Chapters On A Page

Every year, the last day of school brought a few memorable parties that nearly everyone flocked to like water in a desert. I, however, was not thirsty enough to want to attend any of the smaller parties or the one gigantic party thrown on the night school ended unless my friends dragged me to them. Having been at a new school for only a week, I hadn't expected to get any invites to parties people there were throwing. But they were piled right on top of the ones from kids at Towson that liked me enough to want me to go along so they could see me. I still didn't plan on accepting any of them, especially since Murph and the girls were also adamant about staying in this year. So after a short four hour shift at my least favorite of all three jobs, I was back in the passenger seat of Murph's car and on my way to my house where my mom and sisters were with Nic and Gwen. The rain had stopped sometime while I was stuck in the windowless building and the clouds had dissipated enough to let the sun take over, if only for an hour. It was just starting to get dark as we drove through my new neighborhood and it made me excited to attempt to stay up until it was light again.

The air felt just as late spring should feel when we got out of the car after pulling into the driveway, and I couldn't have been more delighted that it was finally turning into summer. There were small puddles all around the blacktop that I skipped over as I walked down the length of the driveway and I could tell that the grass was still slick with rain water. Murph walked behind me while I paced through the gate and up the front walk, swinging a bag of rented movies in his hand the whole way. My mom informed the two of us that Gwen and Nic were out on the back porch waiting for us, so we automatically headed that way without another word. The sliding glass door was open and Gwen's giggling could be heard through the screen door. I slid that open while Murph set our movies on the counter and headed out onto the porch first.

"What are you doing?" I asked, looking down at Gwen on the ground as Nic was swinging back and forth in the hammock. She was laughing so hard as she tried to come to a stop that she had surpassed sound altogether. Just the sight had me laughing as well before I even made my way over to them. I helped a still giggling Gwen to her feet so she could sit back down on the wicker chair against the railing and then hooked my fingers into the net of the hammock when it came toward me. With a quick jerk, it stopped and Nic fell back which caused her to catch her breath and her laughing made a sound again.

"What the hell are you three doing?" Murph questioned much as I had when he joined us, closing the screen door behind him. I shrugged to answer him since I still had yet to find out. To wait for an explanation, he sat in the couch that matched the chair that Gwen was bent over in, her laughing approaching how Nic's was.

It was several minutes before either of them was settled down. I had pushed in beside Nic so we were now both on the hammock, and I couldn't help but continue to giggle as well while I stared at her. As she calmed down, she wrapped her arm around me and pulled me down as well. "Being the greatest friend that I am," she finally started, still letting chuckles slip as we stared up at the beams of the roof over the porch, "I claimed this spot as soon as we came out so that you and I could share when you got home. And Gwen here made no protest and seemed perfectly fine with it until she claimed she wanted to see if it would even hold two people. I knew her plan though, see." Here, she started talking like a radio announcer doing a 1940s detective show. "So when she tried to climb in, I started swinging. In her attempts to hold onto the hammock with me kicking at her, she fell on her ass. And you know that I can't contain myself when someone eats shit," she finished with more laughing.

I laughed again as well, and heard Murph join in with the three of us girls that couldn't seem to see it as anything but funny. Surely, it would have been much more hilarious to witness myself, but the retelling was enough to picture it for a giggle now. "So is that all you guys have been doing while you waited for Murph to get me?" I wondered, and managed to sit up. I shuffled until I was facing the backyard and stretched my legs out beside Nic.

She copied me, except she faced the house, before she shook her head. "Of course not! That only took up the last ten minutes," she informed me as if that should have been common knowledge. It kind of was, but it was also common knowledge to me that she could spend a good half hour laughing at something. "We tried to coax Lilah out of her room with a bribe that I'd cut her hair, which failed after only a minute or two. Then we played Go Fish with Kay and mom, and I lost terribly. So naturally, I pouted and quit after one hand, and Gwendolyn of course tagged along," she explained, the smile of hers that I loved the most adorning her face the whole time. "What movies did you guys get?" she questioned then, moving her focus to Murph.

I turned my head around to stare at him as well. He was taken off guard, apparently. In the minute that Nic had been speaking without laughing, he had gotten distracted by a spider slowly making its way back up the strand of silk it had fallen down on. The dumbstruck expression that took over his face made the rest of us giggle once more. "Oh, um," he said when his thought process caught up. "Mean Girls again, Cabin Fever." He paused a moment to remember and exclaimed again when it came to him. "And old school Willy Wonka to prepare us for the remake next month," he finished excitedly, giddy about the last movie. I had never seen anyone love a vaguely creepy Gene Wilder movie -let alone a sixteen-year-old boy- like Murph.

