Chapter 3

"Michelle Antoinette," Dayna read out loud from where she was standing behind the couch, making my eyes roll. "March 4, 2015," she continued, my eye twitching at the thought of her doing this the whole time.

"Dayna?" I called out from behind me.

"Yes?" she asked innocently, making me turn over and look at her with a blank look.

"Leave."

"But I jus-"

"Leave or don't scream out the words I write in my ear," I deadpanned, making her roll her eyes at me and look back at the paper.

"Fine, I won't scream," she said in a sassy voice as I shook my head and turned back around to work on my paper. "The book I decided to...- write? Yeah, write- about is-"

"I will stab you," I growled at her, hearing a very un-lady-like snort in the back ground seconds later.

"Whatever," she responded while I started to write again- the smirk on her face evident in the way she spoke. "The author of this book is trying to convey that-" she started after a couple minutes making my pencil tip break as I spun my head towards her.

"You need to shut up," I said, finishing her sentence for her with a sarcastic smile. She glared at me and clucked her tongue, an impudent look on her face.

"Last time I checked the author was trying to express-" she started as she read from my paper "indignant feelings about certain actions, and that you should be indefatigable when it comes to a cause you believe in. Not telling me to shut up."

"Well then it looks like you didn't read the book correctly," I replied with a fake pout in her direction, making her scoff and stomp away.

"No, please come back! I was just getting to the good part!" I started "I was just about to write about how he thinks you're a b-"

"Michelle!" an eight year old screamed, making me jump in alarm and turn quickly to where it came from.

"What happened, Tiff?" I yelled in a concerned voice, hearing running footsteps coming in my direction.

"Why didn't you ever give me some of your sling-shots?" Tiffany yelled as she turned the corner, my bra in her hands.

My eyes widened into saucers as I saw her with three of my most expensive bras: my lace one around her neck, my sports bra on her head like a hat, and my cobalt blue bra that I adored the most in her hands like an army weapon- ready to shoot.

"Who gave you those?" I screeched, slamming my books and papers from my lap and onto the couch before racing towards her little body.

"I saw them in your room, and since you were busy I asked Zachary what they were," she said with a giggle. "He said it's a slingshot that kills most men," she continued slyly as she stealthily started to walk in the direction of the kitchen, armed with a bra.

'That stupid little asshole of a brother,' I muttered in my head as I let what she told me sink in.

"I wanna see if it works on daddy," she giggled out, five feet away from the door to the kitchen- my eyes almost popping out of my head when I saw that.

"No!" I yelled, grabbing her bicep before she could argue. "Those are mine, Tiffany. Give them back."

"Bu-But I just wanted t-to..." she said shakily with sad eyes, her bottom lip trembling. I gave her a blank look, showing it wasn't effecting me.

"Give them to me right now, or else I'll tell mom you broke our vase," I threatened calmly, making her little little eyes widen as she started to quickly pull of all of the bras in defeat and fright. That vase was in her family for generations, so when it 'accidentally fell' my mother locked herself in my parents' room and never left there for two months.

"Here! Here!" she yelled as she shoved my bras in front of me, whispering quickly and quietly, "just please don't tell mommy."

"Lips are sealed," I said, pretending to zip-up my lips and lock them. She made a faint nod before running away quickly, making me glare at the hallway that lead to the stairs.

"Zachary David Antoinette, I will kill you!" I growled as I started marching up the stairs.

When I got up the stairs the smell of hairspray, axe, perfume, and nail polish suffocated me to the point I couldn't breathe through my nose or mouth without wanting to throw up. How Dayna and Zach could stand this smell, I don't know.

I walked into Zach's room coughing and dry heaving like a maniac from the smell, making him roll his eyes. "You're so over dramatic," he muttered while he put on his leather jacket, making me glare at him as I coughed. "Seriously, get a life."

"What the h-hell is wrong with you?" I hissed as I coughed, slowly getting used to the air in here.

"What do you mean by that?" Zach said, making me narrow my eyes.

"You know exactly what I mean," I growled as I held up my bras to him, a grin slowly creeping up onto his face. Me and him were the closest out of all the siblings and when we teased each other it was a twisted way of showing we cared for each other.

But this... This was over the top.

"Oh... That," he said casually before shrugging and looking back to his mirror and fixing up his styled hair.

"Yeah, that," I hissed, wanting to slap him in the face. "Are you crazy?"

"...Define crazy," he responded carefully making my glare harden as I started to stomp over to him, trying to ignore the suffocating air around me.

"You are the most retarded man alive," I stated harshly, shoving my bras in his face. "These are not slingshots, and you don't tell her to use them on dad! You aren't even supposed to be answering any questions involving that, period!"

