The House of Dreams

Chapter Two

"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. "

-Dale Turner

Frank was partly excited of going to where the kids live and partly on the matter Ruel was interested with. Before leaving the street, Frank went back the house for a moment and asked permission from Mr. Ortizano.

"Just text me if something goes wrong," he said. "And try not to do anything silly, or else you'll never see me in your yard again."

Frank wished his parents would be as considerate as their gardener. Having friends is more satisfying than having a lot of robots and remote-controlled cars who can barely speak a single word. Roxanne, her sister, has some teens to talk on video calls when she's bored. He has no one. He hated being with his classmates who always talk about nonsense new mobile games and boring celebrities.

"I will," Frank finally replied after a moment of thought. "If Roxanne looks for me, tell her I'm having the best days of my life."

The gardener made a peaceful smile as Frank rushed out the gate and caught-up with the others. While walking, they told jokes and made fun of Annette. They told their weird hobbies and likes, and even asked Frank a lot of questions about being rich.

"Seriously? There isn't much difference—I'm just having a lot of food in the fridge," he said, and the other kids frowned.

Frank did not know their compound was just a few blocks from them. After tracking right side from their street, they turned left, and right, walking past this group of huge pine trees obscuring a cluster of tiny houses. If the trees weren't there, he could just simply overlook their houses from his window.

They reached the entrance of the compound where an old rotten piece of wood was marked with 'Rodriguez Compound'. The compound was fenced with around a meter and a half tall of woods where some of which are already misaligned and started to decay.

A rough little pathway connects the street that stretches from the little entrance and then splits into five tracks linking the five old and apparently identical houses. These houses were arranged in semi-rectangular and a bunch of flowers were landscaped in the middle of them.

"Welcome to Rodriquez Compound," said Marco.

"Wait," Frank said, "by the looks of it, the houses are identical, and the 'Rodriguez compound' thing; are you all related to each other?"

Annette snickered. "Nope."

"The compound was named after the old residents in this old residential area. They moved away ten years ago and sold every houses to the public for a very cheap price. Except for that house in the middle edge—" Kate pointed her thin finger on the house straight to her. "The only Rodriguez family left in the compound. That's where Ruel lives."

"Ruel Rodriguez," Frank muttered. "I see."

The four of them paced closer to Ruel's house, tracking the middle pathway.

They walked past the flower landscape. The arrangement of the flowers looked very familiar—A boulder was surrounded with morning glory bush, then a line of Santan, some non-flowering plants with purple leaves next on the arrangement, and finally white pebbles piled around them.

"Mr. Ortizano did that," Annette said, as if reading his mind.

Then she began pointing every house and telling him where they live—one starting on the left was Annette's, then the Marisol family (they don't have children), then Ruel's, next to them was Mr. Ortizano (he lives alone), and then Marco's.