We "listen" to this story for fifteen minutes before Joe takes a long pause. "How about you Kyla?" Christine asks. Joe looks like he had more to say, but shuts up to listen to Kyla.

"Well, other than the freshmen, there are only six new students this year." Kyla said. "This girl though, her brother and her just moved in from Ohio.

Under her breath, Talise mutters, "she and her brother". No one hears her, but me of course. Waldo is playing with his knife, seeing how far it will flex while Aiden and Joe talk about law. Aiden chose to follow in daddy’s footsteps become a big shot lawyer this year.

"She’s so pretty though," Kyla continues babbling about the new girl at her private school. Ben looks up. It’s his New Year’s Resolution to get a girlfriend this year even if it means stealing his twin sister’s latest crush. All year they’ve been competing in vain because in the end the girl doesn’t choose either one of them. Kyla, who’s bisexual, will like a pretty girl, and then Ben will decide that he likes the same girl. As far as I can tell, they’ve always been like this. Kyla gets good grades, so Ben tries to get better ones and so on and so forth.

He hasn’t even seen whoever this girl is yet, but he’ll go after her just because Kyla likes her. The only reason Kyla’s met this girl already is because she’s on the Eckhardt’s Academy’s school committee and was giving tours around the school while Talise and I were having ice cream.

Eckhardt’s is a big, fancy private school that you actually have to be smart to get into. In other words, every kid in this family, except me, goes there or has been there. Instead, I go to King High and ignore the fact that the faucet water is yellow.

My knife refuses to cooperate, and I give up. Stabbing the pork chop viciously with my fork, I use my teeth to try and rip pieces off.

"Ashley, be civilized and use your knife." Amazing, Christine actually does notice me sitting right next to her occasionally. She forgets in the next moment though, and asks, "How was your day, Tali?".