Summer Mayhem: As told by Oliver

With my parents and Sammy gone, it was kind of like Lord of the Flies. Aunt Beatrice was only useful for shouting at us to be quiet and waking all of us up in the morning... even though there was already a huge fight over who got the shower first by the time she rang the morning bell.

“Oliver!” Bella was my own little wake up call. We had this system. Every morning she'd wake me up and I'd take her down to the Torrance farm with me 'cause she liked helping my best friend, Aaron, and me with all the animals and everything. She also liked to watch me work in Mr. Torrance's work shop.

“I don't wanna get up,” I groaned, pulling a pillow over my eyes. I heard Bella sigh before she climbed onto my bed and sat on my stomach. She tried to pull the pillow off my face, but I held onto it with all my strength.

“You're really gonna make me do it again, huh?” she grumbled situating herself between me and the wall. She placed her feet on my hips and shoved me with all of her strength. “Jeez, what have you been eating fatty?” she grunted, finally giving me one last shove so that I fell to the floor. I groaned again, rolling over on the plush carpet to look up at my sister.

Her dirty-blond hair was falling out of her pony tail and she was smiling, showing off her two missing front teeth. She was wearing her denim overalls with a Winnie the Pooh patch sewn on the front, and she wore a red Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles short-sleeved shirt underneath, that belonged to Zane. She scowled at me, beginning to jump on my bed, singing some stupid Beatles song that Sammy must've taught her... damn Sammy.

“I'm awake, I'm awake. Shut the hell up Bells,” I grumbled, pretending that I was more angry at her than I actually was. I got up and dumped my blankets onto my bed while Bella continued to jump around carelessly. “Bells, be careful where you-” But it was already too late.

“RAWR!” my cat, Scat (I was seven and he looked like poop to me), jumped out of the way, but not before scratching Bella's leg.

“Ow! Scat you bad cat!” she screeched. Scat’d been my cat since the year my parents died. He only ever listened to me, and he loved to terrorize my siblings and the other animals. We were all allowed to have one pet, as long as we took care of it. “Oli,” Bella complained loudly, rubbing at her scratches. Through all that, I was surprised Frankie hadn’t woken up. Then again, it was only five o’clock and Thomas and Anna were gonna be gone for ten more days.

Bella and I quickly did our chores while the rest of the kids fought over breakfast and what cartoons they wanted to watch. Just as I grabbed the keys to Sammy’s truck (I liked her automatic better than my stick shift), Aunt Beatrice waddled into the hallway and glared at me the way most people did: like I was a scumbag. She looked pissed.

“Where’s the money your parents left for food?” she growled. I raised my eyebrows and slipped on my black jean jacket.

“They didn’t give us money,” I reminded her coldly. “There’s food in the fridge and garden.” Aunt Beatrice opened her mouth to yell at me, but before she had the chance I grabbed Bella’s hand and dragged her out into the cool summer morning.

Bella and I worked on the Torrance farm for three hours every morning. She usually only came so she could play with the animals and spend time with Mrs. Torrance. After her husband and daughter were killed in some weird boating accident two years ago, having Bella come over was the best distraction she got from worrying about her crazy son.

In reality, Aaron wasn’t that bad, but… I suppose if I were his mom, I’d probably start going fucking insane. Aaron was your classic party kid. He liked the whole “get drunk, hang out with a bunch of assholes, maybe fuck some chick” scene. I’ve had to drag him and Harriet out of so many of those stupid ass parties, that they’d lost all attraction. If I wanted to get pass out drunk, I’d get in touch with a couple of my older foster brothers; probably the Fenton brothers, or Matty.

“Bye Bella! Bye Oliver!” Mrs. Torrance called from the kitchen window as I pulled out of her rocky driveway. It was nearing nine thirty and Bella was having trouble keeping her eyes open while we drove back to town.

“Hey Bells,” I shook her awake when we stopped at a light. “You goin’ to see your dad today?” I didn’t really wanna drive all the way to Colorado Springs and back if I didn’t have to. Thomas warned me not to forget to take her, because “it was good for her to see her dad,” but I wasn’t gonna make her or her brothers see him if they didn’t fuckin' want to. Bella rubbed at her bleary eyes and shook her head.

“He hit Jake last week,” she grumbled, “I never wanna see him again.” I highly doubted that, but I didn’t say anything, and neither did she. She stared out the window as we got closer to our neighborhood. It wasn’t exactly the nicest in the town, but we did alright. I liked it because the neighbors weren’t that close, and we had a big property, so we could be pretty fuckin' loud before the cops got called. My older, adopted brother, Gus, who’s got a family of his own, is an engineer and his wife is an architect, and they’ve been helping Thomas build onto the house since the early ‘80’s. Our house has like twelve different bedrooms and a library, and game rooms, and an art room, and other shit.

“Okay,” I said to Bella. I grinned at her; I’d obviously put her in a shitty mood by bringing up her asshole dad. “How about this,” I told her in a low conspiratorial voice, “if all the chores are done, we can have a Sock War.” That cheered her right up. She sat up straighter and there was a devious glint in her eyes,

“I call being first captain!” Bella shouted happily an hour later. We were all chillin' in the basement. Somehow, we’d managed to get everyone (including Lewis and Penny) to play with us. And I was actually kinda stoked. We hadn’t had a Sock War since April, a few months after Lewis and Marshall moved in. That was before Jason and Abe Daniels got taken away (Jason to juvie, and Abe to some new family), and Sammy was still here. It was before the Harris kids’ time. They were Sock War Virgins, it was gonna be tight.