"Hey, now," he said, picking up his comb from the table by him. "No need to point fingers. I was simply just spiking up the creative side of her little, clueless brain."

"You know what I'll spike up? I'll spike up a knife down your-"

"Dayna, Michelle, Zachary, and Tiffany! Kitchen, now! Food's ready!" our mom screamed from downstairs loudly, making Zachary and me jump in fright.

"We'll be right down!" I yelled back as Zach whimpered in pain.

"I... can't... get... it... out," he whimpered as he tried to pull the comb out of his hair. He must have tangled it in when he jumped.

"Sucks to suck," I accidentally said out loud as I turned and started to walk out of the room.

"No, wait! Help me get it out!" He yelled at me pleadingly as I was just about to exit his room.

"And... Why would I do that?" I asked with sass in my voice as I kept my body facing away from him.

"Because we're blood related and you love me..." Zach trailed off, a snort slipping out of my mouth seconds later. "And I'll give you thirty dollars, if you don't ruin my hair," he added, making my ears perk up in interest.

"Sure!" I said automatically while turning around to see the mess. When I saw it I cracked up from how bad it was. "Dude, the comb is literally inside of your hair. How the hell did you manage that?"

"Just take it out, bitch," he growled before slamming his fists on the counter, making me roll my eyes and laugh as I started to saunter over to him.

"Poor little Zachary," I sympathized sarcastically, grabbing the scissors that were on his desk quietly. "How should I take it out?"

"It's Zach," he growled as he straightened up his jacket. "And just make it quick. I have places to be and people to see."

"I can tell," I commented with a grin as I put the scissors behind my back and began to pat my lower back with them rhythmically. "You look pretty dressed up. Looks good on you. I do have to say, that jacket fit you perfectl-"

"What do you have behind your back?" he said without even turning to look at me, making me pout and stop tapping. Damn it, I shouldn't have complemented him that much.

"I don't have anything behind my-"

"Put the scissors down, Michelle, or I swear to God," he threatened, cutting me off, making me sigh in frustration before reluctantly throwing the scissors onto his bed.

"You're such a buzz kill," I muttered as I walked towards him sluggishly.

"MICHELLE AND ZACHARY! IF YOU AREN'T AT THE TABLE WHEN I AM FINISHED COUNTING TO TEN I WILL BEAT YOU TILL YOU ARE BLACK AND BLUE!" our mother demanded furiously with a growl, making us look at each other with faces of terror before running down the stairs like our butts were on fire. Our family wasn't American. My parents moved here from Serbia, where I'm pretty sure hitting your kids won't get you arrested.

Here, if you pluck your child eyebrow without permission you get a ten year jail sentence. I guess my parents don't seem to care about the law here though, since they do it sometimes anyway.

Only when we "deserve it" of course.

"ONE!" our mother growled, making us push each other as we bolted down the stairs. "TWO!" at this point I grabbed onto Zach's hair and pulled on it, successfully managing to get past him and rip out the comb with a chunk of his hair at the same time.

"Fuck!" he hissed as he held in a scream, making me cackle like a maniac as I zoomed down the stairs. I love seeing him in pain.

"THREE!" our mother yelled in the middle of me cackling, making me stiffen from fright- my foot slipping from the step as I did so. I immediately reached out to grab the wooden railing, holding in my breath as I hoped for the best. "FOUR!" she screamed just as I stopped falling and had a good grip on the railing, ignorng the pain in my ass as I brought myself up, watching as Zach passed me with a cackle escaping his mouth.

"I'll kill him," I growled to myself as I zoomed down the stairs as fast as I could, trying to catch up to him.

"FIVE!" my mom said slowly, finishing it just as I got down the stairs. "SIX!" she said just as I caught up to Zach. "SEVEN!" she yelled right before I slammed him into the wall with my shoulder, a move so perfect it would make hockey players jealous.

"I'll kill her," I heard him growl in a low voice as I kept running as fast as I could to the kitchen.

"EIGHT!" she screamed just as I was about to turn the corner, but when I was about to stop running, I felt something that weighed two hundred pounds throw me to the floor, making me squeek as I shoved my forearms out in front of me and turned my head so I wouldn't face plant onto the floor.

"Get off of me, you whale," I growled at the man on top of me, making him scoff and lift himself off of me.

"You call me a whale, when you're the one that looks like five hundred pounds?" Zach countered, making my jaw drop in anger as I clenched my fists.

"You little-"

"Children! Have a seat," our mom said, cutting into our arguement. Both of us turned in the direction of the noise at the same time, just to see everyone already at the dinner table, staring at us.

"Of course, mother," I said as I swiftly got off the ground and walked over to the table, fixing my hair as I did so.

"Whatever you say, mom," Zach added as he too started to walk towards the table. The only two chairs left were right next to each other, so when both of us sat down our mom gave us the stare.

