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Chapter 11: Favorite

        A week has passed, and Breanna and I have gone to Savannah's house every day to clean up. We were actually able to finish everything in a week. Now Savannah and Anna were at our house, and we were all in the living room discussing our upcoming trip.

        "We have to go to the beach at least twice, I don't care if it's the middle of December!" Savannah beamed.

        "I actually checked the weather, it's going to be pretty warm all week!" Breanna said. "We can have picnics at the beach every day!!"

        I noticed Anna was especially quiet today. I wonder if she is okay. She didn't seem as excited as the other girls, she was fidgeting with her hands and looking at the floor. Savannah noticed how concerned I was.

        "Oh, don't worry about Anna, she's just a little scared of airplanes. But she's excited for Cali, trust me. Aren't you?" everyone looked at Anna. She just sat up straight and nodded.

        "Well, this will be my first time on a plane too, you know," I said. "Do you have any advice?"

        Anna smiled. "Yeah, I like to hold my breath and cout to ten when there is turbulence, and I always take a stuffed animal to squeeze when the plane goes up and when it lands."

        "Then maybe you can let me borrow one of your stuffed animals for the flight, too," I said. She smiled again and nodded quickly.

        My dad walked in then, with a white box. "Anyone want to play apples to apples with me?" he asked.

        All the girls jumped up in excitement. I watched as my dad took out a stack of green cards, then a stack of red cards. He explained the game to me as my he passed red cards out to everyone.

        "It's really quite simple. There is a green card in the middle with an adjective, and everyone must put one red card on top of the green in the middle. You should pick a red card that associates with the green card," my dad said. "For example, this green card says 'adorable.' You need to put down a red card that seems adorable to you, such as this card 'kitten.' You got it?"

I nodded. The first green card he put down said Favorite. I looked through my cards. Richard Nixon... ancient aliens chasing classic cars... What the heck were these? I didn't really know much about any of my cards. I guess I still have a lot to learn about this weird world. I finally came across one that actually made sense. I put it down on the stack. Pizza.

        My sister smiled. She put down Underwear. "What? I'm trying to make this funny," she giggled.

        Then, my dad put his down, The oldest sibling. Then he looked up at me and smiled. "That's you," he said. I'm his favorite??

        It got quiet.

        My sister looked down at his card and stopped giggling when she realized what it said. Why would he put that? I just smiled and the other two girls quietly continued the game. At that moment, I realized the way my dad was trying too hard to warm up to me. This first week into my new life, it seemed like he was always going out of his way to make me happy. I thought he was just trying to be welcoming, but this was too much.

        This game was obviously planned, he set these cards aside for himself on purpose. But why would he do that, especially in front of my sister? Why was he trying so hard to make me like him?