July Apple Pies

Chapter One

I will add a Dun's Dictionary section at the end of each chapter he appears in so you'll know what in the world he's saying.

  

Chapter One

The Scaffold family was unique. Technically, that could be considered a fallacy, since if everyone is considered unique (it has been stated more than once that there can’t be two people who are exactly the same), then uniqueness can’t be that special. However, the members of the Scaffold family were thought of as colorful beings by their neighbors. And everyone knows that colorful actually stands for, well, plain weird.

     Perhaps it was the bright and blinding yellow they had decided to paint their house with. Or maybe it was the fact that, every Sunday, four of the five members of the family would wake up early in the morning to trim their garden and sing melodies of the Harry Potter soundtrack. Possibly the fact that they had a dog that didn’t move from the front porch at all and a six-year-old son that spoke–and looked–more Chinese than American, didn't help either. And there is a big chance that the fact they where always smiling and always friendly scared people away, too. And that’s probably also why the eldest daughter refused to acknowledge the fact that they were family. Most of the time.

     “NORAAAA! OH, NORAAAA!”

     “What?”

     “Oh, Nora!” said the little voice again. Nora could tell by its muffled volume that her little brother was yelling from the first floor.

     “What, Dun?”

     “Hurry, Nora,” he said in his six-year-old singsong voice.

     “We are leaving in an hour, Dun, not now!”

     “Oh.” This time the voice was lower, and she could almost picture little Dun shrugging as she heard him yell, “Okay, then. ” Little footsteps where heard and soon a door–probably the kitchen’s–was opened, “Ni men Hao! Ni men xiang yao he shen me? (1)” and closed.

     Nora closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath in. When she opened her eyes again and looked out her window, she saw her little sister, Mimi, in the front yard. Mimi was spinning and spinning with her arms open at the world, looking ready to fly. Abruptly, she stopped spinning and fell head first to the floor. Nora didn’t have time to worry though, because in no more than a few seconds, Mimi was already up and running around again.

     “Whattaya doin, hun?”

     Nora didn’t even look away from her window, not wanting to see what her mother was wearing.

     You see, Nora’s brother was actually Chinese. And both Dun and Mimi were actually as weird as everyone thought. But at least they dressed normally like Nora and their dad did. Their mom, well she was another story.

     Oh. And Mrs. Scaffold liked to create her own version of different languages, too.

     “Just thinking.”

     “Aren’t you exited for today’s picnic?”

     Nora turned to look at her mother. If she was thankful for the normalcy on her mother’s speech or horrified by her progenitor’s wardrobe choice, she didn’t show it. She had grown quite good at that.

     “Do I have to go, mom?”

     “Of course you do, hun. You’ll have fun! There’ll be lots and lots of kids your age. Maybe even some handsome fella for ya to luva.”