Chapter 29

***Angelica***

My brother is always into some money making scheme. I would say venture but that’s too much of a good, legal word to use. He’s just twelve years old but very clever. Once he had me and my entire soccer team to take pictures so he could sell them at a championship game. Another time he asked a few of us from school, mostly the popular ones for interviews. I thought it strange that he asked some personal questions. Then for weeks after we had to be dodging suitors, some from schools I have never even heard of. He even got Bette to finance a t-shirt company he had. That went well for a couple months until people complained of the fabric giving them a rash. Guess who had medical bills up their posterior.  Not to mention the refund for all the t-shirts. Luckily for us my parents are smart and they took out a third-party insurance for any liabilities on his ven, sorry scheme.

He has another idea. This time he is recruiting us. Renee, the twins Shawn and Cyanne and me. Shawn and Cyanne are Aunt Shane and Carmen’s kids. They are eight years old. Twin girls. Carmen got pregnant, aunt Shane quivered at the mention of getting pregnant. They worship their big, handsome cousin Aiden, their words not mine, so getting them to do what ever he wanted was easy.

Tina has a workshop in Sacramento with the Centre. It’s for the weekend. The director would like to set up another Centre in Sacramento. Tina was elected to head that project. My aunts usually volunteer at the Centre whenever they had projects here. Tina asked for their help and they all too willingly accepted. So Renee and I are left to baby-sit Aiden and the twins for the weekend. We had the two houses to ourselves. See the thing is any normal teenager would throw a party and perhaps charge twenty dollars a head. Aiden on the other hand, got this bright idea of a bed n breakfast.

“Annie, think about it. We wont have to worry about your wild friends breaking anything. We got two houses, that’s like six rooms. We could have checkout time before mom and they get back.”