The Six Kids

Standing in the chill rain, he watched the small town as it slept. The moving van parked in the driveway of the large house obscured most of his vision, but he didn’t need to see. He knew where he was.
It was hard to believe that this small, sleepy town could hold so much magic, so much evil.
Harder to believe was that he could stop it. Standing in the rain, shivering and thinking of hypothermia, the elf felt the immense, overwhelming impossibility of the mission which so recently had seemed exciting.
Could there really be power here?

*

“O M G!!!” Kristy exclaimed, in re her friend’s last comment.
“I know!” Sara squealed.
“Some people have all the luck.” Josi groaned.
“I’ve gotta’ get home,” Sara complained, “But I’ll fill you two in on all the dirty details to-morrow!”
“Wait! You gonna’ kiss ‘im?”
“Maybe.” Sara said pointedly, “TTYL!”
“Bye!”
Sara walked home, feeling above herself. It was the last day of school, she had actually passed Junior Year, and Steve, the most popular guy in school, had asked her out – in short, all was sunshine and gaiety.
“Hi, honey.” Sara’s mother said from the kitchen.
“Hey.” Sara replied, uninterested.
“How was your last day of school?”
“I survived.”
“Could you do me a favour?”
Groaning, Sara started up the stairs, hoping to avoid the inevitable.
“Could you babysit Savannah while I run some errands to-night?”
“I’m busy!” Sara called down the stairs.
“Sara Tomelson, how busy can you be to not be able to do your mother a favor?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Sara!”
“Mo-om! C’mon, I can’t babysit!”
“I’m quite sure you can.” Her mother said stiffly, “Come here so I can talk to you!” she shouted up the stairs.
Sara pounded back down.
“When’ll you be home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you make it before seven?”
“I’ll try. What are you doing?”
“Going to a movie.” Sara said evasively, “Now can I go?”
“What movie?”
“I dunno’. Just some movie.”
“With who?”
Why did her mother always have to ask these stupid questions?
“Why do you care?”
“Don’t be difficult, Sara.”
“Steve Hansen, okay?”
“Oh, I see.” Her mother sighed, “I’ll try to be back by seven. But I can’t make any promises. I’ll call you if I’m going to be late.”
“Mom!”
“I’ll try not to be. Now you can go. Savannah’s asleep, so try to be quiet.”
Rolling her eyes, Sara stomped dramatically (and far from quietly) up the stairs and to her room.
A letter lay on her desk, addressed to her in an unfamiliar hand and lacking in stamp. Pulling the letter out of its unsealed envelope, Sara read:

Sara –
I have the spiffiest surprise of all spiffy surprises!!!!!!!!! Meet me in the park to-night ‘bout seven, and you’ll find out what it is.
Cheero.
Aub


Aub? That couldn’t be Aubra McKellen! Aubra and Sara had been best friends since they were three, but Aubra had moved seven years previously. What was she doing in town? And how had she gotten in Sara’s bedroom?
“Great,” Sara muttered to herself, glancing at the line “meet me in the park to-night ‘bout seven”. How was she supposed to be in three places at once?

“I want to play Candy Land!” Savannah demanded.
“Look, Nan, I’m not in the mood, okay? Just go play with dolls or something and leave me alone!”
“Humph!” Savannah sniffed, sticking her nose in the air, “I’m outta’ here!” she turned and stalked from the room.
Rolling her eyes, Sara picked up the phone and dialed the number of her BF, Kristy.
“O M G, guess what my mom did?” she complained.
“What?”
“She’s gone off doing her own thing, and I have to watch the pill.”
“Oh no! What about Steve?”
“She said she would be back by seven, but you know how mothers are.”
“Seriously. Steve’ll understand. Dude, he must be really interested if he asked you out.”
“You think so?” Sara asked, glancing in the mirror at her almost-flawless skin, her bright blue eyes, and her shining golden hair, “But whatever could he see in me?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. C’mon, you know how Steve is about asking girls out. He won’t blow you off over something like this.”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”
“If your mom doesn’t get home in time, mind giving him my number?”
“Kristy!!”
“Joking! Relax, Sara, you’ll be okay. Oh, lame, I’ve gotta’ go.”
“K. Talk to you later!”
“Bye! Oh, I sent you that e-mail you asked for. And Tessa wants you to text her, she can’t remember your number and her phone went wack. OKAY, I’M GETTING OFF!!! Gotta’ go.”
“TTYL!”
Pulling her laptop from under the couch, Sara logged in with her password Steve and found Tessa on I.M.

