I rolled over in the comfortable bed and groaned loudly. The clock in my room read that it was almost ten oclock in the morning. For once, I was almost happy that we were still in the studio and not yet on the road. If we had been touring, I would have been up hours before, around six probably, and I almost slept late for once. But, it wasnt that late, not that I would want to sleep until noon or so, which was just overdoing it a bit.
As I started to sit up, Zac bounded into the room and jumped onto my bed with a large thud. The bed shook, and I was thrown off of it. I landed on the floor, tangled in the mass of blankets with a pillow over my head. I groaned once more, shoving the pillow off of my head and to the floor beside me. Zac stood over me with a smile spread across his face. He was going to get it, not at that very moment though, I was too tired to chase after my little brother.
Zac reached down and helped me up, he actually pulled me up, but he kind of helped me. A little. "Guess what" he said, his eyes were gleaming brightly, and his smile wasnt as devious as it should have been after shoving me out of my own bed in the morning. I shrugged squarely; I didnt want to waste valuable time because Zac wanted to play a guessing game this early in the morning.
"You're supposed to guess" Zac continued, he pushed my shoulder back lightly with his hand. It didnt hurt; it wasnt supposed to, it was only his way to say that he wanted me to play along, without using the proper words. I guessed that I would have to listen to the little sixteen year old this morning. I didnt really have any other choice; I knew that Zac would chase me around the house like a wild animal until I gave in.
"Fine, four purple and blue aliens kicked the green aliens in your head out and decided to take over the world through you?" I replied, it was the only stupid thing that I could come up with, or the one that I grumbled out first. Maybe it would shut him up for a while. Zac laughed and shook his head; as if he really thought that was what I thought was going on. Sometimes, the little boy could confuse me a lot, and happened to take his job very seriously.
Zac smiled quickly again, "nope, but breakfast is ready!" he replied, with that my strange little brother ran to the door. "That, and Krislyn just brought my biggest fan over" he added before he bolted out of the room and out of sight. It less than a half a second for me to want to race after him and try to get to the room he was headed to before him.
I quickly knew whom he was referring to with his biggest fan statement. Krislyn's little sister, Espree, must have been downstairs. And, that mean that Krislyn had to be there, too, Zac had said it himself. But, Zac hadnt been excited about just Krislyn being at our house, but the four-year-old girl that she had brought with her. Espree was probably Zacs biggest fan, outside of the family; she loved the boy like an older brother and acted just like him.
As I grabbed a tee-shirt from my drawer, I knocked the clock over and onto the floor, where the blankets and pillows from my bed still were, but I didnt have time to pick them up and put them back where they belonged. So, I just took a pair of jeans off of a chair and hurried out the door and down the hall. I just hoped that none of my siblings had the same idea as I did. The only problem with having so many kids in one family had to be the wait for the bathroom was like waiting in the bathroom line at a concert sometimes!
Well, all of the others seemed to be talking with Espree and Krislyn, or maybe even still sleeping. But, I highly doubted the second choice. It was still a good deal for me, I got the bathroom to myself for a little while. I hopped into the bathroom, showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth; it really didnt take me long at all. I was in a rush, so it only took my half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes or so, to finish everything. I was dressed and completely ready to make my entrance in less than an hour, I was happy with that time.
When I finished, I ran toward the room that I figured the whole lot of them would be. But, I did slow down once I was at the entrance of the room, and I merely strolled in casually. I didnt want to seem too anxious. But, I was very anxious; I hadnt seen Krislyn in a little over two weeks or so, since the last time I saw her dance to be a little bit more exact. And little Espree was an entirely different story; I hadnt seen her since Easter.
Zac was bouncing both little girls, Zoë and Espree, on his knees, making strange car and truck noises for no real reason. By now, I was beginning to wonder why no one from my family had even said hello to me, even though I had been in the room only a few seconds. But, either dad or mom usually tracked me down within a second or two, and the rest of the family would soon follow their quick lead on things.
"Hi" I chimed cheerfully, I had to make myself known to the family before I whisked Krislyn away from them all before anyone could tell me otherwise. My parents looked over to me, broke apart their conversation with Krislyn, stood, and quickly hustled into the kitchen to start the late breakfast. It would be more like brunch, but it was still food.
