jumped up and ran outside with Jack and to their horror they saw the tree house Jerry had been working on all day on fire. In front of the horrid scene was Bobby.
"Bobby!" Alex cried running over to the teen and hid behind his leg.
Bobby looked down surprised to see the two kids outside. "Oh crap," he mumbled.
"What the hell happened to my tree house?"
The three in front of the burning tree turned to see Jerry running off of the porch and towards his recent creation.
Bobby began to laugh. "Man, you need to see your face! Priceless! My tree house!" he said mocking Jerry's screaming.
Jerry whipped around and glared at his older brother with a stare that could kill. "You did this?" he shouted pointing a finger towards the burning tree house.
"Yeah. I just saw a random tree house in our yard and saw a window of opportunity," Bobby exclaimed with a grin on his face as Alex and Jack looked up at the two teens confused.
It wasn't even five minutes until the fire department showed up at the house. Bobby just laughed as Jerry cried watching as the fire fighters doused the flames. When Evelyn had heard the news Bobby had been grounded for a month and Jerry was still glaring at him throughout the rest of the day not saying a single word to him. Later that evening Evelyn and Jack walked Alex back to her house for dinner after she had said she wanted to have dinner with her uncle.
"Have a nice night, sweetheart," Evelyn said as Alex walked up her porch.
Alex waved at the two. "Bye Evelyn! Bye Jack! Thanks for playing with me!" she said to the little boy.
Jack smiled and waved at Alex. "Bye Alex. I had fun," he said quietly causing a smile to erupt on her small face.
I promise to update sooner this time. I am now on my Thanksgiving break so I'll hopefully get to work more on my writing. I have like three stories that need to be worked on. I'm also trying to convince my mom for a laptop of my own for Christmas since my twin sister and I share her laptop for school (the only working computer in my house) and my mom doesn't like the fact that I'm using it to type up my stories. So let's hope I get my Christmas wish this year. Leave a review!
