Dinner Bonding

Not long after her outburst, she stepped from the office, her face now flustered and shocked. She walked soundlessly into the living room.

Her sister sat strawn on the couch, her eyes focus on the tv. She was watching some unrecognisable animated show on the tv.

Annabelle sat down next to her, making the older girl jump. "Jesus, I didn't hear you coming. I must say it's a big relief not being the only girl in the house. The boys can get very rough and loud sometimes. And exhausting, they're always yelling well except in the morning, they're quiet and grumpy." She paused her monologue, looked at Ann and her cheeks heated up. "Sorry, I often don't know when to shut up, especially when I'm excited."

Annabelle smiled and nodded understandingly, "Happens to the best of us. I'm Annabelle Lee, just Annie or Annabelle, you probably already know that, due to the whole introduction scandal. We are sisters, aren't we?"

The other female laughed warmly before nodding her head. "Yes, we're sisters. I'm Ceanna. Good job, on sticking up to Blake, not many people would be brave enough to do that."

"Was a rather childish thing to do, but I'm quite hot-headed and have never been good at first impressions so it was to be expected."

"Yeah..." She said and the conversation took a left turn down 'Awkward street'.

"Right...Do you mind showing me around the house?" She asked trying to break the tension.

It worked. "Sure, come along with me."

She followed Ceanna around the massive house as she gestured to the occasional rooms. Up until they found her room. The walls were all black, her carpet thick and dark grey, and her bed, white, and soft. It was perfect.

"Do...do you like it?" Ceanna asked cautiously as if approaching a hurt predator.

"Yes, it's absolutely exquisite." She said grinning from ear to ear.

Her older sister laughed, "No idea what that word means, but by the look on your face, I'll take that it's a good thing. Do you wanna get settled in? One of us will probably call you when dinner is ready."

"Yes please." She smiled respectfully, as ceanna turned to walk out she shouted after her. "Thank you!"

"No worries, the boys and I have been waiting for song long to get you back, we are so happy to have you home, even Blake." She smirked, reminding Anna of the disrespect she had shown her older brother.

Annabelle laughed awkwardly, she'd never been good with emotion or people, she was as her mother put it "to socially awkward to do anything", on top of this Anna was extremely uncoordinated. Her mother used to say "She's rubbish at almost everything, except school she makes up for it in brains.", it was safe to say, Michelle Wilson was not the most supportive mother.

Built-in a miniature pyramid was the small number of Annabelle's belongings, little trinkets in her lifetime. Things like old bottles, compasses, teddy bears, clothes, books (lots of books), and snowglobes (filled with miny sculptures of the places she'd visited across her former country.

Carefully Belle pulled out every single one of them, placing them in their correct places around the room and in her cupboards.

When she was finished she grabbed her book of the shelf and laid on top of her bed and began reading. After some time reading, her eyes began to feel heavy, the words were no longer formulating a sentence, and she couldn't imagine the story before her. Jet lag was really catching up to her. The book toppled from her hands and her body went slack as she closed her eyes to get to sleep.

Several hours later a large gust of wind made the windows ratter loudly, the young girl groaned and turned over, and looked outside. The snow was no longer falling softly, in fact it was falling at all. Instead heavy droplets of water were spilling on to the ground. The sky outside was covered by thick black, threatening clouds, and large bolts of electricity were dancing across the horizon, as loud booming shouts echoed down from the sky. If not for the clock beside her Annabelle would have thought it was night time due to the black shadow that loomed across the grounds covering, the mansion and further beyond the eye can see.

She wasn't scared of storms, in fact they fascinated her, normally she would get up and sit by the window and watch as the raging party outside played out. But as she got off the bed she heard a firm rap on the door.

"Dinner's ready." Blaire's gruff voice spoke through the door.

"Coming!" She shouted back, quickly pulling on some trousers and a baggy jumper. It wasn't the prettiest and most fashionable outfit, but rarely anything the twelve-year-old wore was, she'd never been popular, so she'd decided not to dress as the popular kids did and instead stick to things that were comfy and made her feel safe, which just so happened to be oversized jumpers, baggy pants and the occasional beanie.

Wandering down the stairs she fiddled nervously with the ring on her finger. Downstairs everyone sat at the table, as she walked in they all turned to look at her simultaneously, which she had to admit was rather abnormal and creepy.

"Gooday..." Her hand started twisting the ring so fast she was twisting her own skin she ran her foot up and down the back of her calf, avoiding the gaze of the older people in front of her.

The twins chuckled and she thought they were laughing at her awkward personality. She worked out they were laughing at her accent when Drake started saying "If you couldn't tell she was Australian before you can now. 'Gooday Mate, put a shrimp on the barbie would' ya.'

"Prawn." She muttered.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Pardon?"

"It's a prawn, no one says 'shrimp' in Australia. They say 'prawn'."

"Oh," He said his face flushed. "I was just going off the stereotype." The boys around him laughed at his embarrassment.

"Yeah, most people do. It's an annoyingly common mistake."

She walked up and sat beside Ceanna, who was chuckling under her breath at the show that Annabelle had just put on.

They started eating and an unnatural silence settled across the table. After what seemed like forever, Tom cleared his throat and spoke. "So, Lee, how was the flight over?"

She looked up and made eye contact, "Alright, the jet lag after landing though is terrible."

He chuckled, "I can imagine. What kind of things do you enjoy?"

"Ummm," She paused for a minute. "Definitely eighties and nineties music and a bit of The Beatles. My favourite subject at school is probably Humanities. I enjoy baking, even though I am terrible at it, I enjoy reading, building things, solving puzzles. Eating and Sleeping would also have to be quite high on my favourites list. How about you?"

"Very good question. I enjoy rap music. I used to enjoy Maths at school" He ignored Annabelle and Ceanna's vomiting noises at his choice of a favourite subject. "I am reasonably good at writing. And enjoy cooking deserts."

Belle nodded her head not sure what to say next to continue the conversation. Fortunately, Ceanna came to her rescue. "I for one love Sienna Ferris's songs. My favourite subject would have to be Lunch by far. I for one can actually cook. And I love watching Tv shows and movies."

Surprisingly everyone else joined in an by the end of dinner she'd learnt that Blake enjoyed doing 'Adult things' with girls. Eating and sleeping and he hated everything about school." Drake and Blaire were very similar. Charles's was rather boring. "I find studying and working rather interesting. Also making sure that the house doesn't get turned into ruins with my younger brothers living here."

She went to sleep that night feeling a little more welcomed into her family that she never knew existed.