Wings

The Family

We stepped up onto Franny's front step, she slipped the key into the lock. "Try to say as little as possible, stay under the radar, way under." Under the radar? With only five other people, and I'm generally not that quiet. "Got it, should I introduce myself, or do you want to do that yourself?" She looked indecisive, and started to turn the key in the lock. "Just follow my lead, do what I do, if someone asks you a question, answer them, you don't want to come across rude. Basically, only speak when you're spoken to." She turned the key fully and pushed the door open. Her mother was walking up the stairs from the cellar carrying two bottles of red wine, she looked slightly flustered, "go in there and- Willy? Francesca honey, you brought home a friend?" Franny nodded. "But you knew Henry and your uncle were coming," Franny's Mum sighed and put down the wine, she touched me on the shoulder and looked me in the eyes. "Ohh sweetie... No, with all due respect..... You can't be here! Fran, go and socialise, Willy, you can go and help Celeste in the kitchen, Henry and my brother aren't expecting anyone else, I'm really very sorry... Just pretend you're staff." No, I wasn't offended, many people would have been, but to be honest, this amused me. It was quite funny, like drama class, I got to pretend to be someone else for a change. My name was then William and I had experience in my Father's award winning bakery, but then a freak fire happened and three buildings on our street in north London burnt down and we didn't have the money to set up another bakery so we all had to get jobs, even my eight year old sister and I ended up and Franny's house! I was quite proud of my story I walked into the kitchen and Celeste grinned at me. "You! Uh, ah... Willy!! I didn't know you are coming." I shrugged, smiled and grabbed an apron from the hook. "Well, I'm here to help." Celeste's mouth opened wide and her eyes lit up. "Brilliant! We are preparing scallops." When my family comes round, we have burgers and chips, not posh seafood I once ate at a resteraunt we could only afford to go to again by winning the lottery. "Scallops, I've only eaten them once before, do we get any, I'm starving," Celeste shook her head quickly. "Scallops are easy to prepare, but we do not get any, it's not too bad. Actually, we may get some if there is enough, if not, I will make you something special again, al a mode." I laughed, I liked Celeste, she was nice to me. "So you have not met the family at all?" I shook my head, and she gasped and started pushing me out of the door towards the living room. "You have to introduce yourself as my helper, they want to know who's cooking, do they not!?" I stumbled into the living room after one last push from Celeste, everyone stared at me blankly, but not Franny-Ruth, she looked angry, and so did her mother. "Celeste wanted me to introduce myself to you all. I am William and I will be helping to prepare dinner tonight." Henry looked me up and down. "You hired a ten year old?" I was boiling inside, because of his intenation and what he said, but I tried to keep composure. I am short, and sometimes it gets to me, but this time, he knew what he was saying was wrong. I opened my mouth to speak but Franny shook her head at me and began to talk. "He turned thirteen in September, and so did I shortly after. And we didn't hire him, he came to work here for very small pay after a fire at a family business." She remembered! Henry still looked unimpressed. "I want the other one to cook my meal." I couldn't help it this time, I launched towards him "why you ungrateful little-" Henry was screaming like a little girl and Franny's mother was trying to stop me. "Stop, please! William!" She was also trying to hold back laughter. "You shouldn't do that to household guests." I snorted, he was far from a guest, he was like, the anti-guest. "If he's a guest then I'll fly home, he's a meaningless little worm that's come up through the floorboards and you're treating like royalty." She was very nearly in fits of giggles now, so I walked out the room to spare her the humiliation. Franny followed me out and stood in the kitchen doorway. "What was that all about?" I was leafing lettuce which I was going to mix into a salad, I was doing it very harshly, releasing all my tension. "I don't know, he just upset me... Are you angry?" She smiled and walked further into the kitchen. ''Angry? No way, that was the most hilarious thing." I laughed and put my lettuce down. "It's what you need to do." Franny looked disgusted, she picked up a carrot and started grating it into the salad bowl to help me. "I need to attack him more often?" I laughed. "No, you need to stand up for yourself more, your fears are of people aswell." Franny went and sat over on a sofa in the corner of the room. "I thought I handled that gang quite well today." She picked up a book and started skim reading. "Oh please, had I not been there you would have been pommled for not particular reason, and I wouldn't call Bryce Paddy and that other kid a full on gang." Franny closed the book quickly and turned the other way. "What's wrong?" I could almost hear her gulp from this side of the room. "That was Paddy?" I nodded, something bad was coming, I could tell. "Did anyone ever call him Patrick at all, just wondering?" I sighed and stared on my lettuce again. "Just his family," I was getting a little suspicious. I slowed down my peeling. "Why?" Franny got up and started playing with her hair. "As in, Patrick Moore?" I nodded slowly. "Oh no, I thought I recognised him..... I wonder if he knew it was me." I put down the lettuce once again and walked over to Franny. "Woah woah wait, you recognised him? Something you wanna reveal to me Franny?" She sat back down and so did I. "I know him, that's all, but I haven't spoken to him since I was like four." Now I was very suspicious. "Why? How did you know him?" Franny closed her eyes. "Tell me!" She leant back in her chair. "I never really liked him that much." I laughed, nobody ever liked Pads, apart from me. I understood him. "Basically... And this is hard for me to say. He's sort of... My brother..."