Care-Bear

“KERRI, HELP!” I was nine on that Monday when the tragedy happened. My dad had taken my twin sisters Kelsey and Samantha to school, my little brother Deryk to daycare and then he was off to work. My mom was supposed to give me a ride to school because I woke up late. Instead I never went to school that day. As a matter of fact I didn’t go to school all week. Two men came into our house that morning at about 9:30. They asked my mom where the safe was. When she wouldn’t tell them they pointed a gun at her head. At that time we were living in a nice big house in the country. We owned 50 acres of land and were millionaires. The safe was in the barn in a secret room behind my dad’s old racing horse. Rono was really mean and no stranger could get near him. Anyway my mom yelled for me and the man who wasn’t holding my mom down came upstairs. I was brushing my teeth and listening to my iPod. The man grabbed me and before I had a chance to scream gagged me. Not that screaming would have worked; we were at least five miles from our neighbors. He brought me downstairs and tied me to a chair across the room from my mother. Then the men asked my mom where the safe was and she still refused to answer so the man shot her. Right in front of me. I watched my mother die. When the shot went off it was really loud and a woman driving by stopped and pulled into our driveway. The two men bolted out of the house, got in an old beat-up car, and drove away. The woman ran inside, untied me, and took out my gag. I started crying and the woman followed my eyes and saw my mother. She called 911 and they rushed over but couldn’t save her. It was too late. My dad raced home, but I was still too shocked to talk.

Now six years later, that fateful day still haunts me every night. I’m 15 and I’m in my freshman year of high school. We live in Redondo Beach in an okay townhouse now. I have lots of friends, but only three of them know my deepest darkest secret. My dad has been an alcoholic since that day and my youngest sibling didn’t even know mom. He was only one. Kelsey and Sam were five and just going into kindergarten. When my dad found his knew best friend named beer, I became the unofficial new mom. I didn’t even get time to mourn over my mother. My father bought me a credit card and told me to take care of them. It’s worked out pretty well, except some clerks at random stores questioned a nine-year-old with a credit card, but oh well.

I raised Kelsey, Sam, and Deryk the way I thought my mom would’ve but she wasn’t there to guide me. I took them to school, always missing my first day, but it’s worked out, until now.
Earlier, a man showed up at our door and requested to see my father. My dad was drunk and out like a light so when Kelsey came up behind me, I used our code and held up three fingers behind my back. She ran upstairs and told Sam code three and came back down. Just when they showed up behind me, the shower started running. I told the man he was in the shower and to come back later. The man gave me a funny look, gave me an envelope for my dad, and walked away. As soon as I shut the door, I ripped open the envelope and read the letter inside.

My heart tore as I read the letter. The man was from child services and he was taking us away from our father. We had only one other relative, my mother’s sister and that’s where Deryk would be going to live, but Kelsey, Sam, and I would go to boarding school. One other small fact was that it was in Spain. I saw some mention of a godmother, but I was too shocked to even acknowledge it. Kelsey and Sam were practically jumping on me to see what it said. They looked so happy and I told them to go upstairs and play with Deryk. I went onto our porch and called my best friend Katie. I was in shock.

“Hey.” Katie answered her cell phone immediately. I hardly ever called in the morning.

“Hey. What’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing. You okay?”

“No.”

“What’s up?”

“A man from child services just stopped by. They’re taking us away.”

“WHAT!?!?!?”

“Deryk is going to Aunt Tina’s and Kelsey, Sam, and I are going to boarding school,” I said, then hesitantly added, “In Spain.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“Oh my gosh. They can’t do this.”

“Yes they can and they are. Can you come over?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” She said, now also in shock.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it.”

Katie showed up three minutes later. She only lives down the street. She played with Deryk, Sam, and Kelsey while I talked to my dad. He just said it’s for the best. Then he told me to look in bank account 3691 and handed me the bankcard, which I pocketed. About four hours later Katie had to go home and the mail came. In it was a letter addressed to my dad from child services. It said that a u-haul and a car would be coming by the day after tomorrow to pick us up. When I read that, I sunk down to the ground. I only had a day and a half to say good-bye to all my friends and pack the kids up. So I decided I’d better get started. I started with Kelsey and Sam. I went upstairs where they were lying on their beds listening to their iPod’s and reading. When I sat down on Kelsey’s bed, she jumped.

“Oh my god. You scared me.” She said.

“Sorry. Listen we need to talk.” That made her turn her iPod off, bookmark her page, sit up and get Sam to do the same.

“We aren’t going to have the sex talk are we. You know we’re only eleven.” Sam said.

