Love Out of the Middle

Chapter 2: Hiding Out

"Your mother and I are taking you to the neighbors house. So you can apologize."

"What, you can't make me do that!" I protest.

"Actually, we can." Mike says, "Now let's go. Brick! Sue! Come on, we're going to meet the neighbors."

"New neighbors?" Sue asks excitedly, she is such a dork. She literally screams dork her clothes are obnoxious.

"No, I'm good." Brick says looking up for a moment from his book from his place on the couch.

"This is your brother's punishment, so let's go, before I make it yours as well." Dad says. Brick stands up and follows us out of the house with his book, nerd. Rather everyone follows me.

-~-~

Penelope:

"You what!" I ask Michael as he returns, his knuckles bruised.

"I may have lost my temper and punched him a few times."

"You said you'd take care of it, if I'd thought you'd attack him I would've gone myself." I tell him as I put ice on his knuckles making him wince and his muscles tense, "I appreciate your protectiveness though, I don't get it that much." I tell him as the doorbell rings.

"I got it!"  Andrew yells. "Hey," He says to the person at the door. "Come in." He welcomes the person inside. "Mom! Dad!" He yells, "We've got new neighbors. We're in the parlor."

"Andrew, we're the new neighbors." Mother corrects as Michael and I join them in the living room.

The boy from the street still in his Letterman and a couple other people stand there.

"Is that the Fourth Harry Potter book?" Andrew asks.

"Yeah, it's a real page turner." The smallest boy says.

"Wait until the fifth book." Andrew tells him.

"Harry's relationship with his friends is quite complex." The small boy says. "Complex." He whispers to the ground.

"Brick," The woman at the back next to the giant says. "We're the Heck family, we came to apologize for the window. Axl will pay for the replacement."

"We'll make sure of it." The tall man in plaid says.

The curly haired boy looks up at me.

"These are our kids, Axl, Sue, and Brick." The woman continues.

"Sue is going to be a sophomore. Axl is going to be a senior, and Brick is going into sixth grade."

"Penelope, Michael, and William are going to be sophomores too." My mother says. "And Samuel is going to be a senior as well."

"Mother," I tell her softly.

"Hush Penelope Grace." She says. "William, Samuel, come out here."

"What's up Mom?" Sam asks, "Whoa, cool Letterman." He tells Axl.

"That's the boy that broke my window." I tell Sam, and his whole demeanor changes.

"You know, Penelope's the baby," Sam says, "When we heard her scream, we thought someone was attacking her, you're an idiot for throwing a rock into a room of someone who has four older brothers, and one of them knows how to use a bat."

"Samuel Brandon." My father says.

"He could've seriously injured Penny, she was standing right in the middle of the shattered glass." Sam retaliates.

I stand closer to Andy who already knew about them when he saw the blood after our parents and brothers left; he helped me clean up and threw out my clothes which were soiled beyond fixing. I changed into sweats and a loose fitting tee-shirt and hoped no one would notice the cuts and lacerations.