Don't You Want to Play?

Chapter 1

1: Moving

I was not particularly excited for moving day. In 2006, we had decided to leave our house type thing  by the beach for a big house in the woods. Our nearest neighbor was more or less two miles away and lived on a farm.

I'd always loved animals and nature. Who couldn't? It was the only good part about moving across the country, from Hollywood to the middle of nowhere. Everything else about the move I hated. My friends would eventually forget me, no matter how hard I tried to remember or talk to them. I considered myself a shy girl, never making friends easily or quickly.

Naturally, the move was stressful enough. Boxes and bags filled our car and the moving vans. We'd had a lot of things in storage that my mom 'just couldn't part with'. She wasn't a horder or anything, at least not yet.

Dad was sitting up front, driving us to the airport. We were putting at least six bags into the cargo hold, so that would be enough money. We were taking the essentials to the house, the rest would come soon enough or would be bought later. We had clothes, toys, books, and electronics in our bags. You'd be surprised how much clothes my parents and twin sisters have. Kaleb doesn't have much of course, since he just joined the family.

"Zaria," my mom said as we approached LAX. "Help Kaleb and the twins with their bags after we park."

I nodded and looked to my right, where the twins were doubled buckled and sleeping. Kaleb on the other hand was glaring at the dirty window of the rental car. He hated having to move after he'd just gotten used to everything. I couldn't imagine how he felt right now.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, which caused him to turn and look up at me. "Hey Kaleb, we'll be fine. Don't worry. We just needed more room because the twins are getting older and bicker more."

Kaleb's eyes looked up at me, standing out from his dark skin. His short hair had recently been shaved and was starting to show signs of beginning to grow back. He nodded, then looked back out the window.

The way our house was set up, my parents had given us the master bedroom to fit the twins and I. The twins had the bed and I had the couch that we somehow managed to fit into the room. Mom and Dad slept in Sab and Anna's old room. Kaleb got my old room at the bottom of the house near the garage and wash room. The house was four stories total, Kaleb's floor, the bedroom floor, the livingroom, kitchen, and dining room, and finally the roof.

Ahh, the roof. Such great memories from sitting up there, playing family games like Monopoly. There was also the time that Sab had tried to push me off of it, but thankfully Mom stopped her. My siblings are questionable disasters as times.

Dad parked the car and climbed out. I nudged the twins and both stirred. I swear that they were telekinetic. "Hey, we're here. Get at least two bags, ok?"

Sabrina unbuckled the seat belt and pushed Anna out of the car. Kaleb got out and left the door open. I hopped out and stretched, despite it only being a twenty minute drive here. The sound of cars honking their horns could be heard from below.

Dad set each bag down, letting each of us grab ours respectively. All of us had back packs or hand bags as part of our allowed carry-on duo. Kaleb had a small suitcase, which held his clothes and some toys. The rest of us had bigger luggage bags, as well as the six cargo bags. The twins each grabbed one, as did I. Our parents managed the other three.

Kaleb wanted to hold one of our hands, but that was kind of impossible with all the bags we had. He frowned, looking at the ground as we crossed the bridge into the airport and took an elevator down to check in the bags.

I was always a people watcher type of person. I loved the airport, seeing people running to and from, coming and going. Where were they going? Why were they here? It was also fun to see the cute guys that were there sometimes. As a sixteen year old girl, guys were kind of a big thing to me then, even if they were all idiots.

"Sab, stop it," I hissed.

"What?" she asked, backing away from a lady's purse, sitting on top of her red suitcase.

"I swear, you're going to end up in jail one day. When you do, I'm not giving you any bail money. Don't steal from anybody ok? You're sitting between Anna and I on the plane."

"Where am I sitting?" Kaleb asked me, as we took another step forward in line.

"You're sitting with Mom and Dad, remember? Don't worry, you've been on a plane before haven't you?" I figured he had, after all, he had been in the foster care program for a few years now.

He shook his head. "Margo always drove me wherever we needed to go. Same with Liz." Margo was his social worker, and Liz is his mother. The last time we'd been informed about her, she was in jail for drugs and failure to appear in court.

Kaleb had lived being passed back and forth from his nearly sober father and his mom. From what Margo had told us, he was used to living in the ghetto. Gangs were highly popular and Kaleb was scared to death of loud noises from all the shootings just outside his small, unfortunate world. His father eventually disappeared, leaving him with his mom. And then living in foster homes until we adopted him.

"Don't worry. The plane ride is usually good unless we hit turbulance and it gets a little bumpy. If anything goes really wrong, they show a video in the beginning with saftey procedures. But it's not like we're crossing the ocean and could possibly crash into that and-"

"Sabrina!" my mother and I yelled simultaneously.

She shrugged. Anna stood beside her emotionlessly. Sabrina was the obnoxious thief, while Anna was the quiet person in the corner. They were nothing alike, yet they were so close.

After the bags were sent to cargo, we proceeded through security. Everybody walked through just fine, though Kaleb and Anna were both shaking horribly as they waited in line. Anna was always nervous in situations like this, and Kaleb had obviously never experienced this before.

I gave a warning glare to Sabrina, that she shouldn't tease Kaleb or her twin sister. They say that extroverts act before they think and introverts think before they act. The statement seems to hold true within my family.

"Let's go everybody!" Dad called, leading us towards Gate 75. We were flying straight from LAX to Baltimore, then driving to our new house. Five hours of flying, and about two hours of driving and we'd be at home sweet home.