Brink House

Chapter 8

~~Time skip to their next day of school~~

Joshua ran around the living room in a panic. I watched him in amusement. His hair still was the same bright pink color of last night. He threw things around him, searching for a hat to cover his cotton candy top. Mya tossed a black beanie at him with a huff, "Just use that! Stop tearing up the house, we just cleaned it!" Jared yelled at everyone to get out of the house so that he could drive us to school.

I waited, expectant, by the front door. My favorite part of our unofficial family routine began as Ricky sluggishly walked down the stairs. "J-Joshy?" The siblings who had taken to rushing out the door froze at the soft whine form their younger brother.

Jared dramatically slapped his palm to his forehead, "We forgot about Ricky." My laughter rung out with his late realization. It became almost normal for the second eldest boys to forget to wake up Ricky on Mondays, since that is usually Ryan's job on every other day but Monday. Ricky walked over to Joshua with a groggy yawn. Joshua shrugged and lifted the little boy into his arms, "I'll get him dressed. Go ahead to the car, we'll be out soon." It was so hard to keep from cooing at Ricky's whining down the hall. Mya joined me at the door once she had grabbed her own things.

"Leigh, guess what."

"You forgot your project in the kitchen."

Mya stared at me in confusion before running back inside for her colorful stack of paper on the kitchen table. I shook my head, 'This always happens.' I stood by on the porch for a few moments. A loud pop that came from down the street startled me. My own bag almost dropped to the floor.

"Oh hey Lucas!"

"Leigh! Great, now that you're here I can have an audience!"

My eyebrows rose at his statement. Everyday, our neighbor Lucas is doing something crazy and random. He has an entire list of wacky 'experiments'. They usually end up with him either grounded or in the hospital with a broken bone or more.

My sigh could probably be heard on the other side of the neighborhood as I walked towards him. "Why are there fireworks popping in the middle of the day and no where near a holiday? You just got ungrounded!" Lucas grinned instead of answering my question, "Just watch, and you'll find out, Leigh." Even though I was skeptical, I stayed to watch his 'experiment'.

He pushed back his shaggy, black hair from his face before setting up the experiment again. It seemed that he put together a chain of small sparklers that led to a small firecracker. "Lucas..should we back up before it goes off?" If my eyebrows got blown off today, Lucas would be better off with his parents wrath than mine. He nodded his head, "You won't be able to see it all if we don't." Once he was done, we walked about fifteen feet away. Lucas pushed a button on his remote.

And absolutely nothing happened.

I looked between him and his contraption. Did he mess something up? Did the sparklers not ignite properly? .... Is this a prank? I quickly checked my surroundings for anything popping out at me. Nothing was jumping at either of us. His machine just sat there until we both had to go to school. "I've got to go..sorry it didn't work," I said to him while walking away. Lucas frowned. He mumbled to himself about the sparklers before approaching his contraption. Another loud pop sounded off as soon as I reached the car. Lucas was splayed on the ground with a huge smile on his face. "It worked! It worked! Wooo!!!!"

I shook my head with laughter at his excitement. My eyebrows are still safe...at least until fourth period science class with that reckless kid.