6 Brothers and Me

Chapter 9

The rest of the day is full with me avoiding the eyes of my brothers and playing the piano out the back to calm my nerves. Slowly I begin to learn the top hand of Pern by Yann Tiersen, my brain wanders elsewhere as my fingers move to the eyes remembering leaning it with my father. His hands placed lightly on my shoulders then pushing the keys down with me sitting smiling as the sun shone through the glass.
"Ivy." Alex says grounding my mind, "Dinners nearly ready."
"Dinner?" I say still dazed slightly.
"Yes, dinner, do you want the light on in here?"
"Umm." I look outside and realise the night had come on quickly, "Yes, thank you, Alex."
"Are you ok?" he says looking out to the bench too.
"Yeah, I'm great." I lie smiling.
"Did you have lunch." he realised.
"Yeah." another lie, great.
"Ok, I'll see you at dinner." He smiles comfortingly walking out.
I look down at the old wooden piano and shut the case slowly standing and putting the books back under the chair before also leaving the room.
"Mum, do you need help?" I ask inhaling the strong spices.
"No thank you darling." she spins around storing the pot.
"Smells delicious." I smile but feel someone's hand pull me out into the hall.
"Ivy, we all want to talk," Jacob says spinning me around aggressively to see all my brothers.
"Jeez, aggressive much." I say looking up at their darkened faces, "What happened?"
"We need to talk about the tape," Chandler says.
"Still?" I say trying not to sound completely out.
"Yes 'still' we need to see what the Russian was about," Jacob says pulling round to the rest of them.
"The Russian was meant as some sort of code," Louis says looking over the stairs.
"Ok, and maybe the numbers were a phone number?" Harry says picking up the notepad.
"Maybe, or coordinates," I say looking at the numbers.
"Well, we could phone it," Jacob says ignoring my comment completely.
"Dinners ready." mum calls and I spin round quickly to exit the situation.
"Thank you mum, it was delicious," I say finishing off the dinner just before did.
"Thank you, Ivy," she says looking at the other boys who hadn't said thank you.
"Thanks, mum." a chorus of boys voices came.
"Is everyone ready for a child on Monday, I don't want to have to go to the shop last minute again."
School, that hadn't even crossed my mind. I didn't even know if I was ready, would I tell someone about the tape, would we have worked it out by then and then there was the Collin problem. I had nearly forgotten, nearly in a fantasy in which just possibly everything was ok, it wasn't but we could get somewhere with some relevance. Pirate cove? What and where was that, it had to mean something but what? Uhh, too many: what-ifs and where and who and why was this going on. I put my plate in the dishwasher and walked into the living room.
"Can we watch a film?" Louis asks.
"Yeah but not a stupid one," Jacob says smashing me into the corner of the couch.
"Seriously, do you have to sit here?" I say nudging him which he replies with a sharp elbow in the side.
"Yes, I do."
"Fine."
In the end, Alex chooses a film called 'Just do it, I didn't really watch it and instead drew some patterns onto my hand; they ended up looking strange but not too bad.
"Well, that was good," Jacob says leaning back spreading himself out pushing me further into the corner.
"Fuck off," I say under my breath.
"Language young lady." He laughs pushing me into the corner more until he's more or less on top of me.
"Za vami vsegda nablyudayut, Genron pridet za vami," I whisper in his ear shocking him off me.
"Ok, god no need to go all Russian on me." He says jabbing me again.
"We still need to work that out," I tell him standing up to go to bed.
"Tomorrow morning," he replies.
"Ok."
I go upstairs wanting to talk to Marty, and yet still expecting not to be able to. I see him going into his room so I follow him in subtly.
"Hey, Marty," I say from behind him.
"Jeez Ivy you scared me." he jumps down onto the bed.
"I think we might need to talk?" I ask him playing with my hair.
"Talk?" he says acting oblivious trying to deflect the question.
"Come on," I say.
"Fine, only a bit though." he sighs reluctantly.
"Well have you told anyone?" I ask awkwardly not knowing what to say.
"I've told some of my friends and well, of course, you but other than that no one and I'm not planning on telling anyone else any time soon." he looks to the ceiling awkwardly.
"Ok, well... I completely understand and if you ever need to talk I'm here." I stretch my ear cringing at what I've just said but also hoping that it helps.
"Thank you, Ivy, don't tell mum or the boys I just don't think they'd-, " he quickly stops as Jacob comes in. I try to look natural, turning around looking at something by I feel his eyes starting confused.
"Hi, Jacob, " I begin, "I was just talking about the Russian."
"Why did you turn around when I came in?" he questions suspiciously.
"I...I thought it was mum." I quickly recover seeing Marty's shocked face.
"Yeah, we were wondering about the numbers they could be coordinates." he goes along with the story.
"Yeah, night boys." I walk out and into my room.
My mind wanders around the Russian wondering where it could be; most importantly to my father and all the memories with him. The laughs, crying, playing around and a lot of mischief together flood my head as I try to drif of to deep, deep sleep.