SHELBY

prologue

THE SMALL GIRL SNUCK out from her bedroom and into Tommy's room before he or her other brothers would see her. His room was the closest, meaning easiest route to get the cap and leave for school.

Tommy's bedroom door was, thank the lord, open. Which helped the girl easily step into the room. The cap sat on his dresser and Kegan quickly avoided the crack in the floor that she knew would make a creak which probably wouldn't even disturb the boys downstairs.

Grabbing the cap she hid it under her shirt, making sure to watch the blade on the back of it. She crept down the stairs, seeing the boys in the kitchen and quickly called out to Finn.

"Finn! I'm going to be late, I want to meet up with my friends, Sally's going to braid my hair!" She didn't exactly know any Sally girl but she wanted to get the Shelby boys out of her business.

"You've got an hour till school, Keeg! Surely it doesn't take fifty minutes to do a plait." Arthur shouted from the Kitchen.

"I could plait it now if you want Kegan." Ada spoke up but Kegan quickly shook her head, even though they couldn't see her.

"No! Er, no that's fine Ada, Sandra wants some practice!" She answered, before grabbing Finn by the arm and pulled him out of the house, the young boy still munching on the toast he had just buttered.

"I thought the friends name was Sally?" John asked, which made the siblings look at each other with confused faces but soon changed the conversation to the new barmaid and the eleven year old was out of their heads.

The so called girl now was jumping up and down as she skipped to the school, Finn in tow. "Tommy's gonna kill you, Kegan!" His eyesight was focused on where the razor at the back of Tommy's peaky cap was and was worrying what would happen if she were to be caught.

"He can't kill me about something he doesn't know, Finn. Don't worry brother I have this all figured out." Kegan said, looking in a shop window and readjusting the cap quickly so it sat right.

"Why did you have to bring it in anyway?" Her younger brother fretted, his eyes following his sisters view.

"Isaiah." She replied, before adding, "Its also show and tell day."

Finns eyes widened at the name that left the girl's lips. "What do you mean, Isaiah!?" He asked.

"We're gonna fight."

"What!?"

"He said girls weren't supposed to play gangs and they weren't allowed guns but should use a kitchen utensil instead." She replied, casually. "So I told him where i'd shove a utensil up him and now we're gonna fight."

"That was mean." Finn said, a frown growing on his lips.

"Don't worry I'll teach him a lesson, Finn. I'll play my own gang game."

Needless to say, Kegan went home with a busted lip and a bruise above her eyebrow and Tommy's blinder cap in her hand.

Isaiah's face was too bloody to ensure what damage was done. He had to get stitches from his father and Ada, who had shook her head at her sisters hair which had not been plaited but roughed up.

And needless to say, Kegan got a week of grounding but a small smile from each one of her brothers and a muttering of Polly saying, "Well she's definitely a blinder."