StevesFanClub said: hey!!!
PuppyLover said: helo my sista from anotha mista
StevesFanClub said: sup?
PuppyLover said: nothin
u talk to kris?
StevesFanClub said: yeah ur cell went wack?
PuppyLover said: died when i wuz talkin to james
StevesFanClub said: what happened?!?!
PuppyLover said: he got all mad
StevesFanClub said: o no! u ok?
PuppyLover said: yeh he was goin out with josi
StevesFanClub said: no!
PuppyLove said: yeah im not talkin to her
StevesFanClub said: me either!
PuppyLover said: thx
what bout steve
StevesFanClub said: he asked me out!!!!!!!!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
PuppyLover said: omg!!!
StevesFanClub said: but i think im gonna have to sit the pill
PuppyLover said: WHAT?!?!?!?! how could ur mom do that
StevesFanClub said: she doesnt care bout my soshul life
PuppyLover said: mothers! i cant beleve shed do that
StevesFanClub said: did u get that invite to kristys party
PuppyLover said: ks hving a party?
StevesFanClub said: no i forgot shes
g2g!
ill txt u!


Seven o’ clock came and went. The doorbell didn’t sound and the phone didn’t ring.
Where was Steve, anyway?
Around eight Sara’s mother arrived home, apologizing hastily.
“I’m sorry! Did Steve understand?”
Bursting in-to tears, Sara ran up the stairs.
“I’ll take that as a no.” her mother sighed wearily and sat down on the couch.

