Xander Kingsley and the Secret of Tucker's Cross (Book 1 of the Gemstone Series)

Chapter 2: PSI = Present Soon Imminent... Hopefully...

Xander awoke to the sound of his family screaming loudly as if they were charging into battle. He was so frightened by the sound of his just-barely-older sister shrieking in his ear that he threw himself out of bed without thinking about the hardwood floor beneath him.

"Ugh," he said, getting up and massaging his forehead, certain he would have a bruise from hitting the ground so hard, "Seriously, guys?"

"And a one, two, three, four!" James, the eldest, shouted as he lit a candle on top of a pile of pancakes their mom was carrying on a platter.

"Happy happy birthday," his family sang at the top of their lungs, not even bothering to hit the right pitch, "from all of us to you, we hope you have a party so we can join in too! Hey!"

Xander didn't know what he was more surprised at, the fact that he had forgotten his birthday or that they had been completely unfazed by him hitting the floor. He glanced at his alarm clock. "Yeah, that's all well and good, but it's six in the morning and my first class isn't until eleven-thirty, so if you guys wouldn't mind..." He didn't exactly want to say "get out," but it was early and his vocabulary wasn't at full capacity yet.

"Dude, you're letting the wax get all over your pancakes," Char explained, completely ignoring his protest of an early, uninvited, morning wake up call.

He indulged his only sister by rolling his eyes and blowing out the candle.

His family cheered and whooped at him like he'd won a gold medal, and Xander's mom scowled around his room and made an audible sigh at the state of it.

Before his mom could open her mouth to tell him once again to clean it, he spoke first, "Mom, it's my birthday," he pulled on a mostly clean t-shirt that was lying on a chair nearby, "can't you let it go for one day?"

"But darling," she complained, her face contorted in disgust.

Oh, here we go, he thought to himself.

"Your room is filthy!"

"And? It's no dirtier than any of my friend's rooms."

"What do you mean 'and'?" Char argued, "Pigs live cleaner than you do."

"What makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do with my room?" Xander eyed her. He did have a point; her room was just as disgusting as his, and she was a year older than him... well, almost. Xander and Char were Irish Twins.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Char rolled her eyes, swinging around the door frame and leaving Xander's room to head downstairs.

"Alright," Dad said, shoving the family out of the room with as much politeness as one can muster while shoving people out of a room, "Well, we should leave Alexander to take a shower, eat his pancakes, and come downstairs for seconds when he's ready."

Xander's father was the only person in the whole world who called him by his full name. When his father, Miles, served in Afghanistan, he made a friend by the name of Alexander Montgomery. They retired to Monterey together and made lives for themselves until a car crash killed Alexander and his family in '99, which was about the time Xander was born. Unlike his father's war buddy, Xander decided against going by Alex -- it was such a cliché, and as Char always said: "Xander's too arrogant to do something as lame as clichés."

As soon as his family was out of the room, Xander went to the window and opened the curtains to let the light from the early morning sun into his room, thinking about his and Tristyn's anniversary in two days. It was their first anniversary and he still hadn't gotten her a gift.