Part Of My World

The Next Doctor

Imagine a cul-de-sac. The handful of houses dotted around in a circle. They are uniquely shaped, but the same ideas appear in all. The same top floors for some, the same bottom floor for others. Maybe the garages look exact on the outside. Two houses have a large tree between them, enough for kids to climb between.

The cul-de-sac road itself is massive. Kids played often here. Games of soccer played between families. Or kids going as fast as possible on bikes, fighting with BB guns or foam bullets. Grass stains and scraped knees, hair soaked from the heat and the water balloon fights.

Parents hardly cared. Summer's a few weeks away. Let the kids get started whenever they please. It's the south, and summers get bad down there.

It's all very standard. Uniform. Picturesque. Ideal.

Two parents began their escape from their homes. Summer was close, yes, but not quite here. Work still needed to be done. They rushed out of their two story house.

The man was a big, tall man. The kind of man you looked at to say "he's not the Rock, but he COULD be." His dark brown eyes saw only his car as he walked down his driveway.

His wife was at least two feet shorter than him on a good day. Her sunshine blonde hair was perfectly cut to fall on her shoulders. She pulled her phone down, turning to her eldest son.

"Stay safe. Don't leave your brother in front of cartoons all day. Make sure you all eat- the credit card is on the counter. I don't want y'all just eating candy."

"Mom, we're gonna be fine." The teenager puffed up his chest. His shoulders squared back, it made him resemble his father but the watery blue eyes were all his mother. "I'm in charge."

His mom tilted her head, her matching blue eyes staring flatly.

The boy lost all his posture. His arms dropped dramatically and with a heavy grunt. "Mom please no! She's bad at being in charge."

"She's still your big sister, Derek, so she's in charge."

"But she's not even here today! She goes to work at that- that place today." Derek whispered.

His mother tightened her face. Derek knew he won.

Mr and Mrs Spencer wanted the best for their four children. For them to be the leaders of their generation, and to be kind hearted. They were all very smart- apparently- and their boys handled responsibility well. Their daughter was different.

She's no idiot. She's top in her class now, all of them. There's talk of her skipping a grade next year. The Spencers were against it. The daughter went leaps and bounds in her education after the January Incident.

It still rankled Mrs Spencer. It's been four months and it still sits very poorly in her heart. Her daughter hid secrets for so long, secrets about herself that any parent should have known. Her daughter had responsibility thrown at her, both the new job and something extra. She accepted it without thinking about how her family would react.

She wanted responsibility like that? Then she had to pay the consequences. She needs time to focus on her family. Her real family.

"She promised to work from home. Derek, I don't have time. Just tell her we're gone. Okay? So she knows." Mrs Spencer walked off to her car.

Derek groaned as his mom drove off. It's not fair. He stormed off to find his sister.

She moved out of her room after the whole 'debacle' in January. Dad loved getting his office back. The whole house woke up to suddenly having a shed in the backyard, built by their sister and somehow with its own generator. She built it overnight.