“No. It’s more important and I just want you to listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

“When mom died, dad started to drink a lot. You were only five so you probably don’t remember a lot but he became addicted to the bottle. Anyway I took care of you guys and Deryk and raised you like I thought mom would. But that man who came to the door yesterday was from child services and he didn’t agree that I could still raise you. They are taking us away. Deryk is going to go live with Aunt Tina and me and you two are going to boarding school.”

“What, you are kidding right?” Kelsey asked.

“Yeah, I would kid about something like that," I said, sarcastically, "They are coming to pick us up the day after tomorrow. So tomorrow we’ll pack. Why don’t you take your bikes and go say bye to your friends? Just tell them we’re moving and we might be back, okay?”

“Okay I guess.” Sam said unsure of what was happening.

“Hey at least we’re all going to the same boarding school.” I said trying to cheer them up.

“Yeah. We’ll be back for dinner.”

“Kay.” After they left I just sat there for a while and then went to talk to Deryk. When I entered his room he was destroying buildings of tinker toys with toy robots. I couldn’t help but think that Aunt Tina better be ready for rough play.

“Hey Deryk.” I said.

“Hey Care-bear.” He said while still playing.

“Listen you are going to go and stay with Aunt Tina for a while okay?”

“Kay. Wait, who’s that?”

“She is mommy’s sister. You’ve never met her, but I have and she is a lot like mom. She’s nice and pretty, and she loves little boys. But right now, I need you to go and say bye to your friends, okay?”

“Oh. Why?” Deryk asked.

“Because you might not come back for a while.”

“Okay.” He said, “I’ll go to Aunt Tina’s but will I get to see you and Daddy and Sam and Kelsey?”

“On holidays, Kelsey, Sam, and I will visit you and all of us will visit Daddy.” I said.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay.” He said happily as he ran past me and hopped downstairs. I followed him and watched as he went up to his friend Matthew’s house. Then I remember what my dad said about that bank account. So I wrote a note to my dad and headed to the bank. The bank was used to seeing me since I picked up money for my dad a lot, but I never asked to see a bank account 3691. They let me anyway since I had the card my dad handed me. When I saw the amount of money in there, I almost fainted. There was over a million dollars in the savings. I remember that that must have been what was in the safe that killed my mother. I withdrew 100 dollars and left for Alexa’s.

I saw and said good-bye to all of my closest friends. Katie was the worst because we saw each other every day. We hugged and talked for a long time. Finally I went home to start dinner and Katie promised to come over tomorrow to help us pack. We had dinner without my dad for the millionth time and then went upstairs for baths. Kelsey took her shower first, then Sam, then I helped Deryk. Then while Kelsey read Deryk books, I took my shower. Usual routine. Then we put Deryk to bed and Kelsey and Sam retired to their room to read.
I went downstairs and sat in the chair across from my dad. He was asleep and snoring really loud, but I started talking to him like old times, telling him how hard it was leaving my family and friends. I told him how hard it would be to leave Deryk with Aunt Tina and how difficult it would be to give up my normal routines. Also how hard it was watching my mother die while he was gone and how he never seemed to be there for all of us after that. I told him it wasn’t his fault she was killed, but it was his fault he let us grow up without a dad. And how hard it would be to leave Katie and everyone else.

I also told him how scared I was for him to be leaving to go to an alcoholic rehabilitation center. I told him I loved him and hated him all at the same time. Then I went upstairs, told Kelsey and Sam lights out and hopped into bed myself. The next thing I knew, my alarm clock was going off for 7:00 AM.

The first thing I did was pack clothes. Since the boarding school was in Spain, I packed mostly springish stuff. Then I moved to my desk and packed my computer, printer, scanner, and telephone. All of my CDS and DVDS I put in a big giant CD case and packed that along with my stereo, TV, and DVD player. Then I packed all of my books and that was like a giant suitcase. I packed my two favorite pairs of sheets, my comforter, my pillows, and my stuffed animals. Also my curtains and my lamps. I went into the bathroom and packed all my toiletries. Then I went back to my room and packed miscellaneous things like my digital camera, tissues, iHome, jewelry box, bookbag, etc. I took all the pictures and magazine cutouts off my walls and put them in the bottom of a suitcase as well. I put my purse next to the big pile of suitcases and moved to Kelsey and Sam’s room.

When I walked into her room I could see they had already gotten started. Just as I started to help them, the doorbell rang. I went downstairs and it was Katie. I had her get started with Deryk’s clothes. In Kelsey and Sam’s room they did books first, so they were done. We started on clothes. They have a lot of clothes and they’re mostly winter, so that was good. Next was all of their jewelry, which was a lot! Then we packed the sheets and pillows off both of the beds. Next we packed all of their technology stuff. Like computers, printers, scanners, and telephones. Then all of the miscellaneous stuff was packed and they were done. All they had to do was grab their purses.

