The Only Exception

I was having the worst day of my life in La Push. It’s been only two days since we moved here and we were all helping my mom with the lawn. It’s not that I hate helping her. It’s just that I’m young and shouldn’t I be enjoying life like the rest of the teens out there? Throwing drama everywhere but here I am squatting and planting some plants my mom thought was pretty. Truth is I hate doing this kind of thing. Who doesn’t? Especially when your sister is right next to you telling you that you are not planting the tree using the right way. I’m planting a tree! You dig, put the plant in the hole and close it up. Since when did they invent the ‘right way to plant’? Well if there was the right way to plant, sorry never read about it.

“You’re not doing it rightly. You should put it like this” Emily told me obnoxiously that make me felt like shoving the plant in her throat.

“Seriously Emily, don’t bother me” I rolled my eyes at her bossiness.

“I’m telling you. You’re not doing it right.” She said whining and lecturing me about the right way of planting.

“Well sorry, I didn’t go to the gardening convention.”

“You should know it. It is common sense” she said with her big nose stuck in the air. I was actually pretty surprised she never drowns when it rained since her nose was so high up the air.

“Look. I never plan to be a gardener. So let me tell you this slowly. I. Don’t. Give. A. Damn.” I looked at her in the eyes pressing on each word.

That shut her up and I was once again planting. I was actually happy when the twins came and put two worms on Emily’s head. She shrieked for help when one of the worms fell on the ground. She was yelping and jumping and running for her life. When all along both of the worms were already on the ground, running for their lives from the screaming monster. I high-five the twins and laughed at her along with Gabe, Luke and Will, then moved away from the worm; scared it may come closer and invaded my personal space. It was actually pretty fun planting without Emily’s voice directing my every movement. Nonetheless, I still think it’s stupid, boring, useless and affecting my youth.

“Hey Ellie I think it’s unfair that dad cut our allowance and still make us do the chores” Will said towering over me as he drank a bottle of mineral water. How I knew it without turning around? Well he ‘accidentally’ spilled some mineral water on my head. Yes I doubted it was an accident.

“Whining won’t help.” Josh said sitting cross-legged after a tiring session of scaring the daylight out of Emily with whatever they can use and were there a lot of things since it was near the woods, and sometimes they wonder why Emily detest sitting near them.

“Well maybe we should go to Forks or something. Then maybe we can stop whining and have some fun.” Luke said interrupting our conversation as he was patting the soil.

“How do we have fun without money squirt?” Nate said patting Luke’s head and wiping the invisible sweat on his forehead. I didn’t know someone could sweat just by getting up from the ground after sitting there doing nothing. Luke sighed after thinking that Nate was right.

“Yeah and we can all blame that on Nate.” Will said smirking towards him and winking playfully. Josh and Luke laughed at Nate as he looked at Will with a glare.

“Somehow I’m wondering am I the only one doing the work.” I asked them as I stop and sat cross-legged. Natalie and Gabe were hardworking workers that we all know and loved. Well the others were just sitting there wasting their time and Emily was too scared for her own good to even come out and seat within a mile from the twins.

“We told you. No money no talk or in this case no money no work.” Nate said throwing his hand aimlessly on the air.

“You didn’t say that.” Luke said his eyebrows burrowed together as he looked at Nate weirdly.

“Squirt.” Josh said smirking towards him.

“Yes?” Luke answered innocently. He might be 15 but he was one naive 15 years old boy which is why the twins enjoy his presents. The twins always make fun of him and if he had already reached puberty. They can make all the dirty jokes they can muster and he won’t understand a thing and it is believable since the twins can make anything turn into a dirty joke. They have their minds in the gutter.

“Go with the flow man.” Nate said high-fiving his twins and grinning while laughing at their clueless brother. Yes they are weird like that.

“Luke. Take my advice run away while you can.” Will said as he left and went inside the house walking away from the twins before they started on their lame jokes. Please don’t get me start with their lame jokes. I could write a whole biography about how lame it is and will have a hard time writing about how funny it is.

“I’m telling mum on you.” Luke said looking scared as the twins had a dark smirks plastered on their faces.

“Tell what exactly squirt? We are hot or are you going to tell her...” Josh said as the both of them towered over Luke. Nate then continued Josh word and said “That we put some worms inside your pants,” and somehow Josh was able to continued the sentence some more. “Or that we found a dead centipede and we put it on Emily’s study table.”