You know, the stares mothers give when they're trying to tell you, "Make one wrong move and I'll end your lives" in a secretive way?

"Now, let's try to be a normal family and finish this meal in piece," our dad said calmly, making all of the kids- including Tiffany- snort.

"Since when does this family qualify to be normal?" I asked sarcastically as I jabbed my fork into the steak on my plate.

Little did I know, that question would be taking full effect the next day.

"Oh, hush now," our mom said, making Zach snicker from besides me.

"Hey, I just remembered," Zach said, his laughter growing. "It's Michelle's birthday tomorrow. "

"You just remembered when my birthday was?" I asked in an irritated voice, making him and Dayna laugh.

"I just remembered too," Dayna stated, making me sigh and shove the steak into my mouth.

"Don't worry Michelle, I remembered your birthday," Tiffany said with a big smile, making me smile at her. She truly is the light and the heir of positivity of this house hold.

"Thanks Tiffany, I can always count on you," I replied with a genuine smile, making her smile turn into a huge, proud grin.

"YEAH! Because I'm your bestest friend," she added, making me chuckle.

"Yeah, my bestest friend," I agreed with a nod, making her happily munch on her broccoli.

"Hey, you said you were my bestest friend," Dayna said to Tiffany with a pout, making me roll my eyes.

"You would still be my friend if you weren't such a meanie," Tiffany answered dismissively with a wave of her hand, going back to eating her broccoli.

"But we had something specia-"

"Save it for the ramence noles," she said sassily, making me hold in a laugh.

"It's romance novels," I whisper to her, making her little eyes widen and nod to me before quickly composing herself and repeating the word.

"Romance novels, I mean," she said, sounding them out slowly, making me want to pinch her cheeks from how adorable she is.

"Honey, I have a question," my dad stated to me, making me quickly turn my head in his direction.

"Yes?" I asked, making him sigh and look up at me.

"I'm sorry that we've never had money for things for you kids. You've never went to fairs, parties, clubs, amusement parks, the list goes on. I'm sorry for that, but money these days doesn't come easy you know?

"What I'm trying to get at is," he stared with a scratch of his beard "I'm sorry we've never been able to afford a party when your friends can come over to hang out with you, but why won't you let us give you the party you deserve when we have money?"

'Because you guys need to spend that money on over-due bills. Not me,' my head answered sadly for me.

"Because... I just want to spend my birthday with my family," I said with a little smile, looking around at the people around the table. They knew- all of them- what my reasoning was, but they chose not to correct me. Instead they all gave me little sad smiles that looked like my own before going back to their meals.

"So... Zachary," my mother said in a deathly calm voice seconds later, making the whole table tense up from the anger that was slipping through the walls she was using to cover it up.

"I'm not doing drugs, I swear," he said quickly, making my dad cover Tiffany's ears and Dayna choke on her spaghetti.

"Daddy stop it, I'm a big girl!" Tiffany yelled in protest as she thrashed around to get our father's hands off her.

"I was going to talk about your C in English class," mom said with a raised eyebrow "but since we're on the topic that you just started, why don't we go have a talk son?"

"But, I uh... Didn't finish my lunch," Zach responded a little hesitantly, pointing to his steak and bread on his plate. "It would be a shame if your good cooking went to-"

"Living room. Now," mom commanded, making me snicker under my breath. I saw Zach turn and glare at me from the corner of my eyes before he slammed his fork on the table and stood up from the table.

"Son, please do not shake the table," dad said calmly, hiding the amusement he felt of the situation. this wasn't the first time mom gave him a lecture, after all.

"Yeah, sure," Zach muttered in reply before stomping away to the living room where mom already left through.

"I bet you twenty dollars it's a month and I half grounding at least," Dayna said in an amused voice as she leaned against the table.

"I bet ten that he's going to come back here with at least a hand imprint on his face," I chuckled as I popped another cube of steak in my mouth.

"I bet you thirty dollars that they'll both walk back in here like nothing ever happened," dad snorted as he ruffled Tiffany's hair.

"What's betting? Is it part of poker? I remember Zachy talking about poker," Tiffany rambled, making the whole table laugh.

"Is that where Zachy was supposed to go to today?" I asked curiously with my right eyebrow raised, making Tiffany gasp loudly and cover her hands with her mouth.

"How did you know?" she whispered, making Dayna glare.

"So that's where my money for my Louis Vuitton purse went," she growled as she stood up from her seat. "If he spent my money I'm going to rip off his b-"

"That's enough, Dayna," dad said firmly with a challenging eyebrow, making her huff and grab her spaghetti before stomping up the stairs to her room.

"... So, what's poker?" Tiffany asked innocently, making dad and I look at each other awkwardly.

Crap.