When we went into Deryk’s room his clothes were packed and they were in the midst of packing all the toys. I let Kelsey help them pack the toys and Sam and I started on the loft bed. Sam took the sheets and pillows and put them in a box, while I then separated the actual bed part. No doubt Aunt Tina would want it. It definitely saves room. My mother had carved animals into all the edges of the bookcases, so I took them apart to be packed too. Then while they were still working on the toys, I did the books and Sam did the computer. He has a computer, printer, and a telephone to be packed. Deryk likes to play computer games and look up random stuff on the computer. Then he’ll color and paint and print his masterpieces out. He has one whole wall and half of another filled with taped up coloring pages. That’s what Katie and I worked on next. Taking everything down and putting it into a big box. Kelsey, Sam, and Deryk packed the toy bins under the bed, too. Once they were done, I said good-bye to Katie and Kelsey went downstairs with Sam and Deryk to start dinner. Thursday nights were their night to cook.

I went into my parent’s room and sat on the bed that hadn’t been slept in for six years. My dad always sleeps on the couch. I went over to the right closet and opened it. It was my mother’s. I took out a sweater and put in on. Not because I was cold, but because they still smelled like her. Then I went into my room, took the sweater off and put it in the almost empty suitcase, on top of the magazine cut outs and pictures. I took two more sweaters out of her closet and put them in two. The next thing I took was a picture that stood on her night side table. It was of me holding Deryk, about a week shy of a year, and my mother sitting next to me. My dad was sitting next to us with Kelsey and Sam sitting on his lap. We were all kind of looking down at Deryk and we hadn’t even noticed that someone had taken a picture. My father’s dad had taken it and it was taken not two weeks before she was killed. When I looked at the picture, my throat closed up, but I focused on finishing.

I went to her jewelry box and brought that into my room too. I put that in the suitcase and walked back into her room and took one more thing. A bottle of perfume that was almost empty. I looked up the brand on my dad’s computer and found that there were only two companies that sold it now. I ordered one off-line and said to send it to the perfume store on Main Street and hold it in the name of Kerri Smith. I figured it would be in later that night, so I’d pick it up after dinner. When I got downstairs, Deryk was setting the table and Kelsey was picking the pot of macaroni and cheese off the stove. Sam was finishing the salads. Then I walked into the kitchen and we all sat down to eat dinner. Just like a nice family dinner, right? Wrong. We all knew we’d be getting separated tomorrow morning at nine and we all didn’t want it to happen. It does, however, happen to unfortunate people and I guess we were unfortunate.

We did baths and showers again tonight, but I skipped my shower. Then once everyone was in bed, asleep, I went into the bathroom and got out the hair products I got at the drugstore next to the perfume store on Main Street. My almost black hair is almost to my butt. I have an excellent figure. A woman came to our school once, to teach a modeling class and she always used me as a example because I have the “model’s dream” as she puts it. Anyway I took the hair dye out of the bag and opened it. The color was classic blond. It looked more like a dirty blond to me, but oh well.

I read the box and saw that it took about an hour. I decided that I’d wait for morning, but then I read down some more and it said it was best to do it at night. So I dyed my hair blond and looked at it in the mirror 45 minutes later. It was a really pretty dirty blond, much better than I thought it would be. Then I put it in a low ponytail right at the base of my neck and got out the scissors. I cut it like two centimeters below the ponytail holder. Then I took the ponytail holder out and it fell right across my face. Next I took the scissors and cut bangs straight across my face. When I let the hair go, the bangs fell right on my eyelashes. It was really cute.

When I looked in the mirror after I had completed my makeover, I couldn’t tell it was me. I’d planned on that. I went into Kelsey and Sam’s room at about 11:30 PM and gently shook Kelsey. She didn’t wake up but I managed to get her to the bathroom and sit her on the toilet. I got out a second box of hair dye and dyed her hair. Then I just trimmed her already shoulder length hair. Then I put her back to bed. Then I got Sam into the bathroom and gave her the same treatment, but made them look like twins. I couldn’t even tell them apart when I saw them together except for the fact that I knew Sam was wearing a blue tank top and Kelsey was wearing a pink one.

Once I put her into bed, I had three down, one to go. I got Deryk out of bed and dyed his hair. Then since he had shaggy hair, I buzzed it to a really cute style. As I brushed the hair off of his shoulders, I thought about how we look completely different. I’m naturally short and skinny and the twins are naturally tall and skinny, so we look like triplets. Then Deryk just looks darn cute by himself. We were all green-eyed blondes now, I thought. I put him to bed and went to bed myself.