Favorable (Jamilton)

5. Jefferson

Thomas woke up the next morning naturally. There wasn't any outside force that forced him to be awake which meant that he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. He sat up and stretched, noticing that his dormmate was still snoring (loudly) on his bed. 

Thomas grabbed his phone off of his desk and checked the time. Since it was after eight, he figured that his sister was already up and at the day. He dialed her cell number and waited for a few seconds while it rang. He didn't expect her to pick up since she might have been in class. Elizabeth refused to leave her friends at school so she could take care of the family. Jane and Mary decided to let her stay in the public school since the younger kids would already be in school and their mother shouldn't get used to people taking care of her all the time. 

To Thomas's surprise, Elizabeth picked up.

"Hey, Tommy!" Elizabeth cheered from the other line. 

"I take it you aren't mad at me anymore?" Thomas laughed.

"Oh no, I still want to punch you for leaving me with four kids to fully take care of, believe me, but school's back up again and it's my senior year! Who wouldn't be excited?"

"That's fair. How are things going anyway? How are the kids doing?" 

"They're fine, they're fine. Twins got to school on time, Lucy insisted that she didn't have to go today, which was total bull, but I still got her on the bus. Martha tried to pretend to be sick. I think she was just nervous, going into high school and all. New schools can be scary. Mom hasn't left her room yet but she's still breathing. I'm not entirely sure if that's a plus or minus, but it's there." 

"She probably had too much of her 'Grown-Up Juice'," Thomas mocked his mother's voice as best he could and he heard Lizzy laugh from the other end of the phone. 

"You're probably right. Well, the bell just rang, so I need to go. Don't forget to find that handsome fella or beautiful lady that'll get us onto Easy Street," Elizabeth used her newly found 'mom voice' to scold Thomas. 

"Wouldn't dream of it. Hey, call me after you get home, alright? I still want to hear about your day and all that 'good-big-brother' stuff."

"You got it! Talk later." Elizabeth hung up the phone and left Thomas to listen to his roommate's obnoxious snoring. 

He was going to go back to sleep before his phone started ringing again. Thomas picked up the phone, half expecting to hear Elizabeth telling him to come home. Instead, Mary's loud voice woke him up even more.

"Hey, little brother! Did I wake you up?" She asked. It sounded like she'd been up for hours. 

"Nope, I just got off the phone with Liz, actually. She said things are going great with the kids, but Martha didn't want to go to school today." 

"New school, it's normal. Anyway, Jane and I are taking you out to breakfast so we show you around. We're already outside your building and it's technically still before the actual time that girls are allowed in the boys' dorms so you're going to have to come out on your own. You coming or what?"

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a second to put on a shirt." Thomas held the phone with his shoulder as he hopped off the bed and dug through the drawers under the bed. "Where are we going?"

"If you could kindly shut up so I could stay asleep, that'd be great." Alexander rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head from the other side of the room.

"Oh, is that your roommate? You should invite him too! He sounds cute." Thomas could hear the smile in her voice.

"Not happening. I'm coming down." Thomas hung up the phone and made his way down to where his sisters were waiting.