Something in the Way You Move [O'J]

Meeting the Family

Callie's POV

I notice a smile tugging the corners of Danny's mouth upwards as he looks out the window. After a minute, he gets out of the car. I do the same, since I'm not really sure what to do. "I'll introduce you to my other siblings first and then you can run off and play with my other nieces and nephews. Sound like a plan?" Danny asks.

"Yeah, sure. Will you explain...why I'm here?" I question. The thought that they'll just turn me into the police and ignore Danny honestly scares me half to death.

"Of course, love. Don't worry about a thing," he assures me, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing it. I'm about to reply when a squeal of "UNCLE DANNY!" explodes from the house. Immediately, a flood of small children, all around my age, pours from the house and swarms Danny. He kneels down on one knee and hugs and kisses each in turn. After having greeted him, the children look around and one of them notices me. "Uncle Danny, who's that?" a boy asks, pointing at me.

"David, it's rude to point," Danny chides. "I'll introduce you all to her after I introduce her to your parents, okay?"

"Okay," David answers, beaming. He walks over to me and shakes my hand firmly. "I'm David!" he says. We all start walking towards the house. When we're out of ear-shot of Danny, David says, "Gee, Uncle Danny must have really taken a liking to you. He's never brought us another kid to play with before! So did he adopt you?" As if Danny knows what we're discussing, he whips his head around and gives David the evils. David shivers and whispers, "Sorry I asked. Don't you think it's creepy when he does that? Like he just knows what we're talking about and it's something we shouldn't so he just turns and gives us the evils?"

I shrug. "It hasn't happened to me before," I whisper back.

"Oh, you must be the girl my mum told me about! Well, not me specifically, my dad, but I overheard it. Did you really run away from home?"

"It wasn't much of a home, really..."

"That's really brave of you, though."

I blush. "Thanks."

If possible, David manages to lower his voice even more and asks, "Is it true that the man that adopted you used to hurt you?"

"Yeah, it's true."

"And you got away?"

"Barely, but yeah."

At this point, Danny falls into step between us, preventing David from asking me anymore questions. I'm both relieved and upset---relieved that I won't have to relive it, but upset that I can't talk to David anymore. At this point, we walk into the house. David turns to me and says, "Come out back when you're done, that's where we'll be!" I nod and he leads the rest of the children outside.

"Is he like their ring-leader?" I ask Danny.

"Yeah, he's the oldest. Eleven years old," he replies. "C'mon, let's go introduce you to everyone." He puts one of his hands between my shoulder blades and guides me into the living room, full of people. Everyone looks at us and cries of "Happy birthday, Dan!" fill the air. All his siblings come up to him and he turns to me and puts a hand on each of their shoulders as he says, "You already know Mandy. This is Ian, Vicky, Dara, and Andrea." I nod and shake their hands in turn. I look up at Danny and he says, "You can go play now." Without hesitation, I turn and wander out into the back yard.

"Hey, you came!" David yells, running up to me. He introduces me to everyone one at a time and then asks, "Now that you know all of our names, what's yours?"

"Callie."

"Nice to meet you! C'mon, let's go play!"