Chapter 2

It was a cold winter day in the city of Dimmesdale as it flurried outside. The cold wind brushed seeping through cracks in the Turner household attic. Making it colder inside than outside. Even while wearing a warm blue coat Chloe was still shivering, but pressed on her work. For the last two weeks Timmy, Tommy and her had taken the painstakingly slow approach to clean up the attic. Started by vacuuming up dust, gathering all the broken/moldy stuff to throw away. Then the arduous process of looking at every box and everything inside and either moving them, condensing them or throwing them away/taking them to the thrift store. Now all that remained was emptying out the last few boxes. Which Chloe was doing as she finally dusted off the last of her mother's antique dishes from China. Wrapping it in bubble wrap then placing it in a medium sized cardboard box before placing more bubble wrap and sealing it. Then she took out a sharpie and wrote a few chinese characters on it. To let her know what was inside the package. With that her eyes turned towards Tommy who was sweeping up the last of the garbage on the floor. "Well that's it for the day Mr Wonderful. Thank you for your help."

Tommy wore his normal clothes and didn't even seem bothered by the cold. Chloe wished she had the ability too, but the older she got the worse the cold seemed to become. Tommy dropped his pink broom that he used to sweep the floor and dumped the green dustpan into the trash can. It had never occurred to Chloe just how many pink and green things the twins had. With that Chloe pulled out $200 in cash and handed it to him, "Here's your allowance for the month. Don't let your sister see it. No one wants to deal with her throwing a tantrum."

"I will," Tommy said and put the money into his pocket. He looked around for a second, "Ya know this-"

"The answer to that pesky question of your Mr Wonderful it's no. Not gonna happen if you need an extra room, use the spare one in the A.j and your dad are putting up insulation in the attic. Then starting next month we're going to store everything from my house up here and we need the space. Some of it doesn't even belong to us and can't be ruined by little Ms Klutz. And we are going to make a trip down to Seattle sometime in the future. We have a bunch of your mother's missing stuff. So be warned."

"So you're finally putting the house on the market then. How much are you guys expecting?" Tommy asked. It had been an ongoing discussion between Chloe and Timmy for years, but necessity finally kicked in.

"Six to eight hundred," Chloe said. "This is after taxes, realtor fees and more. Which will be sad to lose such an important part of my childhood. On the upside we'll be out of debt and I can finally get a better job."

"Oh," Tommy said with disappointment in his voice. "Can I have the hat?"

"What hat?" Chloe asked him and followed Tommy gaze to see a hat she hadn't

seen in years. "It can't be-it is. Oh my god thank you Mr Wonderful I've been looking for quite a while. Timmy is going to love this for our special night." With that she kissed the boy's cheek, walked over, picked up the pink hat then placed it on the cardboard box as she left the attic finally after several hours of work.

Chloe walked into Timmy's bedroom which was the same room since childhood. Instead of upgrading to the master bedroom. The twins were given the master bedroom as neither Timmy's nor Chloe wanted to give up the room. There was something special, nostalgia and comforting about it. The twins were oblivious to it, but it was special for reasons that always danced on Chloe's lips. Deep down she knew the answer, but everytime she tried to vocalize it her mind went blank. Like something had been taken from her, but it wasn't that important. Chloe walked into Timmy's room which was decently sized considering this house was built in the 70s. Timmy kept his room mostly clean as all of his toys had been given to the twins, given away or thrown away by now. Replaced with loose papers, a bunch of Tammy or Tommy's random things, a few things Chloe always left over. In the center of the room was a queen sized bed which replaced the twin size from years ago.

The walls were now plastered with pictures of the twins, Chloe and Timmy. Some newspaper clippings, others were hand drawn pictures. And a giant calendar with pins of special papers to help remind them where somethings were due or important events came up. In the center of the room near the window was a queen sized bed which had replaced his old twin sized bed. Chloe walked over towards the closet and shoved the box into it and then placed clothing over it. It was going to have to be shipped and that would take a few weeks before she could get around towards it. Then finally her favorite hiding hole in the room right between the nightstand, dresser she placed in Timmy's old pink hat. With that she walked out of the room making sure to close the door behind her so as to not let a certain 10 year old wander in without thinking. "Tammy!" Chloe shouted as she walked directly into a wall. "Someone's moving the walls again. This can only be the work of Trixie Tang!"

"Chloe there's a wall there," Tammy said. Which got the woman attention to turn towards Tammy who was sitting on the floor next to the wooden coffee table. Scattered across the table were various crayons, and papers field with drawings on them. Next to Tammy was Foop. A boy around 6 to 7 years of age, on the shorter side and one of Tammy's closest friends. He's a random kid from the neighborhood that was always in the shadow of Tammy. Basically an adoptive child that was added to the family a sweet, but crazy kid. He had black hair, purple eyes and wore a dark blue shirt with a skull and jeans shorts. The two of them were drawing and his eyes were focused on her. Chloe had no clue where the third one was. Usually it was Tammy, Foop and Anti-Goldie, but Anti-Goldie wasn't here. And sitting on the couch clearly bored out of her mind was Tammy's cousin and A.j's daughter J. also known as Jaine, a sentient robot daughter that A.j hand built himself alongside his wife. Now around the age of 16 Jaine was a lovely arrogant person that drove Chloe up a wall.

"We're drawing pictures and watching cartoons," Tammy said profoundly.

