The Spare Room

It begins...

"Thanks for the help Lucy."

Lucy whipped her head around, long light brown hair whipping at the musky air. "Whatever." She said, making a 'W' with her hands. "The faster you get out the faster I move in."

We were in an attic, currently being occupied by moi. Soon to be occupied by this little 13 year old brat who was three years my junior. The room itself wasn't particularly big, but I prided myself on being able to keep it clean. Even so the air was littered with the dust particles that had been aroused by our disturbing the countenance of the room. Two single beds, two desks and two freestanding tall boys. The room was symmetrical down the middle. Boxes, few and mostly full were stacked in a pile next to the flip door on the ground ready to be transported downstairs.

"You know what Echo." Lucy said as she struggled to pull the sheets off the bed on the right side of the room, the side I used. "I'm going to give this place a total redo. New furniture, windows....perhaps carpet....I might even get Jan to get me Internet!"

I snapped into the conversation I had been mostly ignoring when I heard that. Jan was my, well, our foster mum. She was a kind lady in her late 50s, who had never been able to have children so had been fostering for the past 20 years. As you can imagine we've worked up quite a family, as anyone who even glances at our dining room wall will see. I'm in a few of the pictures there. There are five kids living here at the moment, soon to be four. I managed to get into a really prestigious school, but unfortunately it was four hours drive away so I wasn't going to go. Jan spends the entire day looking after us all (we're all homeschooled), and our foster dad is at work most the time. Since I'm the eldest at 16, I've found myself helping out a lot. However when Jan found out the reason I wasn't going she practically kicked me out of the house.

So now I'm packing, getting ready for my older (foster) brother to pick me up. He happens to work at the school I'll be attending. Yay....

"Hey Echo....."

I turned with an unconcerned look to see Lucy kneeling on the floor next to my bed.

She snickered. "What on earth are these?"

I could have sworn my jaw dropped to the floor. No kidding you could probably see my breakfast. Pulled from under the bed was an open box that I hadn't seen in years.

"Hey." I crossed the room and pulled the games from her hands, placing them gently back in the box.

"So what are they?"

I ignored her and took the box over to the desk.

"Kid games?" She persisted with a grin.

My cheeks suddenly got really hot for no good reason. "They're Pokemon games." I half muttered under my breath.

Lucy quickly stroad over and took the first thing she saw off the top of the pile.

Naw...." She smiled and placed the volpix plushy next to her face, angled so its big brown eyes were staring at me. "So cute!"

I took it back stone-faced and placed it gently on the pile, only to have the entire box pulled from my grasp.

"H-hey..." I murmured in pathetic objection as Lucy walked over to the rubbish pile next to the flip door. She dropped my box of treasures and it fell in a sad cloud of dust. Lucy turned to face me with her hands on her hips.

"Pokemon are for kids Echo. And you're going to one of the best schools around. So I'm not letting you keep kid play things."

She stood up straighter and thrust out her chin. It was kind of cute, but I would not let her tell me what to do. Plus Pokemon are still kind of cool.