Family Togetherness

Chapter 16- Moving Forwards

It was a little house, right in the middle of the street.
That meant that the neighbours on either side could hear when the Fairfield family fought, yelled and played their music too loud.
The sloping walls had been painted bright pink, but it was beginning to chip away. Faded flakes of plaster drifted downwards, like memories scattering to the ground.
That had been done the same summer that they planted the orange geraniums on the front lawn, and built the fortress beside the front door.

It had all happened a very long time ago, to a very different family.

These days, the neighbours on either side were more likely to hear the sound of muted laughter, of excitable raised voices, of the front door clicking open and shut again as new friends and relatives materialised out of nowhere. They certainly hadn't been there before. They wouldn't have wanted to.
But things were different now.

"Move that one slightly to the left," Victoria instructed. "I don't want it covering my photo collage."

Luke and his best friend Katie Evans took one corner each of the poster, shifting it across the wall. It was one month before the start of school exams, and they were helping Victoria set up science revision notes on her bedroom wall.

"Why don't you just take down the photos?" Nathan suggested. "Honestly, right now it's important for me to be able to look at the definition of Mitosis, not these close-ups of your face."

Victoria gave his shoulder a sharp shove with her elbow, which had become rather more difficult to do after his recent growth spurt. At sixteen and a half, he towered over both her and their mother; with a tall, lanky frame and long arms and legs.

"The collage stays. It's bad enough that I have to look at that disgusting frog diagram every night before I fall asleep." She jerked her chin towards the carefully drawn poster of a dissected frog hanging above Abby's bed.

"I thought that was pretty good!" Luke, who had spent nearly an hour colouring the picture in three different shades of green, glared at his sister indignantly. She groaned.

At Oakfield Primary, the weekly First Aid class was drawing to a close.

"Before you go," Clara called over the chattering of the young students beginning to pack away, "I want you to think about the important things you would need in the case of a medical emergency."

"Bandages!" Layla was the first to speak, her hand shooting into the air.

"A kit," a small, sandy-haired boy added. "With creams."

"Lollipops!" Another girl yelled from the back of the hall.

Clara laughed. "Those are all very good ideas. Now, get your bags and coats. Next week we're going to learn about the steps that we need to take if an accident happens at school."

Abby was taking notes from the benches at the side. "You mean," she asked, "if somebody fainted?"

"That's a good example," Clara nodded.

Abby jotted down a few further scribbles in her red notebook as she waited for Layla. Just that week, the editor of the Primary School's newsletter had requested that she write up a review of the class. Already, the piece was almost fully planned out. The constant pressure to write up a monthly Neighbourhood Watch column had definitely helped her to meet the deadlines quicker. As, of course, had the increasing number of visitors to her blog.

"Let's go," Layla impatiently swung her lunchbox from side to side. "Clara, are you coming over today?"

"Tell your mother I might stop by after dinner," her aunt replied. Her craggy face lifted into a smile. "And don't forget to mention how impressed I am by your progress!"