The Ten Kingdoms

Vinny Butler

"Mom, can you pass the barbecue sauce?" My older sister asked from beside me as I picked up my sandwich. We were eating pulled pork, my mom had made it, and we were all sitting around the table eating together at the moment.

"Here you go dear." My mother reached over the table and handed the bottle of sauce to my sister. "Vin, are you excited to start your first day of school tomorrow?" I placed my pulled pork down and nodded my head.

"Yeah, I'm excited to see what fourth grade is like, you have a lot more freedom, right, Jared?" I looked at my older brother, I was the youngest of three, Jared was fifteen, my sister, Kaitlyn was eleven, and I was nine. 

"You do." Jared said with a smile as I went back to eating. "You'll be able to do a lot more things by yourself, I remember having a blast back then." My father then started to laugh for some reason catching all our attention.

"Isn't that the year you almost got suspended because you told a kid hand sanitizer was water, and he almost drank it?" The room fell silent as we took in his words, the only noise was his laughter, my mother on the other hand was not laughing, when I turned to her, she had a serious look to her.

"Let's not go and give Vinny any bad ideas." My mother said, shaking her head. "But yes, that was that year." I turned to Jared, and he winked at me, and I spit up my food as I started to laugh. "Vinny."

"Sorry." I picked the food off the table that I spit up and ate it again. "Jared made me laugh." The room started to chuckle as we took in this moment. "I can't wait now, last year was fun though, we did so many cool things."

"I hated fourth grade." Kaitlyn said. "Then again, I wasn't with my normal friends that year, so I was forced into making new ones." I could only hope to be placed in my normal friend's classes, I was last year, and we had a great time. "But I'm sure you'll be fine, Vin."

"Yeah, bud, you'll have a great time." My father gave me a head nod as we all continued eating. "Carol, this was a great meal, one of your best." I just ate as my parents spoke to one another.

"Thanks." My mother said, then looked around the room. "Did you all like it too? I threw it together pretty quickly, but pulled pork really isn't that hard if you know what you are doing, and I already had it cooked, just had to heat it up."

"Yeah, it was good, mom." Kaitlyn said, giving a thumbs up in the process of placing her plate down. "I'm full though, I don't think I can have any more." I had about a quarter of my sandwich left, I had already eaten the corn that went along with it, knowing very well my mother would be mad at me if I didn't.

"I liked it mom." I smiled at her, eating more of my sandwich. "I might eat another!" I exclaimed, it was so good, I wasn't even feeling stuffed or anything. 

"Don't overdo it." My mother told me as I finished it off. "Chris, give him half of your second one." My mother turned to my father and ordered, he looked down, picked up a half of pulled pork and reached over to me.

"Here you go, champ." I took it from him and placed it on my plate. "Eat up, you want to get big and strong like me, right?" He flexed his muscles at the table, and we all started to laugh once again. 

"You are such a big and strong guy." My mother rolled her eyes with a smile on her face as we went back to eating and talking. "But you dad is right, you should eat more only if you can, it'll get you big and strong for the future."

Before I could say anything, someone spoke up. "Oh, I almost forgot, I'm going with Logan tomorrow to school." Jared told our parents. "He's picking me up around seven tomorrow morning."