"Shall we start now or do you guys wanna do something else?" I wondered, turning back to look out over the yard. I couldn't stop comparing this house to the one I had lived in only a week ago, even now when I was in the middle of a conversation with my friends. As much as it hurt to admit, the old house had nothing on this one. Even the backyard was more visually appealing. The yard at the old house was enclosed with an ugly, red-painted privacy fence that hid the alley that separated our property from the house behind ours. The yard itself was only large enough for a swing set/slide combo and a clothesline. The yard I looked out at now though was nice and wide, continuing ceaselessly into the neighbor's yards on either side. The back was lined with a couple rows of trees that concealed the view of the next neighborhood over. It gave me the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere when we were in the midst of civilization, easily seen from the front yard, and I loved it.

"I want to try to get that grumpy bug out of her room," Nic responded, breaking my reverie. I moved my gaze to her, and realized that she was clearly worried about my middle sister. All of us had been since my parents had announced they were getting divorced, and then even more so when my mom had decided that we were going to move out of the house she had grown up in for over twelve years. She was at the worst age for all of this bad news about her family to hit her, and that wasn't even including our oldest sister.

"Bugs don't have rooms," Gwen piped up, sitting a bit straighter in her chair. She was proud of her knowledge, even though she wasn't aware that it totally wasn't relevant to what we were talking about. "They don't even have houses, I don't think. Unless they've taken over a human's house. Ick, remember that time we had those damn flour beetles infesting my house." She shivered all over at the memory and I did, too, despite it being off topic.

"Lilah, sweetie. Lilah," Nic informed her lightly, reaching her arm over the hammock to pat Gwen's hand. I snorted lightly at the two of them, shaking my head.

"I know that!" Gwen exclaimed, her dark eyebrows pulling together in an attempt to convince us that she hadn't thought we were talking about actual bugs. "I was just stating the obvious," she claimed, crossing her arms in an attempt to look angry that she'd been called out on her mistake.

Nic scrambled out of the hammock, leaving me swinging back and forth. Once she was firmly planted on the porch, she threw her arms around Gwen and pulled her close. "Oh, don't get huffy! I was just making sure you knew who I was talking about," she promised, holding in another laugh. Gwen didn't mind laughing at her own expense though.

"Let's go get her to do something then!" she insisted, pushing away from Nic enough to stand up.

Murph helped me up out of the hammock after he'd stood himself since he'd actually been paying attention to this conversation. The girls had already shuffled into the house, so he and I moved into the kitchen through the door they had left open. I slid the glass closed behind me, bidding an early and silent goodnight to the backyard I was falling in love with. There were already footsteps running up the stairs by the time I'd hit the hallway, and Murph's slow gait followed only a second later.

"What's going on, little bird?" my mother asked me as soon as I entered the living room. She was lying on the couch, her head propped up on several pillows and with Kaylee folded into the leftover space of the sofa. They were watching one of the several generic shows the Disney channel had to offer, and I was sure they were both highly enjoying it.

"We're going to get Lilah out of her room," I answered, inching my way backwards up the stairs. "How, I'm not sure yet. But it might involve selling my soul. So I apologize in advance for when things get all Exorcist around here," I joked, shooting her a thumbs-up when she chuckled. As I turned and headed up the stairs properly, I heard my youngest sister ask our mother what I had meant and I couldn't help but laugh to myself.

My friends were already pounding on the door at the end of the left side of the hall. I wondered briefly how Lilah would even hear the knocking and then how her music hadn't consumed the entire house by this point. I joined in regardless, squeezing into a space just large enough for me to reach my fist out to connect with the door. Surprisingly, the music was turned off and the door was open just a minute later.

"What?" my middle sister spat as she stared at the four of us. She must have seen the glare I shot at her for being a little too nasty, because she stepped back to let us into her room. "What?" she questioned again, softer this time.

I hadn't gotten a good look at this room since before we had moved in, so I hadn't seen anything she had done with it. The door was set back in the very middle of the wall in a wide nook and she had put up curtains to separate the small entrance from the rest of the room. To the left of the entrance was her closet, and to the right was another, slightly larger nook. I had almost picked this room simply because of this, since it was nothing but shelves and I could have easily filled them all up. But she had pushed her bed into it and thrown another curtain up to act as a sort of canopy. I commended her for this clever idea and was almost jealous I hadn't thought of it. She had found a papasan chair in the basement of our old house that she now had in the corner at the end of the bed, and her dresser was setting diagonally with her television atop it in the opposite corner. Directly across from the door was her desk upon which she had thrown her backpack onto when she had clearly decided it was no longer worth it to bring it along to her new school.