“¡Quiero ser el capitán!” Damien whined. All the kids looked to me to translate, except for Bryce. Bryce and I were the only ones Anna could coax into learning Spanish with her so that we could adopt Damien.

Bryce smiled warmly at the kid. “You can be second captain,” Bryce said in a gentle voice, holding up two fingers. Damien grinned. He liked when me and the other guys included him in the games and whatnot.

“Oli!” Bella shouted, jumping on my back.

Damien looked around for a second and pointed to Lewis.

“Frankie.”

Damien spotted Marshall jumping around pointing to himself, shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!” So of course, he did.

The teams ended up being Frankie, Bella, Bryce, Jake, Michael, and me, against Lewis, Damien, Penny, Stephen, Zane, and Marshall.

Lewis smirked at me. “Fine, we get the top two floors as our base.” The basement and first floor were not considered prime real estate when having a Sock War. It was always better to be above your opponent because you can always tell when the other team is coming.

I shrugged, folding my arms. “That’s fine.”

“Yeah right!” Jake shouted. He was jumping around, barely sitting still for a second. Zane copied his brother. He was jumping on the couch about to drive Marshall crazy, I could see it all over his face.

“What’re you… scared?” Zane taunted jumping over to his brother. Jake scowled and pushed him away.

“Hell no! I don’t get scared!” Jake growled indignantly as Zane pushed him back.

I looked over at Lewis who was smirking at them with raised eyebrows. I groaned, shaking my head. “How much sugar cereal did they eat?”

“Three bowls each.” Lewis was grinning now. He knew this would happen! If Sammy were here, there was no way they’d get away with that kind of shit.

Marshall jumped up from his seat and pulled the brothers apart. “Just shut up so we can tell the new kids the rules!” he growled. Jake and Zane looked at each other sheepishly. Bryce rolled his eyes.

“This is going to be so stupid,” Penny grumbled. Stephen nodded in agreement, copying his sister when she sat back and folded her arms. Michael had a frown on his face. I watched as he leaned over and whispered into her ear. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it seemed to placate his sister.

“I wanna tell ‘em the rules!” Bella said happily. She looked around at all of us to see if anyone had a problem with it. Lewis looked irritated and antsy. He only liked playing with us because he was good at it. Him and I always played on opposite teams for a few reasons: If we were on the same team, we’d waste the others, we like hating each other, and he finally wanted to beat me.

“No Bella. You always take forever,” Marshall grumbled pushing Bella back onto the couch. She scowled at him and jumped on his back.

“Don’t push me!” she snapped, covering his eyes as he fell backwards onto the couch, and on top of Bells. That immediately snapped Jake and Zane out of their little wrestling match.

“Hey! Be careful,” Jake growled. He was way over-protective of his sister.

“Guys! Rules!” Frankie shouted. “Alright,” he turned to the Harris kids, “There are only five rules.” And then he went on to list the rules.

Rule #1: No putting rocks, marbles or anything else in the socks, except for other socks.

Rule #2: If you get hit, you have to go to jail. Have integrity. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up in the Dictionary.

Rule #3: The only way to win is by getting the Golden Sock from the other team’s side to yours without getting hit. The sock has to be visible and semi-crazy to find. No hiding it in someone’s room.

Rule #4: You’re not allowed to cheat. If you do, prepare to have your entire team lined up and bouncy balls thrown at all of you.

Rule #5: That said, all forms of sneaking around are allowed. Just… be safe and don’t kill yourself.

How to Play: The goal of the game is to get the other team’s hidden Golden Sock to your home base. You can use any form of deception to get on the other team’s side. But if you get hit by a sock (rolled up of course – I once got one to be the size of Frankie’s head by rolling twenty socks together) you have to go to the other team’s jail.

The only way to get rescued is to have a teammate tag you out – with a sock. Dirty socks are nasty. But they are the sacred weapon of Sock Wars. If you get hit by a dirty sock you have to spend at least ten minutes in jail, even if someone comes to rescue you.

“Let the games begin!” Bryce shouted as he grabbed our huge bucket of socks.

Socks are a sacred commodity in our house. The older siblings (like Gus and Maria – whom Anna and Thomas adopted in the seventies) say that at one time everyone was allowed to have their own socks, but that’s not how it is anymore. We all share socks or else there are massive fights, sometimes ending in hospital visits.

Lewis, Penny, Marshall, Zane, Stephen, and Damien all ran upstairs to the fourth floor where the library was, it was their planning area. Us kids took the Sock Wars very seriously. Especially me and Lewis. I already told you about our feud, but what I didn’t tell you, was how I managed to always win. It was simple, really. About seven years ago, Gus convinced his wife, Desarae, to build in secret tunnels and passages into the walls that go throughout the house. There’s a secret entrance, and only kids who were adopted were allowed to know about it. Muhahahaha!

That’s how I always win. Let the Sock War begin…