I walked over to Krislyn, held out my hand, and helped her stand up. A smile spread across my face as she kissed my cheek and began to pull me to the door. We exited the house as quiet as possible, I didnt want to take any chances of any of the other kids following us, that wouldnt be such a good thing right now. I also hoped, silently, that a group of fans hadnt chosen the day that I got to see Krislyn as their day to make an appearance at my house.
Krislyn clung tightly to my hand as we slipped by the side of the house, passed the shed, and sauntered into the woods behind the house. The spot where Krislyn stopped in front of me was one that I hadnt seen in at least three years. But, I hadnt pushed it too far away from me, just looking at the first centimeter of the land made faded memories rumble in my mind.
"Remember, Isaac?" Krislyn questioned softly, with her gentle words the very air seemed to shake between us. Obliviously, she remembered this secret spot of our childhood just as well as I had. "At least twelve summers ago, thats how long its been." I nodded and bent down slowly, falling to my knees on the cold, hard ground.
"Its so hard not to remember. I really didn't want to revisit a lot on this place, about this place, surrounding this place" I mumbled, it was true, I hadnt cared too much for the spot for over four years. And, I didnt want everything that had happened there to flare up on me all over again. "Why did you bring me here, Krislyn? Why?"
She burned into my eyes with her own dark chocolate pair, a coating of tears sprung up in them, and I quickly stood up from the dirt. I hadnt meant to shake her up like she looked like she was; I never liked to see her with tears in those beautiful eyes of hers. Quickly, I opened my arms and was about ready to engulf her fragile body in a large, comforting huge, but she turned away from me and shook her head stiffly.
"I am fine, Isaac" she warned, I only remembered seeing this hidden side of her the last time that we had visited this spot and boarded most of the place up. She reached her hand up to her eye and brushed away a stray tear, flinging it into the on-coming breeze. Krislyn looked over at me once more and her frown shifted into a smile, "its just the memories, they all got to me. Im sorry."
I reached out to her with an out stretched hand, which she took. Krislyns hand felt cold on my warm palm, freezing was more like it. I shivered and began to rub her hand between both of my own, "you're freezing" I whispered to her, she nodded and rested her head on my chest. "Tired?" at my gentle question, she nodded faintly and wrapped her other arm around my waist. I could tell that something was wrong, but if she didnt want to tell me than I would'nt pry.
Within two short minutes, I walked into the house, with Krislyn following close behind. Mom called everyone to eat soon after, Krislyn and I always had good timing with meal announcements. Or, at least that was what Zac always said. But, Zac was another story all together when it came to food. He never missed a meal, snack, anything that mostly involved some kind of good food.
"Ike, pass the milk" I looked across the table, Jessica was slightly whining, she wanted the milk carton that was in front of me. I quickly handed her the cartoon, I didn't need to hear her sob if she got in trouble for whining and not using good manners, so I hurried with the process in order for mom or dad not to hear too much of it.
"Zac, please pass the butter" Avery was polite with her request, I could picture mom smiling slightly in her direction in my mind. But, I didnt have to even glance over at her to see if she was doing just that, I knew that she probably was. Zac nodded and slid the butter down the table to Avery. I couldnt believe how fast the girls were growing up; I didn't think that mom and dad would want to touch upon that subject for a few more years, though.
After breakfast, Krislyn and I watched Zac while he played a video game on the television. Zac was quite a genius with the games; he could beat pretty much anyone that challenged him to any game. But, at that moment, he was just racing cars by himself; he didnt seem to mind playing alone though. So, after forty-five minutes of watching Zac try to break his record, which would be to play, and win, a lot of games in a pretty short period of time, he shooed us away. "You're wrecking my concentration, go spend some quality time together or something. Oh, and send Espree in here, she needs to learn how to play this" Zac pretty much ordered us to do so, but I really didnt care.
We did send Espree into the room where Zac was positioned firmly on the floor, controller almost glued in his hands. Krislyn and I decided it would be fun to watch this, so we both sat on the floor outside of the room, Krislyn pretty much on my lap, and began to watch the loveable Zac try to teach the energetic Espree how to play the car racing game.
Espree seemed a bit interested, grabbed the controller away from Zac, and began pounding random buttons. Zac gasped, hurriedly snatched the controlled out of the little girls busy hands, and handed her the spare controller that was not plugged in. Obviously, he didnt want to lose his game while teaching a four year old how to play it. Zac was smart, but it seemed a bit strange that he wanted Espree to learn the game, and not mess him up. But, Espree didn't seem to care; she just banged away on the spare controller and soon fell asleep on Zac's lap.