“So tell us which one?” the both of them said in unison.
“You didn’t put worms inside my pants and you can’t be putting dead centipede on Emily’s study table. You guys were here the whole time. You guys didn’t have any time to do all those things.” He said but wasn’t really sure with himself as I sighed pitying my little brother.

“Oh believe us. We always have time for those kinds of things and you shouldn’t tell Emily we put a dead centipede on her study table.” Nate said patting Luke’s back in a brotherly way that it was almost scary.

“Don’t tell her. It’s a surprise present. Anyway are you sure they are no worms in your pants?” Josh mimicked his twin brother and was scaring the shit out of Luke.

“You better check. Because you know how we work.”

“Dead silence.” They both said in unison and clapped each others back. I swear to God it’s scary when they do that. I mean I always thought they only do that in movies and apparently the twins learned how to do it and perfect it and that’s when I learned that they really happen in real life. I learned that the hard way and what was worse I was only 8 when I found out about that. From that day on I told myself that if there was any siblings’ war happening between us always pick the twins’ side. If you don’t bad things will happen to you and I mean really bad and creepy things happen.

“You can always ask our dear sister Ellie if you want any reference with how we work. Right sis?” they grinned at me and were looking rather proud of themselves. Luke looked as if he was going to pass out anytime.

“Let him be guys. He’s too young to suffer.” I said protecting Luke. We all always protect him. Since he is the youngest and the most naive. He’s the only one who never felt the wrath of the twins and clearly no one protects Emily since she’s a tattle tale and we don’t do well with people like that. The only two people who would stop the twins from harassing her are Natalie and Gabe and that’s just out of pity. I know we’re cruel but life’s cruel, so we’re just preparing her for life.

“Kids.” My mum said with a sighed as she came out from the kitchen. Every heads turned to look at her and she looked at each of us disappointed and tired. “Who put a dead centipede on Emily’s study table?” she asked all of us and we turned to look at the twins as they looked around innocently. She should know better than to ask but then she knew if she accused them of doing they start on the. “Just because we’re adopted everyone would point out that we’re the one who did it”. Mum’s a sucker for that line but if it was dad they would be brushed out and grounded for a week for saying that and then another few weeks for what they did; depending on the crime. They didn’t actually have a right to say that since all of us are adopted and don’t we know it. That explains the differences among us that even a blind woman can see.

Dinner time was always the best time of the day. All of us gathered around and was able to actually interact with each other humanly. I was talking to Will about how stupid it is to go to the beach and Will protested with his every might. Natalie and the twins were goofing off with some lame jokes. Clearly it’s hard to see Natalie goofing off but dinner time is like a time for you to be happy and let all the worries go. That’s what dad taught us. It does not matter how horrible our fights are with each other. During dinner, we are family and nothing can stop that.

The twins cleaned up since that was their punishment for the dead centipede and they looked miserable as all of us talked in the living room. Tomorrow was the first day of school and I hate it. We were all tired and just wanted to rest but somehow we were all in the living room. Dad was happy that everything went well and he was excited that he’s going to get some new colleague. He’s going to be working as an orthopedic in Fork’s Hospital. We were all supposed to go to La Push High and Emily protested that she thought it was lame and wanted to go to Forks High.

No one else agreed with her so she was turned down by my dad and told her that she’ll have fun in La Push High. We all then went to bed for a good night sleep and when I was on my bed ready to doze off, my dad came in and whispered my name. “Liz you’re awake?” he said as light came in from the opened door. I nodded my head and mentally slap myself for being stupid. “Yeah. What's up?” .

“I heard that you were mad at Nate for saying some things.” He said as he walked slowly towards my bed afraid of being too loud and waking everyone in the house. “Nah. It’s cool dad. It was just a hulk moment.” I told him as I turn on my bedside lamp. “Well if that’s right then it means there’s nothing I should worry about?” my dad asked me smiling. I nodded my head and smiled. “I’m not going to kill Nate dad.” I said jokingly and he just laughed. “I just want you to know. Changing guys from one to another won’t make you happy forever.” He said patting my lap that was covered with a thick blanket. “I know dad.” I said as I hugged him tightly but the truth is I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to get hurt but I can’t tell that to my dad or anyone at all. They had their own problems and I should not burden them with mine.