Lying on Sara’s bed was a girl dressed in baggy boy’s clothes and long black hair which spread across Sara’s pillow.
“What are you doing here?” Sara gasped.
“I waited for you. Then I got bored. So here I am. Whoa, dude,” the girl slid off the bed and surveyed Sara oddly.
“Who are you?”
Grinning and bowing, the girl introduced herself, “Aubra McKellen, at your service.”
“Aubra?!”
“You got my note, didn’t you?”
“Wuh – yeah, but--”
“So … why didn’t you show?”
“I had to babysit my little sister.”
“You have a little sister?” Aubra gaped.
“Yeah. She’s a pill.”
“I’d trade you for one or two or seven of my brothers.”
Aubra McKellen had the misfortune of having ten brothers, and she only liked one of them.
“That’s all right.” Sara smiled, “So, what’re you doing here?”
“I told you, I got bored.”
“No, I mean in town.”
“Oh,” Aubra’s grin widened, “Let’s go for a walk and I’ll tell you.”
“K.”
Sara felt a bit awkward around her friend she hadn’t seen in years, but Aubra seemed to be suffering none of these symptoms. She slid down the banister as casually as if she’d spent her entire life around here and bowed nonchalantly to Mrs. Wyatt, Sara’s mother.
“Hello,” Mrs. Wyatt said, surprised.
“Mom,” Sara said, shooting her strange friend an odd look, “This is Aubra McKellen.”
“Aubra Mc – why, hello, Aubra!”
“’Lo, mom.”
“What are you doing in town?”
“Just boppin’ around.” Aubra shrugged.
“How are your brothers?”
“A’right.” Aubra shrugged again, “Still as many of them as ever.”
“Brian’s back from his mission, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, and Mark left on his.”
“Oh, did he? Where did he go?”
“C’mon, Aubra.” Sara said, dragging her friend through the door.
The two of them walked to-wards the park in silence, Sara marveling at how long it had been and Aubra looking in awe around at her hometown which had changed so little.
“You notice a moving van at the old Hamilton place?” she asked Sara.
“Yeah. And Kristi told me the guys who moved in are a couple of hotties.”
“You’re friends with Kristi?” Aubra gaped at her friend, realizing that she had not followed the town’s excellent example of staying true to old ways.
“Yeah, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Maybe because she wrote “Sara is a jerk” in permanent marker in your math book, or because she spread rumors about you so no one would talk to you in sixth grade, or because she told you you were an ugly something I can’t repeat in the presence of a lady, or because...”
“Wull, she’s changed!” Sara said, defending her BF.
“All right. I’ll take your word for it.” Aubra said, putting up her hands to say she didn’t mean to attack, “Hey, what say we drop by those guys’ house and see what they’re like?”
Giving her friend a ‘you can’t possibly be serious’ look, Sara said, “Are you crazy? Always wait for the guy to make the first move!”
Aubra groaned, “Don’t tell me you’re guy obsessed?”
“No! But you can’t tell me you don’t at least like guys?”
“I live with ten of them at home. Why the dickens would I want any more around?”
“What was it you were gonna’ tell me?” Sara asked, changing the subject abruptly.
“Oh. I’ve moved back.”
Sara stopped in her tracks. Aubra, not noticing, kept going.
“What?” the prior gasped.
Realizing her friend was not with her, Aubra turned around, “Yup. Dad said he liked this town and couldn’t figure why we’d left. So back we came. Spiffs, huh?”
“Yeah,” Sara said, but she wondered if she meant it. She and her friend were obviously so different. And Aubra would expect her to hang out with her rather than Kristy.
“You wanna’ go get some ice cream or somethin’?”
“Sure.” Sara replied without thinking.
Upon arriving at the diner (the one diner in town), Aubra underwent the same treatment as she had at the Wyatt’s.
“What are you doing in town? ... How are your brothers? ... Oh, has he? Where did he go?...”
Passively answering the questions of Suzy, the girl who worked behind the counter, Aubra surveyed the menu. Same old menu with the same old meals at the same old prices.
She smiled to herself. At least some things never change.
“What’ll you have?” Suzy finally asked.
“Chocolate banana sundae,” Aubra replied, “Sare?”
“I’m on a diet.” Sara replied.
“Oh.” Aubra began shoveling ice cream in-to her mouth with about as much manners as her brothers had.
“Psst!” Sara hissed.
“Wha?” Aubra asked through a mouthful of banana.
“See that guy over there? No, don’t turn around. Here, use my mirror.”
“What about him?” Aubra asked, having managed to swallow.
“He’s new in town.”
“Obviously. He looks lost. Why don’t we go talk to him?”
“Are you crazy?!” Sara gasped.
“Yup.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“All right, all right. I won’t. Sure you don’t want anything?”
“Ice cream goes straight to your hips, you know. And I already have too much hip.”
“Really?” Aubra surveyed her thin friend, “Y’look like a stick to me.”
“I know, I’m far too thin!” Sara bemoaned.
“Wait,” Aubra said, waving her spoon, “Didn’t quite catch that. First you’re complaining because you’re too fat and now you’re complaining because you’re too thin. Make up your mind all ready.”
“I’m fat in all the wrong places!” Sara clarified.
“Okay.” Aubra, who still didn’t get it, shrugged.
“Look, I’d better be getting home.” Sara stood.
“A’right,” Aubra returned her attention to her ice cream, trying not to care.
And she didn’t.
Not really....

*

Them?
The one looked tough enough, but the other....
Five you must find...
Six you must make...

But how was he to know which were the right five? How had they made certain he was the right one? He wasn’t so sure he was.
Returning himself to his sandwich, he tried not to worry. Time would tell.
But time was running out.

