Halfway

Halfway-2

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

My room was painted a pale green color, with white woodwork. There was a white curtain up to the large window, with hand stitched green flower buds growing up from sewn brown dirt. There were two beds on either side of the room and a big white cupboard built around the door. It had a closet on both ends and a dresser beside it. There were two low drawers, with shelving above it. The door was perfectly centered on the wall, giving both sides of the room identical space.

There were also two night stands, one next to each bed. The bed to the left had a comforter that matched the curtain, while the other was just plain white. On the nightstand next to the claimed bed, there were a few photos of family members and a hairbrush. I took the bed the right. My book bag hit the bed with a thud. I dug carefully through the bag, to find the picture frame that had broken, when I dropped my bag. Without looking at it, I stuffed it in the drawer of the bedside table and moved on, to clean up the scattered glass.

"Hi." A chipper voice startled me from the bedroom door. "You must be Katie, I'm Grace." A younger woman who had short brown hair, streamed with white blonde highlights, pranced in.

She wore a pink polo shirt and black dress pants. There was a grey purse under her arm and a pair of black tennis shoes in her hands. I smiled politely at her, before dropping the glass chunks into the waste bin, located between our beds. Without another word, she went to her dresser and pulled out some cutoff shorts and a yellow thin strapped tank top.

"Bliss and I are going to town, in a little while, to check out the fair, would you like to come?" She questioned, not bothered by changing in front of me.

I assumed she too had been in prison; it made you less embarrassed about someone seeing you. "Umm...I don't think so." I sat softly on my bed, my feet sweeping back and forth across the brown carpet.

She nodded, while pouring gel into her hands, to spike up the back of her pixie cut. "I understand, you just got here and all."

Without another word, she hurried from the room calling for the girl named Bliss. She disappeared down the staircase, shouting for Bliss, before she shouted back from the front yard. I put my clothes in my dresser and placed a few knickknacks, my aunt had let me have, of my mother's, on my shelves along with my hair brush and tooth brush. There was a knock on my door, before Lilly popped her head in the door.

"Did you find everything okay? The bathroom is just down the hall. Don't be shy; no one else is around here. Make yourself at home. I'm very glad to have you here." She smiled. "A few of the other kids take classes at the local college and others have jobs; I would like it, if you thought about doing one of the two. Just so you aren't sitting around like a bump on a log, doing nothing, you know." I just nodded and repositioned my mother's jewelry box. "We all have dinner in town on Sunday nights. Most of us, are going to the fair, if you want to come along."

"Okay, thank you." I sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at her warm brown eyes. "Do you mind if I don't go to dinner, I'm pretty tired?" I shifted a little, uncomfortable, with her watching eyes. It was like she was peering into my soul. "It's just that it was a long drive and all."

"Everyone goes to dinner. It is something we do as a family every Sunday. No one has classes and no one works. It is kind of our religion. Like I said, you are welcome to come back with Lawrence, afterward." She had such a kind heart, even when she seemed to be disciplining me, I felt closer to her than I had moments before. "We are going to leave in an hour. The girls said you can ride with them."

I smiled politely, before she left the room. For a while, I watched a few people walk the halls, but no one noticed me, nor did I say hello. After ten minutes or so of sitting alone in my room, I went downstairs. Lilly was in the kitchen, piling baked goods into boxes. She nodded towards where a young girl, about ten was icing cupcakes, with yellow frosting.

"Why don't you help Jade icing cupcakes for the bake sale? I am sure she could use some help." Lilly suggested, knowing already, I would object.

Jade iced in silence, only looking up a few times, to smile at me. We had gone through almost four dozen cupcakes, before jade dropped her knife in the dishwasher and left the room.

"She can't talk." A male voice came from behind me, before a young man began piling our cupcakes into boxes. "I'm Embry."

"Katie." I smiled a little cautiously, while helping him put the beautiful, brightly colored cupcakes in boxes. "Why is she here, she is so young?"

He smiled. "Not everyone is a halfway kid. She is Lilly and Bernard's daughter, as is Ebony. Ebony is four or five."

"Oh, I didn't think they would have kids. I mean seeing as there are convicts living here."

Embry laughed loudly. "They pick us special. They somehow know we aren't bad people and just need a fresh start. No one would hurt the girls, they are family." Embry piled the boxes of cupcakes into a large plastic tub and carried it out of the room.

"Come on, Katie Dear." Lilly smiled, popping her head back in the kitchen.

I smiled and followed her out to the front porch, where everyone was piling into cars. I watched Bernard, Lilly's husband, climbing into the driver's side door of a black minivan with gray decals down the side. Jade and her twin sister, Ebony, climbed into the van as well, followed by Embry and two young girls. Lawrence climbed into the front seat of an old mustang, followed by four other boys who laughed and joked their way in.

"Come on, Katie, you'll ride with us!" Grace smiled, from the passenger seat of a red Ford Taurus.

I climbed in the backseat, to find a girl about my age, wearing a mini skirt and yellow tank top. It was then, that I realized almost everyone had a yellow shirt on. The girl beside me looked up at Grace expectantly.

"Girls, this is Katie. Katie, this is Delia." She nodded towards the girl beside me, with long white blond tresses, who offered a smile. "And this is Bliss." She said as a curly haired red head climbed in the driver's side door, sporting the same outfit as Grace, down to their thick yellow head bands and yellow flip flops.

"Hello." I smiled politely, still a little nervous about this new family.

Bliss turned on the engine, beeping her horn at Lawrence, whose car struggled to start. The other girls laughed at his pitiful car, while I hid my humor behind my hand. Lawrence flipped Bliss off, only getting a glare from Lilly, as she walked past.

"Drive safe and I'll meet you guys at Donny's." She said, while tossing a yellow blanket in the back of the van, on top of a few tables and closing the hatch.

Bliss veered around Lawrence's car, while he poured a pink liquid into the engine. She drove too fast and didn't pay close enough attention to the road, but I quickly learned, she knew what she was doing. Grace fiddled with the radio, laughing about the Yukon that had pulled in front of us and Bliss had just brushed past him, blowing him a kiss.

Bernard came up behind us soon after, honking his horn. Bliss crinkled her nose, but slowed down anyways. We arrived at a buffet a few minutes after winding through the hilly woods. Lawrence was only a few minutes behind us. The owner of the restaurant had a table set up in the party room for us, hugging Lilly as she came in.

I soon found out this was her brother. Everyone laughed together, like one big happy family, over an array of foods. The younger kids stuck to pizza, while everyone else ate things like Chinese and Italian.