Chapter one
Jellybean houses
(Mira)
"Simone is dead." My mother's voice interrupted my dreams yet again. I bolted upright in bed. I'm used to my mother creepily waking me up every morning. I barely even jump anymore. But today is different. Because Simone is dead.
"Wait, who's Simone?" My sister's sleepy voice interrupted my thoughts from the bed across the loft. Yes, Jinx and I slept in a loft. Our room consisted of a mini library, a closet and a long double desk. Beside the door was a ladder that lead up to our loft where we slept. The only window in our room was the giant skylight above our beds.
"Simone is your birth grandmother." Mom informed us. Right, our birth grandmother Simone had gotten us adopted after our birth parents died in a plane crash. Memories of her beautiful brown eyes and dark skin came flooding in, her bright smile and big hugs, her tea parties and the books she had read to us every night. But I was only three, there weren't any specific memories I could think of, just her in general. Jinx didn't remember her any better than I did, we're twins so we spent the exact same amount of time with her anyways.
"And you two are her only living relatives, so she left everything she owns to you." Mom explained.
"Everything?" Jinx asked suspiciously. "What does everything consist of?"
I hoisted my heavy backpack (filled with books) into the car. I had packed two different series and three stand alones just in case I didn't feel like reading a certain one of them. I needed variety, some needed to be my comfort books and some needed to be books from my tbr, of course I also had my current read, (it was a stand alone) it just depended on what mood I was in when I read them.
"Can you help your sister Jinx?" My dad asked from the front seat. How had he gotten ready so fast? Jinx came over and helped me lift my suitcase onto the top of the pile.
"Your suitcase isn't as heavy as usual." She stated with her eyebrows raised in surprise.
I smiled at her mischievously "my books are in my backpack this time." She laughed as she headed into the car.
"Did you bring some for me?" She asked expectantly. "Of course." Jinx may not be as book obsessed as I am but she does enjoy a good book. She just makes sure I've read it and approved of it before she reads it. That all started when halfway through a series she found out that the author had died and the series had no end. I had been upset as well but I'd quickly moved on to another series to distract me. She however had been in a slump for a couple weeks until I'd forced her to read some of my comfort reads. I closed the trunk and got in beside Jinx.
I waved goodbye to our beautiful city. Victoria was rainy yet again. But it was beautiful nonetheless. I wanted so badly to pull out a book as we drove. But that would make me insanely sick. Not that I would puke or anything, I would just feel sick for the rest of the day.
"Did Simone still live in the same house?" Jinx asked our parents. She didn't have to explain what she meant, I was wondering the same thing.
"Yeah. And remember this isn't a vacation, we need to get there to clean it out as fast as we can so we can get on with our actual vacation to Seattle." Normally three days from now we would be going to stay at our cousin's place for half the summer and then they would come to our house for the other half. Summers were the best time of year. Our cousins were super fun. It was like a giant party only, it was 2 months long. But we had had to postpone that because we were now on our way to our dead birth grandmother's house to clean it out and sell it.
"What are we going to do with the money?" Jinx asks me. I can see the glimmer of excitement in her eyes. "Aside from buying a bunch of books."
"You will be saving some of it for University and your futures. But we will let you spend a little bit on books and such." Dad interrupted our thoughts. University wouldn't be that expensive for me, I planned on going to Uvic, which was only a five minute drive from our house. Meaning I could stay living with my parents. I knew exactly what I wanted with my future. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted a few adopted kids and a loving wife to come home to. Jinx wasn't so sure what she wanted. Hopefully she would stay cl0se by. She could be pretty annoying sometimes, but she was still my best friend. We knew almost everything about each other. Well, I hadn't told her I was lesbian yet, but I had only figured it all out recently. And she probably suspected it anyway, she knew me almost better than I knew myself.
"I've always wanted a water slide, but that might be a bit much. Can we get a cow? Right, we don't have anywhere to put it. Oh my gosh! Mira," she looked into my eyes. I couldn't help but smile at the excitement radiating off of her. "Do you think we could afford our very own electric car!?" It was a nice idea. We wouldn't be able to get as many books, but a brilliant idea nonetheless. After all, we would be sixteen in seven-ish months. And then we would be able to drive. Not by ourselves, but still. Plus, I had applied for a job at the local bookstore and soon I'd be able to get all the books in the world. (If I get the job that is.) We had always promised ourselves to use public transit until we could afford our own electric car. Most people thought us crazy and weird for caring so much about the climate. That's why we didn't have friends anymore. We had each other though. And our cousins were great even if we did only see them twice a year. We didn't need friends telling us we were crazy. So what if we were book obsessed. So what if we cared about the climate. So what if we weren't buying a car until we could afford an electric car? We could do it. We could if we really wanted to. And one day we will drive by everyone in our fancy new electric car smiling without them. Because we don't need them, we have each other.
