Burrow

Family of Crazies

I stuff my clothes into boxes. Despite the money my family has from being famous, I don't have a lot of clothing. Since we move a lot, we always leave a few outfits at our houses.

I threw in my favorite jean shorts and a few tee shirts and tanks, and just one sweatshirt. Then I threw in enough other clothes to fill two boxes, which wasn't really that much. Much to my chagrin, I had to leave most of my comfy sweat pants behind.

Then came the hard part. The pictures. I had the pictures of my family, which I packed immediately. But then I had pictures, lots of pictures of me smiling with all my friends from all my houses. I opted for taking the best one of each group.

We loaded up the moving van with our stuff, and as I lifted the last of my boxes onto the vehicle I felt something sticky on my palm.
"Nell! I have a jam sandwich, want a bite?" My brother, Oliver, sat deep in the truck, jelly oozing out of his bread. He was only four so he didn't really know better, but some days I thought he did. I sighed.

"Oliver. Now I have jam hands." I whined. He giggled.

"Nelly the Jelly monster is going to get me! Run, run!" His legs were fast, but I was faster. I got him with my jelly hands (raspberry), and he raced back into the house. I loved Oliver even if he annoyed me a lot.

Then, Jim waddled up to me, my eighth grade nerdy brother. He was born with the Karter raven hair, with a round face, and a chubby body.

"Hey, Nell." I scowled at him.

"What do you want, Jim?" I raised an eyebrow and he groaned suspiciously.

"Just for you to invest in the future." He said.

"What do you actually want from me? Because I'm pretty done with you taking stuff from my room and using it to build stuff."

"Come on!" He groaned, " it's for the job we have to go on! I just need a wire hanger and a flashlight!"

"No way!" I shoved him a little.

"Fine!" He huffed.
And I went back to packing, packing until my room was just a blank canvas for someone else to write on.
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The drive sucked.

My feet were cramped, along with my ropey muscled, and it took a whole week. We stopped for breaks every six hours and for junky rest stop food for meals. They were so awful, and not even satisfying at all.

"I want to watch Finding Nemo!" Oliver cried. I turned it on the iPad. That went well for an hour. But then, disaster struck. Oliver dangled the movie out the window, and then dropped it right onto the black, bumpy asphalt. That turned into a major complain fest.

Also, the car was so hot and stuffy, I could have baked a potato. And it didn't help that Jim turned on the Classical Mozart music. After that came Chopin, then so much Beethoven. So. Much. Beethoven.

"Dad, why didn't we fly to Connecticut?" I asked wearily.

"No open flights, Nelly. At least we can bond and talk about the Bank Town Banshee Case on the road!" He said, far too chipper.

But one part didn't suck: the sights. We saw swamps and mountains, cities and lush green valleys, all while eating ramen and chocolate.

At long last, we made it to Connecticut.

"Mom? We've gone a week without proper food. Please, please can we stop for a burger?" I pleaded. Mom considered it for a few moments. She didn't normally go out to eat, but this was a special case. I actually saw Jim turning red from holding his breath.

"Well, it's been a really long drive.
I think we all deserve a nice burger. I am more then done with all that unhealthy stuff they sell at rest stops. Give me some tasty unhealthy stuff!" She responded. We all actually cheered at that amazing news.

We found a nice, neon colored burger shop that thankfully wasn't McDonald's. I hated that food, so fake, so gross, and so greasy. But this was a non chain burger shop and based off the aroma I detected by just standing outside the glass doors.

"Sanctuary!" Jim cried dramatically as we entered. I elbowed him. He was so embarrassing!

"Lo and behold, a treasure! The fine burger I shall order, to my hearts content!" Jim proclaimed like a bad movie. We had a million DVDs that Jim watched like, every day after he did homework. Unfortunately, he'd picked up some bad traits from them. Why couldn't we ever watch a normal movie like Mission Impossible, Harry Potter, or even Monsters INC?

"Shut up, nerd!" I yelled at him, and got glared from my dad.

"With an attitude like that, you'll attract gremlins!" He warned. I rolled my eyes up into my skull.

By now, the pimply seventeen year old guy was staring at us unabashedly. Maybe her knew our family- we were kind of famous after all, but more likely he just thought we were a family of nut jobs.

"Uh...what can I get you?" He asked.

"Burger, mommy, with ketchup!" Piped Oliver.

"One double burger, no cheese." My dad ordered.

"Same here." Jim said.

"Can I have a cheeseburger? With ketchup." I decided. The classic seemed best.

"Can I have a burger, with triple onion?! And lots of garlic, please! All your garlic in fact." Mom tapped away on the counter with her long nails. The poor kid looked genuinely terrified.

"It's for Vampires. They've followed me before, I'm not taking any risks." She explained, which just confused him more. I fought the urge to smack my forehead. My parents were CRAZY!

Ten minutes later, the food was out on green plastic trays, served to us by a girl with bouncy brown curls, I noticed. Our table was half clean, with only a few fries scattered across the laminate. The chairs were black and soft, and I really liked them. What I didn't like was how the boy must have been too scared to serve us. Great. 

I gobbled up my food, savoring every last bite. After days of "car food" it tasted better then I could have imagined; so savory and the cheese was still bubbling. I polished it off quickly, and felt satisfied.

"Can we go to our new house now?" I wondered as we threw out our trash.

"Sure, Nell. Let's go, guys."Dad replied

We paid the tip, and headed back into our white car, and drove once again for only about five minutes. Then, we were in a heavily tree lined neighborhood, with only five houses on the street. They were all pristine, a Victorian style with neat lawns, swings, and pretty windows. This place was really nice, and it looked like people kept their homes in shape. I wondered which one was ours.

To my surprise, we didn't stop at any of those houses.

Instead, we pulled up to a sixth house, one that I didn't even notice because it was so dark, shadowy, and covered in brambles. Ravens swooped in and out of a hole in the ceiling. The grass was yellow and dead, and the a gnarled tree stood over the house, if you could call it that. Mom and Dad stood in front, pride shining on their beaming faces.

"Welcome home!"