smiling critters

The next morning, Penny woke up to Neil softly purring. He had a tendency to purr in his sleep, but maybe that's because he always cosied up with Dylan when they had sleepovers. but other than than that, she heard Dylan's mom, Georgia, getting ready to make breakfast. She stood up and stretched before going into the kitchen to see if she could help her.

"Oh. Good morning, Penny. Did you sleep well? I hope the storm didn't keep you guys up," she asked, still getting things together to make breakfast.

"I slept well, the storm was pretty bad until Neil got here and helped us fall asleep."

"Well that's nice, I'm glad you got some sleep at least."

"Can I help you?"

"Sure, baby. That'd be great."

Together, Penny and Georgia made breakfast and woke up everyone else so they could go home. Since Georgia was a single mom just struggling to make ends meet, the other kids had to eat at home or bring their own food, but they didn't mind and were happy to bring in a few snacks for their stormy movie night sleepovers. Once Bryson got home, he got to doing his homework so he didn't struggle with helping everyone with their work when he had to help them. It was a running joke in the friend group that everyone was friends with Bryson because he was free tutoring, but in reality, he didn't mind tutoring them; in fact, he kinda enjoyed it. And besides, they always repaid him in one way or another. Meanwhile, with Bobby, she was busy showing her dad's numerous pets her endless love and affection. Hollie and Kai were having a blast racing to the park so Kai could get a rematch in their one-on-one soccer match, and everyone else was happily doing what they did best. Unfortunately, that couldn't be said for Neil. He didn't want to go home just yet, but he didn't have much of a choice. His home life could be described with one word. Loveless. There were just too many people in that house, there was never enough love or compassion to go around. It was sad, but he could live with it because he wanted to try and be positive about something for once. Compared to his friends, he was pretty pessimistic, and it didn't help that some people in his house were very vocal about their disdain for him. He opened the door only to be met with the usual overlapping voices of the interior.

"Neil, your chores still aren't done, I want you to do those before you do your homework," one of his siblings told him. He gave a thumbs up back as he took off all his rain gear and went to do what he forgot to do the previous night. Sweep the attic, wash the dishes, and vacuum the living room. Usually, he'd get in trouble for not doing his chores, but he managed to talk the others into giving him a little grace period and to just remind him when he got back. Once he was done, he finally got to go to his room and listen to music while he did his homework. It was one of the few times he got some privacy in the house. Once he got into the swing of working, he started to sing along to the song in his headphones. In truth, he could talk, he just never told his friends that; and yes, there were times he felt guilty for not telling them, but he had trouble speaking most days and he didn't like his voice all too much. If he told his friends, then he'd feel obligated to talk, even if it made him feel like he was going to vomit.

"Neil, shut the fuck up!" one of his siblings shouted from the other room. Oops, Neil assumed he got a little too loud with his singing. He heard that same sibling storm out of their room and into his.

"Neil, seriously what the fuck? Don't you ever shut your mouth and do whatever you're doing in silence. Jesus Christ, it's like you don't have any basic decency for anyone else in this goddamn house," the sibling growled. Neil frantically apologized before the sibling huffed and left, slamming their door. Neil sighed and went back to his work, or at least he tried to. The more he looked at the paper and the words, the more it looked like too much to do. He wanted so badly to collapse on his bed and go to sleep, but he knew one of his siblings would throw him, yes throw him, out of his bed and start yelling at him for not keeping to his set sleep time. They were pretty strict about that. So he just put his head on his desk and held his pencil, pretending to do his work. His sleeping patterns weren't the only things his siblings were strict about, they had an entire, non-negotiable, schedule made for him. 6:00 am, wake up, get ready and go to school. 3:30 pm, be home and get chores done. 4 pm, finish all of your homework. 7 pm, check if you did everything right, and if not, either redo it or fix it. 8 pm, eat dinner. 8:30 pm, clean your room. 9 pm, be in bed and asleep. It was super hard to talk his older siblings into letting him go hang out with his friends or other stuff like that, maybe they'd let him if he got all his chores and homework done, but they usually didn't, so he resorted to sneaking out to still be able to spend time with his friends. But if he were ever caught not following the schedule, he'd be punished, usually by not getting dinner the previous night followed by no breakfast the next morning, but they got creative sometimes, like the time they threatened to ship him off to a boarding school. Or the time they took his door, which they have yet to give back. Or the time they made him stay awake to clean the entire house and do all his homework for the quarter, I mean, he got everything done, but he ended up passing out in the middle of lunch. Suddenly, he heard an alarm going off, he snapped his head to the noise. It was the 4 pm alarm telling him to start doing his homework. As much as he wanted to take a break, his siblings wouldn't let him.

"Neil! Head up. do your work," one of his siblings battered his wall just beside his door frame. He snapped his head up and tried to look like he was working until he finally got to do something other than sitting at his desk and pretending to do his homework. He checked to make sure he'd done his chores right, and that gave him the break he needed to haphazardly do his homework so he could get help from Bryson at school on Monday. Once he was done, he got to eat dinner and clean his room, even though it was already spotless, before he finally got to sleep. He was lucky enough to get Saturdays off if all his stuff was done, so he quickly put on his shoes and dashed outside.

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