Who Is That?
      CHUG PUFF CHUG PUFF went our car as it made its way through the wet dirt road, to our new house. I didn’t like our new house at all. It was pretty big compared to our old house but we have no neighbors, and we are up on a big hill. This is not my type of house.
      I am skinny and small, with auburn hair and green eyes. I am 10 years old and a scared little girl. 												My brother is 4 years, so 6 years younger than me. His name is Drew, (Andrew). He is an annoying little brat. He started telling on me ever since he could talk! Like when I sprayed the cat with a spray bottle once. And things like that. Now that I’ve gotten older, I don’t do many bad things so he can’t tell on me often, so these days we get along.  He has short brown hair, and thinks he is the strongest in the world. We have to keep reminding him not to pick up/try to pick up rocks that are heavy. He dropped a big rock on his toe once, he broke his toe, and apparently that didn’t teach him his lesson.
      My sisters’ name is Catherine. She is 15 and thinks she is the prettiest in the world. She always is looking at herself in the mirror, and is always fixing her hair. One time I asked her why she was like that, she gave me a really short answer, Boys I guess she thinks she is an expert in boys; she hangs around them a lot. I can’t stand hanging around boys! They are disgusting, and annoying. My parents’ names are Steve and Monica. They both have black hair and are weird.  They dress as if they are still living in the 80s. I’m like HELLOO! Welcome to the 21st century!
      Screech!   “Sorry ‘bout that sweets!” Ma said in a bubbly voice with a gigantic grin on her face as the car rolled bumpily in to our new driveway. 
      “Here is our new home!” Said dad excitedly jumping up and down in his seat. Everyone kid in the car groaned! Even The little boy who was looking forward to moving groaned! “Get your bags out of the car and we will walk together in to our new house.” I was the last one out of the car. I wanted to stall as long as I could because maybe if they saw how much we kids were hurting, they would turn around and we would go home. Slam went the trunk door. I couldn’t believe that my ma and dad were making us stay in this crappy place! And have such a junky car!  There is rust all over it; I bet it has been in multiple crashes before! I stomped up all the way to the house.					
       Splash! “Oops sorry Catherine! Didn’t see the mucky puddle there!” I said mockingly as Catherine let out a burst of surprise and ran ahead to ma. I chuckled. 	
      Then I noticed the land we were on. With lots of wilted green trees that looked sad, not too happy looking. I was walking up the dirt path that led to the house next to an apple orchard. It looked like it had been abandoned. No flowers, unlike our old house. No sunshine now. It rained before, and is starting lightly again. 
      Catherine, Ma and Dad were already in and they left the door open. Drew was hangin’ with me. When we got to the front steps, we both looked in to the gloomy house. We looked at each other, and didn’t move. Drew grasped my hand as if he was scared. 		“Please Maria! Don’t make me go in there.” Pleaded Drew.					“I won’t go in there unless we have to!” I said agreeing. We just stood on the old bent up porch for a while, ‘til we heard,	“Maria! Drew! Get in here! It’s pouring out there!” said a voice. We walked slowly and cautiously in to the house. By now Drew had let go of my hand, but as soon as I knew it, my hand was wrapped up in his, and he was squeezing the life out of my hand!	“It’s O.K.! But we have not found the light switch with yet.” Said the voice. A bright yellow light came streaming in our eyes, from inside the house. My heart started to beat faster. As the light got closer the faster my heart beat, and the tighter the grip got on my hand became. 
      “It’s just me!” Ma said giggling. Drew and I let out a sigh of relief. Ma told us to help a light switch, gave us a flashlight, and was off again in search for the light switch.  My first thought was to look in the most illogical place, because this is a crazy and weird house, so I assumed they put the light switch in the most unusual place possible. That to me is the bathroom. We groped around, and wandered for a good 15-20 minutes, until I gave up trying to find the bathroom. It was hard to see because of all the stuff they had in the house, it was dark outside now, and the flashlight gave off a limited amount of light. We went to the front door which took us even longer to find because we had gotten ourselves stuck in this maze like house. We got there, slowly but surely and I checked right next to the door, because after all it was the most logical place. And…there it was! I turned it on, and the whole house was enlightened.										“Whoa!” Drew gasped. It was pretty impressive I have to admit.  It had lots of mirrors (for Catherine! Ha Ha) they had lots of room, big rooms, and lots of silver, and gold, looking stuff; it also had soft and SUPER fuzzy carpets and some hardwood floors. 		“Good! There you are! We thought we lost you!” said dad in a concerned tone. Ma ad Catherine giggled at dads’ expression.								“Drew and I are going to go check out the upstairs. Anyone want to come along?” I asked a boring tone.												“All of us will come up. Maria, you can pick your room first since you didn’t want to move in the first place.” Ma said kindly.									“Thank you ma-“											“I want to pick my room first!” said Catherine in a sassy voice. 					“You listen to what your ma says!” Ordered dad. We meandered upstairs, and when I saw the first room, I knew that was the one I wanted. Then Drew picked. He picked the one right next to me. Then my parents, picked their room, and Catherine was left with the room at the end of the hall. We all froze for like 3 seconds.							