*

“Oi, Sare!” Aubra called up the window.
Sara groaned, glancing at the clock. Aubra could not be serious!
“What?”
“Rise and shine sunshine! Climb down the window.”
“Give me a sec.”
Thirty minutes later, Sara, dressed and with her hair combed, came out her front door.
“’Bout time,” Aubra said, leaping up from the wall on which she sat, “I’d almost given you up as lost. What took you so long?”
“I had to get dressed,” Sara yawned.
“Huh.” Aubra, who never took longer than two minutes to get dressed, said, bewildered.
“What d’you want?”
“Well, I didn’t want to see you waste the whole day in bed!”
“D’you know what time it is?”
“Quarter to ten, I’d say.”
Groaning, Sara began to walk. Aubra fell in-to step beside her.
“How d’you get up so early?” Sara demanded.
“I’ve got five younger brothers. You don’t sleep with Sweet Life of Zac and Cody blasting in your ears.”
“Where’re we going?” Sara queried.
“Er ... that way,” Aubra said, gesturing, “Since when do we need a destination?”
“We’re going to pass those guys’ house. I like the way you think.”
Rolling her eyes, Aubra wondered how it was possible for someone to change so much in seven years. Had she changed? She didn’t think so. Not since...
No. She wouldn’t think about that.
“Y’sure you don’t wanna’ go say hello to them?” she persisted.
“No! Yes, I’m sure. It’d be too forward.”
“They wouldn’t see it as forward. I wouldn’t see it as forward.”
“What planet are you from? Haven’t you ever flirted with a guy?”
Aubra shuddered. “No, thank goodness.”
The guys were in their yard, one weeding the flower garden, the other watering the sidewalk. Well, they assumed he meant to water the grass, but he kept missing.
As they approached, the one with the hose turned and watered them.
Screeching, Sara jumped back. Zipping her Aeropostal jacket over her white T, she stood, looking pathetic and dripping. Aubra laughed, enjoying the spray from the hose.
“Nick!” the darker of the two, and the one lacking a hose, gasped, jumping up and turning off the water. Wrenching the weapon from the offender, he turned to the girls.
“Begging your pardon! My brother tends to be careless. Are you all right?”
“Quite.” Aubra grinned.
“No!” Sara whined.
“You’re wet!” the sprayer giggled. He looked to be about fifteen, tall and gangly, with shaggy blond hair and blue-grey eyes. He was cute in a little-kiddish sort of way.
The other was much more distinguished, with tame dark hair and eyes that were steady, almost black in colour, and piercing. His look spoke of a deep mind, one that knew more than it ought.
“Nick, please.” he begged – well, not begged. He was much too dignified for that. He sniffed it, in a way that showed he disapproved of his inferior’s behavior, “I do apologize,” he continued to the girls, “I would that you would allow us to properly make amends.”
“No need, really.” Aubra, who was kind of spooked by this weirdo, insisted.
“Well, do feel free to grace us with your presence any time you feel so inclined. My name is Jade Bartholomew, and this is my brother, Nicholas.”
The latter shuddered, “Nick. Not Nicholas. Nick.”
“I’m Aubra McKellen, this is Sara Wyatt.”
“A pleasure.” he bowed. Bowed! In the twenty-first century! And, unlike Aubra, he wasn’t joking. Something was obviously wrong with this guy.
Sara thought he was kind of cute. Nothing, of course, to Steve, but there was an air about him that she liked.
She’d have to keep herself open.
“We’d better go.” Aubra said, pulling on Sara’s arm.
“Yeah,” Sara agreed, “See you around?”
“I do hope so. Again, I give you my humblest apologies, and do hope you accept them.” Jade bowed again.
“Cheero!” his brother said cheerfully.
“They’re crazy.” Aubra announced, once they were out of earshot of the two boys.
“I don’t know...” Sara said, thoughtfully turning her golden locks around her finger.
“I know,” Aubra said, grinning, “You’ve got a thing for the one with the hose.”
“Nick?! No way! But Jade isn’t half bad looking....” she lapsed in-to a thoughtful silence.
“Isn’t Jade a girl name?”
“So?”
“Nothing. Just curious.”Aubra grinned.
“He’s nothing, of course, to Steve.”
“WHO?”
“Just some guy....” Sara said, blushing. She might not be bright, but she was bright enough to know that if she told Aubra she liked a guy named Steve, Aubra would tease her mercilessly about this guy named Steve. This was something she would prefer to avoid.
“Right,” Aubra evidently didn’t believe her, but wasn’t going to press the matter.
“Look, I’ve gotta’ get changed,” Sara said, gesturing to her sopping clothes, “TTYL.”
“TTYL?” Aubra repeated, but her friend was gone, “Whatever happened to the English language?” she wondered aloud. Continuing walking, Aubra mulled over everything.