"Well Anti-Goldie she's usually here?" Chloe asked.

"She got in trouble with her mother. And she's terrifying," Foop said. "So it's just Tammy and I today." Foop said proudly. "Look I drew an evil fish!" He held out a picture of squibbles which was hard to make out, but Chloe couldn't help herself, but chuckle.

"It's very nice Foop," Chloe said and walked over to Jaine. Leaning into her wallet Chloe pulled out some extra spare cash. "And thank you for watching Tammy here's some extra cash for Foop. I'll see ya tomorrow."

"Yes," Jaine said and snatched the cash from Chloe's hand. Darting out of the house as fast as she could. Tammy couldn't be left alone for more than a few minutes and the Vickybots were all rented out for the day. "Bye Tammy!" She screamed before slamming the door shut and Chloe could only roll her eyes. Teeangers, Chloe thought to herself. Never paying attention, always in a rush. So Chloe picked up the remote on the table and flipped the television to the Baseball game that was about to start.

"Hey I was watching that," Foop said.

"Baseball!" Chloe said cutting him off before the boy could complain any further. Which only made Tammy grumble.

Chloe was silent in the room as she flipped through her phone filling out fill forms online. Man did she hate cell phones. Gone were the days when one could be disconnected from the internet without text messages, alerts and more. Tammy and Foop had dozed off to sleep and the game was rather short so Chloe moved up towards Timmy's room as Tommy was in the twins room. Silence echoed across the house as the bedroom light flickers from time to time. A small repair that was going to be pushed off for another few weeks. Silence filled the room in her focus that she was unaware of the bedroom door jiggling open. Her eyes scrolled endless on her useless texting app as words flew by and she continued to try and answer many questions for the idiot that was her boss. Always pestering her since her old best friend whose relationship she destroyed. Once her house was sold she'd never have to deal with this woman in her life again. "Chloe."

She stumbled and dropped the phone to see Timmy looking down at her. "Timmy," Chloe snapped at him which only got him to chuckle at her. She wanted to yell, but no better. Tammy was a monster when woken up from her sleep and had been since she was a toddler. She let out a breath of frustration as Timmy closed the door behind him so the two of them could talk in peace. Timmy wore a light blue business suit which was bought on the cheap. Not that anyone who wasn't a clothing expert wouldn't be able to tell. "I was filling out things online for our lovely mayor, such a lovely, wise and competent woman. Because she is clearly the greatest mayor to ever take over our lovely mayor. That nuance aside, we have officially cleaned up the entire attic so next week we can finally start moving things over. Which would be nice, so besides that how was your day Mr Turner."

"Well Miss Carmichael my day has been rather well," Timmy said as he placed his old briefcase to the side. Which he only took out for special occasions. His blue business suit was found at a thrift store for dirt cheap. So far no one had complained as neither of them had the actual funds to buy a more refined suit. "Tomorrow my company is sending me out to meet with a client. A rich client whose got good a lot of cash to spend. Unfortunately it's downtown so you get the car for the day. God do I hate downtown." Chloe grinned at that. With that Timmy plopped himself onto the bed and looked up into the ceiling.

"Well you better not screw this up. This is our ticket to the good life," Chloe said. "Just think what we could do when we don't have to work anymore?"

"Watch Baseball all day?" Timmy asked.

"Don't threaten me with a good time," Chloe said, folding her arms across her chest.

It was quite in the house as Timmy and Chloe were looking at themselves in the mirror. Timmy was just shaking his head, but Chloe was enjoying herself. The two of them after a minor argument which Chloe won. Finally forcing Timmy to switch clothes to get several photos out of it. Much to Timmy's complaining. He now wore a pink shirt and pants identical to his childhood clothing even with the same 30 year old hat too boot. Even if worn out it was his signature look as Chloe snapped another photo. No way was she going to lose any of them and backed them up the Ocloud. Before she finally relented over it. It both brought a warm familiar feeling and an unhappy dredd. That came with age and neither of them could miss being children. Chloe placed the phone down. "Alright Timmy I am done. I wish we had the money to go out tonight, but I'll take what I can get."

"FInally," Timmy said grumbling. "Where exactly did you find my hat? I've been looking for this for ages."

"I didn't find it," Chloe said. "Tommy did. We we're cleaning up the attic and he found it. I had a completely different gift plan, but I thought you'd like this more than what I initially planned."

"And what might that be?" Timmy asked.

"We ordered it a few weeks ago," Chloe said. "The pink laced one came in. I thought that would make up for the lack of a packcheck. And Tammy's out…so if you want too."

"Well you make a hard bargain Miss Carmichael," with that Timmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a baseball. "I didn't have time to get anything special so I just got you a Baseball. Happy friendiversary. Unless of course you're willing to admit defeat."

"Not even close," Chloe said. Snatching the baseball from him she examined it carefully and tried not to burst out laughing. Timmy had his name written on the baseball; it was a brand Chloe didn't recognize. "Well I admit you certainly try." Chloe walked over with the Baseball and placed it in the secret hiding hole. With that she walked over to hug him and press her lips against him before anything could be said.

"Gross," both of them froze and turned their heads to see Tommy.

"Wait-Tommy we can-" Timmy was about to say.

"I don't want to know, can you just move Tammy from the couch so I can play video games?" Tommy asked.

"Uhmmm sure," Timmy said.

"I'll move Foop, he's the lighter of the two," Chloe said.