“Well what do you say? Why don’t we check it out?” I asked in an enthusiastic way. We had seen all the other rooms and unpacked except for her. We strolled to the end of the hall way. Suddenly I felt as if something were wrong with that room. But I ignored that feeling. I had a feeling Drew felt it too. I didn’t mention anything. 					We unpacked and ate a dinner of PB and Js. After we went searching for a TV. But there wasn’t any luck. So we had to entertain ourselves without any electronics. That was pretty hard. Well not for Catherine, she is doing what she usually does; fixing her hair and making sure she didn’t have acne. Drew and I wandered around the house, finding interesting things, like some trap doors, that we don’t know where they lead to. All of them were big enough for us to fit through. Drew and I started to go through one, but he chickened out, so we went back. We found the basement, and explored that too.  Soon it was time to go to bed. We all wanted to so we could search the house more the next day. It was actually fun finding things in the house. I got my pajamas on and helped Drew brush his teeth. We hopped in bed, and tried to fall asleep. I couldn’t, because I was thinking about that feeling I had, that made me feel unsecure. Not long after we got in bed, Drew came in my room, and jumped in my bed. He told me all about the feeling he had which was the feeling that I had too. He stayed with me for a bit, but then I sent him off to his own room. I fell asleep. 												“Wah!” I woke up suddenly. What is that? I thought. I got out of bed and opened my door. Walked out in to the hall way and opened my brother’s room. “Drew? Drew are you okay?” I whispered.											“Yes Maria. I’m okay.” A meek voice replied to me.						“Go back to sleep now Drew.” I said soothingly. I walked back to my room, but on the way, I figured out where it was coming from. It was coming from the room at the end of the hall. I didn’t want to wake anyone up, so I went back to bed thinking that Catherine was crying because she didn’t get the room she wanted.							The next morning I woke up to Drew flicking my forehead, and whispering in my ear. I went down stairs, heard my sisters piercing singing voice; “We will we will rock you! Yay! We will we will rock you, rock you!” 									I was tired all day. I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. And I was busy getting used to the new house all day, so I didn’t have any time to sleep. I strolled around. Outside the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful morning, in the afternoon I rained again, so I explored all the rooms in the basement. Jeez! There were a lot of rooms! The owners’ whole family must have been living down there!								That night the same thing happened. The cry, then Drew came in. But this time, instead of going to Drew’s room to check on him, I went to Catherine’s room. It took a while for me to get the nerve to go check on her because it was like midnight. I crept down the hall while my shadow moved down the wall, making me jump every once in a while. Slowly opening the door; I caught the scent of ashes, and smoke. And most of Catherine’s belongings were gone, she was gone too. I didn’t get any more sleep then the night before, actually much less.  I don’t think I even slept at all.
      The next morning Drew was happy and jumping all over my bedroom. Causing thumps, and bangs and lots of crashes.  We both went down stairs and I didn’t hear Catherine singing. She wasn’t even at breakfast. So I asked ma and dad,” Where is Catherine? Is she still asleep?”									“Who is Catherine, Maria?” they questioned.
      “Your daughter! Duh! Obviously!  She is 15 and thinks she is pretty.” I answered, stunned.												“You are our only girl we’ve ever had! You are making us worry about you because you are saying this that isn’t true!”  They said. Then I ran up to Catherine’s old bedroom, it had Drew’s stuff in it, his blue bed, everything. My next stop was my parent’s room. They always keep photos of us o their dressers. None! No pictures of Catherine! Gosh! Where did her picture go?!?!? All of this was weird!
      I ran to the abandoned orchard, climbed a tree and sat down in it, thinking. Why did this happen? How did this happen? Why did we have to move here in the first place? I hate this place! Now what is going to happen? Something to me? Something to Drew? Something to my parents? I don’t want anything to happen! 
      I wandered about for the rest of the day, wandering around the “neighborhood” or so they call it a neighborhood. Thinking that if only my parents knew what happened last night, than we might move back to the new house. But of course they have no way of knowing if they can’t even remember their daughter!
      That night no sleep came again. Too much stuff to think about! My sister disappearing, my parents forgetting, everything seemed different. Too different! “Wah!” Oh! There it is again! No! I thought! Not Drew! NNOO!! I sprinted to his room. But I was too late! Only ashes on the ground, except this time, there was no stuff left in the room. Just all ashes! 
      The next morning, I asked ma and dad,” Where is Drew?” As before their answers were,” You are our only child! What are you talking about?” I finally gave up asking them, and bawled my eyes out. They don’t understand! They don’t know! I locked myself in my room the whole day, not letting anyone in. I wasn’t in the mood. 
      The next morning I woke up with my parents gone, and I felt much different too.  I heard some strange voices, saying,”…..ever since this sad event happened which made the Fly family go missing, 15 years ago there were no bodies left! No one knows where they went. “I wanted to scream;   I am   here! I am alive! But I didn’t. They wouldn’t have heard me any way so there was no use in trying. I gave up; there was nothing I could do. 
      
Who Is That?, 6-8. P.1