You can’t go back. She reminded herself. How had she tricked herself in-to thinking everything would be the same? How could she have been so stupid? Well, that was simple – she was stupid. That much was clear. And after what she had done....
No, she wouldn’t think of that. She couldn’t. That hurt too much.
“Watch where you’re going!” Aubra shot at the young man she had just walked in-to.
“I am sorry,” he said, smiling apologetically.
He was a very nice looking young man – with longish brown hair, not too long, of a medium-dark brown hue. His eyes were also brown, and friendly, and he looked right in-to yours in a way that made one trust. His smile was nice too.
If she had been a more femininely-minded young woman, she would have thought he was hot. Like, extremely hot. Like, freakishly extremely hot. For he was. It wasn’t an opinion. It was a fact. Just not one Aubra was aware of.
“Oh, s’all right,” she shrugged.
“You’re new in town, aren’t you?” he asked politely.
“What? Oh, well, sort of. I lived here when I was little, but we moved seven years ago.”
“Oh?”
“D’you live here, then?”
It was a stupid question – this wasn’t really the sort of town one visited.
“Yeah. I moved in-to the Burgess place about two years ago.”
“Old Lady Burgess finally kicked the bucket, then?” Aubra asked shamelessly.
Laughing, the young man nodded, “I’ve heard she was quite the character.”
“She once shot at Sara and I with a shotgun. She was a nutter.” (It would have been more grammatically correct if she had said “shot at Sara and me”, but Aubra never really had understood that rule and decided so long as it sounded right, it didn’t really matter anyways).
“You’re friends with Sara?” he asked hesitantly.
“Is it as bad as that?” Aubra, who had feared as much, asked.
“Wull – it’s not like she’s a bad person,” he said. He seemed to regret having brought it up, “And she can be very nice ... when she wants to be. She just doesn’t go out of her way.”
“She’s turned in-to a snot-nosed prep, you mean.”
“Er ... something like that. Not exactly the way I would have worded it.”
“Yeah,” Aubra sighed, “She’s changed.”
“People do.” he reminded her.
“Yeah. I just wish they wouldn’t.”
They walked on for a minute in silence.
“How do you know Sara? Oh, I guess that’s a stupid question, there are like twelve people in town.”
“This is true. We go to the same school. And,” he seemed embarrassed, “Er, we went out one time.”
Sighing yet again, Aubra felt she should have known. She’d be hard pressed to find a guy her friend hadn’t gone out with.
“Where’d you move to?” he asked, moving the subject out of dangerous waters.
“Logan.” she replied.
“Really?”
“It seemed very exciting at the time. You know – a big city like that?”
“I’ll bet.”
“I mean, one of the schools I went to had as many people as our entire town.”
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
“But then I realized it was just a larger version of this: Empty space full of pointless people.” She didn’t know why she was voicing her thoughts to this stranger – she didn’t even know his name! Somehow she just felt comfortable, inexplicably knowing he wouldn’t judge.
“Pointless?” he asked softly.
“Running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They’re not going anywhere.”
“Neither are we. Care to take a walk?”
“Sure.” she shrugged, “I’m Aubra McKellen.” she added, feeling it wouldn’t be so odd, confiding in him, if she at least knew his name.
“Tyler Jennings.”
They walked on in silence.
“I love that,” he said suddenly.
“What?” Aubra asked, having been pulled from a deep reverie.
“That,” he nodded to the elderly gentlemen who was pulling his neighbor’s trash bin to the street, “He doesn’t just move his own, he makes sure everyone around him has theirs in place too.”
“Typical Mormon small town,” Aubra said dispassionately.
“Guess so,” he shrugged, “You Mormon?”
“Sort of,” she said evasively, “You?”
“Yeah. What do you mean by ‘Sort of’?”
“I hate to tell people I’m inactive, they make me their reactivation program.”
He raised his right hand, “I promise not to pull you on to church.”
Aubra smiled, “It’s just – I dunno. I don’t feel like it’s their business I don’t feel like going. They seem to think it makes me a sinner. Guess I am, but I don’t need them to tell me that.”
“People have no problem preaching about not judging, but then they are so quick to judge,” Tyler nodded, “Everyone has their reasons, right?”
Wow. Had he actually just said that? Aubra looked at this guy with new eyes. He was cool. Like, for a guy, really cool.
“AUBRA!!!!” someone shrieked from inside the large white house they stood in front of.
Closing her eyes as if praying for patience, Aubra said, “I’d better go. My brothers haven’t figured out how to feed themselves yet.”
She dashed off, in-to the house.