"We think you should come do something with us," Murph announced as he danced through the curtain hiding the door. I rolled my eyes at him while I sat on the edge of the bed, but I let him be since he had been the last one through and still the first one to speak up. "You can pick the activity, but may I suggest building a fort? Because your bed has sparked that kind of creativity in me," he told her, and dove onto the surface behind me once he had walked around the bed.

"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard," Lilah responded, the sneer overtaking her face once more. I was really starting to hate that look on her.

"Come on, Li!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up into the air. "You're only fourteen. You can't spend forever just hiding in your room. Em didn't do it, I didn't do it, and you won't do it!" I insisted, hoping it sounded more like a demand. It wasn't until I saw that her sneer had turned into a fallen and pained expression that I realized that maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Emma. "Come on. Come hang out with us. Zack's gonna come over later whenever he's done partying, and you know he's going to force you out of here anyway. Why not start now?" I prayed this lie would get her moving since she liked hanging out with Zack. I would deal with the consequences of not telling the truth later, if the time came.

She sighed in exasperation. "Fine. But no forts," she demanded, pointing a disgusted look toward Murph. He pouted, but I pat his leg and promised him that we could build one in the morning.

"What then?" Gwen inquired from her spot in the chair. She had pulled it up on its base so that it was pretty much just a large bowl with a cushion, and sat cross-legged within it.

"Oh! We could play hide and seek out in the backyard and the woods," Nic pitched in, looking hopeful that maybe this would be something the other four of us all would go for. "Oh, come on! Don't act like it's not a game we all don't still love to play. I'm the oldest one here, and I'm always down for it," she said like we were all crazy when we only stared at her.

I laughed at her, still shaking my head. "How about we just go make some real food to go along with our junk food feast and then watch the movies we got?" I suggested, and stood up again before any of them responded. So she wouldn't have a chance to protest, I grabbed Lilah's hand and pulled her out the door. I heard her give a pained sigh as she kept up with my fast pace, but she didn't say a word.

As we made our way through the living room, I caught a glimpse of our mom's grin at my success. "I went shopping after work, so there's plenty of food!" she called after us. In response to this, I heard Murph rejoice and speed up as he rushed down the stairs.

It took approximately five minutes to raid the freezer for easy food and to settle on what we wanted. Another two to arrange everything onto cookie sheets. And then a final thirty minutes total to preheat the stacked ovens and then for the fries, chicken strips, and onion rings to cook. Nic attempted to microwave popcorn, which ended with the rest of us laughing and gagging when it was burnt passed recognition. Eventually though, after a bit more waiting and airing the house out, we piled the food on a few plates, poured the popcorn I had made into a large bowl, and grabbed all of the candy Gwen and Nic had brought before heading back upstairs. An argument ensued about which movie we should watch first, but in the end we settled on Cabin Fever -Lilah's pick.

"See, you're already doing better!" I exclaimed excitedly, wrapping my arm around her shoulders while we sat against the edge of her bed. My room was the only one on the second floor that wasn't carpeted, so we had all decided that her room would be much more comfortable. It was counterproductive to my plan, but since she was with other people, I considered it a step up. "So no more wallowing," I said sternly but still managed a smile. I was thrilled when she smiled back, nodding in a sarcastic manner.

"I know Rider Strong is in this and everything, but we all do remember the gore-factor, right?" Gwen wondered. I glanced up at her and saw that she was already sitting in the chair with her hands over her eyes.

"Oh, please! It's only a little bit of blood," Nic scoffed, and I imagined she rolled her eyes behind me where she lay on the bed. "Plus, we've got a while before we even get to that point." She threw her hand out -enough so that Lilah and I could see it- to gesture at the simple scene of the main characters on screen driving down a road.

"Speaking of gore-factor though," Murph interrupted, clearly not interested in the movie until we got to see some blood, "did Val tell you guys who drove her home again?"

"Not this again," I groaned, and promptly turned around to smack him. He chuckled as he ducked behind Nic. "Yes, I got a ride home from Alex again because it was pouring outside. If I have to fight any one of you about it, I'm burning this house down!" I declared boldly.

Nic laughed while she pushed Murph back to his side of the bed. "I wouldn't dream of fighting you over something so unbelievably menial. A ride is a ride." Since I was still turned away from the TV, I saw her shoot the male fraction of our group a pointed look. She already could tell that he had put in his two cents about it. "Why would or should it be anything else?"