Lets Get This Over With

"Dinner's ready!" Mrs. Jonas called up the stairs to where Joe and I were sitting in his room.

"YES!" Joe yelled, jumping off the bed and running out the door.

I laughed at how excited he was and put the guitar carefully back in the corner where I had previously gotten it from. I knew if I hadn’t I would probably get yelled at by Joe. In the past half an hour he had already berated me four times for doing something to cause harm to his precious instrument. I knew that guitars were expensive but I thought he was being a little over protective.

Once the guitar was settled in what I deemed to be a perfect position, I followed after Joe out of the room and down the stairs. When I got there, though, he was already long gone. It was then that I realized I had no idea where we were supposed to be eating.

"Hey," a voice said from behind me, startling me.

I turned around quickly and saw who I assumed to be another one of Joe’s brothers. This one, unlike Nick, seemed to be a little older than I was. He had brown curly hair like Nick and his mom as well. It seemed the Joe was the odd one out when it came to hairstyles. This brother, though had just come out of a door in the hallway that now sat open.

"Oh, hi," I replied. "I was..."

"You must be Lizzie,” he interrupted, probably noticing my confused expression about what I was doing. “My mom told me you were staying for dinner. I'm Kevin."

"Nice to meet you, Kevin, and yes I am staying for dinner. The problem is that Joe ran off to eat and now I have no idea where I am supposed to go."

Kevin laughed. "Yeah that sounds like something Joe would. Come on, the dining room is right through here," he said turning around.

We walked into another room and found the rest of the Jonas family seated around the large dining room table, with the exception of Mrs. Jonas who was bringing plates out from the kitchen. I saw Joe sitting impatiently in his char.

"What took you guys so long? I'm starving!? Joe asked.

"Joseph!" a man who I could only assume to be Mr. Jonas warned him.

"What?"

"For your information, Joe," Kevin stated, "you ran off to eat so quickly that Lizzie had no idea where she was going. I had to kindly escort her to the dining area."

"Oh. Sorry, Liz," Joe apologized, "but can we please eat now?"

Kevin and I both sat down in two of the open seats. I ended up sitting next to Joe with Frankie on his other side and Nick and Kevin seated across from us. Mr. Jonas was at one end of the table and once Mrs. Jonas was done bringing plates in she sat down at the other end. After we had all prayed, Joe grabbed the first thing in front of him and piled it on his plate.

"It's so nice you could join us for dinner, Lizzie," Mr. Jonas said. "Even though some people in this family still need to learn their manners."

Everybody at the table laughed as Joe looked up, his mouth stuffed with food.

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully, but with a lot of conversation. It wasn’t something I was used to as I either ate by myself or my mom did work when we did eat together. Throughout dinner, I mostly talked to Nick, who I quickly found out was very big on music. We mostly chatted about playing piano and he had already told me he was going to force me to play for him sometime. Big chance at that. The only person who had ever heard me play besides my teacher was my dad. Not even my mom knew what I played.

Next to me I picked up snippets of the conversation Joe and Frankie were having. They were talking about some new toy called Webkinz. Seriously, I was already beginning to believe that Joe was Frankie's age.

Mrs. Jonas asked how school had gone. She actually wanted to know how my school day was as well. I can't remember the last time my mom had asked me that. I didn't really know how to answer so I just replied with a "fine."

"Oh, come on, nothing interesting happened?" Mrs. Jonas exclaimed. “There had to be something out of the ordinary.””

"Well, I was forced to tutor this guy in math. It was horrible," I said with a straight face.

"Hey," said Joe next to me. Everyone else laughed at the expression on Joe’s face, which caused me to laugh as well. "That's not very nice of you."

After everyone was finished with their, the whole family started to take the dishes to the kitchen. I got up to help, but Mrs. Jonas told me that I was a guest in their house and refused that I did any work. Nick grabbed my plate as he got up and stacked it on top of his.

"Oh, thanks." I said.

"No problem,” he replied, sending me a small smile.

Once the table was cleared, it was starting to get late and I had to get home. I knew if my mom made it home before me she would probably freak out. She most likely didn’t listen to my voice message so wouldn’t realize there was a reason I wasn’t there.

"Thanks for having me stay for dinner. It was amazing," I said as I walked towards the door.

"Oh, no problem sweetie. We'd love to have you stay with us anytime. And Kevin could give you a ride home if you need one," Mrs. Jonas suggested, being the perfect mother as always.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Jonas. I'll be fine walking." I opened the door and stepped out of the house. "Bye, guys," I smiled waving to the whole family. I started making my way home. This hadn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be.