Piper winced as she made it to the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the wall to take the weight off her bad knee.
Her dad wandered in from the kitchen, bowl of cereal in hand. He frowned at her, whilst she desperately tried to act like nothing was wrong.
"Your knee?"
"No!" She shot back, slightly too quickly.
Frank stepped aside and gestured towards the kitchen, with a bemused expression. Piper walked through, and did a small spin to prove her point. Her knee still felt unstable, but the pain of going down the stairs was ebbing slowly away.
"See: I'm fine," Bending down to select her own cereal, she heard her father's muttered retort.
"What was that?" She asked.
"That you shouldn't be tearing through the woods. There's proper jogging paths around here," He moved away from the doorway and sat at the dining table.
Piper put the bowl on the counter with more force than was necessary.
"You saw me?"
"Jane did." He referenced Finn's mother casually, but his lips tightened at the thought of her. Jane lived for sticking her nose into other people's business.
"I thought someone was watching me," Piper tried to shrug it off, grabbing a spoon and wandering through to join him.
His head flew up with neck-breaking speed.
"Why'd you think that?" He snapped at her.
Her mouth parted in surprise; she couldn't recall the last time Frank had spoken harshly to her. Then again, he hadn't ever seemed to have a reason to.
"I don't know, I thought he was watching the house the other—" She began, but was cut off by her dad shaking his head.
"Couldn't be. People wander through the woods all the time. Although maybe not so much if you keep chasing them off," Although he finished with a joke, his small smile seemed forced.
Piper went to protest again, but he leapt in with his own question.
"When do you find out about Jack's?"
"I don't know, Elodie said a couple of days or less."
"Huh, they normally decide quickly, that lot," He quipped, which did very little for her concerns.
"Do you think I should look somewhere else?" She stirred her spoon around the milk left in her bowl, frowning at it. Despite strongly disliking the taste of milk, she hated eating cereal with water even more.
"I'd say so. Take a drive to the next town over or something... Hey, I thought you couldn't have milk!" Frank stopped and stared at he bowl, seemingly running over everything her knew about her in his head.
"It's soy milk," Piper picked her bowl up and pulled a face at it, before reaching for his empty one, "I hate it, but not as much as cereal and water."
"We don't have soy milk." He let her take the green patterned bowl from him, brow still furrowed in confusion.
"We do now, I bought some when I was in town," She called over her shoulder as she disappeared from the kitchen.
As she tidied up, her father came in after her, quizzing her about all the properties of soy milk, and was it from a nut? And how many nuts must go in one carton? And—
"What the bloody hell is that kid doing?" Frank suddenly crossed the kitchen and threw open the back door, hollering at some unknown figure.
Curiosity successfully piqued, Piper peered through the window, watching a group of children hurdling towards the trees as fast as their legs could carry them, leaving a carton of eggs discarded on the ground. One ginger haired boy threw a glance over his shoulder and his eyes went as wide as saucers when he caught sight of her. He immediately picked up speed.
From the window, she watched as her father strode across the lawn and picked up the egg carton, inspected it, and then strode back to the house with equal purpose.
He came back in with a large grin on his face.
"Omelette for dinner?"
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"How long are you staying in Mincol, girls?" Jane peered down her narrow nose at the Piper, who was currently having her hair wrestled into some bizarre style by Elodie. Bella was trying to help, whilst Aria sat to the side and look irritated with her own twisted, falling apart up-do.
"I don't—" Piper broke off as her sister tugged particularly sharply at on chunk, causing her head to jerk back, "—know. They never tell me anything."
"Only because you wouldn't understand it. Comb!" Bella ordered, and Aria sighed and pushed it forward with her foot.
Deborah was busying herself in the kitchen accompanied by Jane's friend, Anne. They were talking at a record breaking pace; sometimes about men, sometimes about children, and sometimes about how thoughtful it was that Anne had baked up a casserole for them.
That left Jane watching the girls.
As for her husband, Jack had offered to take James to a football match a few towns over joined by Mikey and a begrudged looking Finn, who had told everyone (very loudly) that there was no point in going because their team always lost anyway.
"I would too understand it," Piper huffed as the older girls released her and admired their handiwork. One side had been neatly braided, every strand swept in and twisted into a single plait – Jane had to hand it to Bella. The other side was Elodie's, and looking at it made her glad that she wouldn't have to comb that knot out come bedtime.
"Can I take mine out now?" Aria complained, gaze fixed on her Nintendo dogs as they capered around the screen.
"No!" Bella and Elodie snapped in union.
"It's not fair that you don't tell me anything," Piper pressed on, not to be discerned by the rough treatment of her hair or her older sisters getting ready to argue.
"Life's not fair." Elodie declared, before trying to pierce Piper's scalp with a flowery clip.
"Ow!"
"Elodie," Jane warned, "Be gentle. And that's not a very positive outlook."
"You have no idea what it's like to be our age, Mom. Life is absolutely not fair." Elodie gestured between her and Bella, who nodded solemnly.
"If life's not fair, does that mean bad things are going to happen?" Piper's voice trembled slightly.
Bella, Elodie, and Jane all leapt in with harried 'no's whilst Aria considered it for a second.
"Yeah, pretty much. If life was fair we'd be back home." The second oldest sibling complained.
"When are we going home?" Piper asked yet another question, tugging on the end of her one identifiable plait. Her brown eyes fixed on the only adult in the room, who surely would have the answers.
Jane looked like a much older, tired and grumpy Elodie. They had the same blue eyes, and their lips both turned down as if they were frowning at you. But Jane's hair was beginning to grey at the roots, and the marks under her eyes reminded Piper of a panda.
Before Jane could answer Piper's question, Aria leapt in, ever the optimist.
"We're not going to. Because stupid Dad has the stupid house with his stupid girlfriend," Aria pressed buttons on her DS with more force at each stupid.
Piper went quiet, and very, very still.
Elodie threw a slightly panicked, sideways glance at her mother.
Bella scowled at both of her sisters, trying to wipe the expression off her face but ending up looking like she was going to burst into tears.
At that moment, Anne burst into the room.
"Who's ready for food?"
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Whoever was knocking at the door was obviously trying to bash it in.
Piper grumbled multiple curses as she finally reached the door after hauling herself off the sofa and away from Dancemania (which was, in her opinion, the crappiest show on the planet but the remote was in need of replacing and she hadn't worked out which buttons to press on the television).
Frank was out, claiming to be dropping by a "friend's" house, suspiciously well-dressed and drowning in new cologne. She hoped his date went well.
She threw the door open to see Elodie standing there, letter clasped in her hand.
"Where's your letter box?" Was all the greetings Piper received.
"Dad took it out a while ago. Your guess is as good as mine." Piper shrugged, as the blonde raised both her eyebrows to an impossible level.
"Do you just let people leave it on the doormat?"
"I guess so?"
"You're not worried about someone stealing it?"
"Should I be?" A note of alarm crept into Piper's tone as Elodie rapidly backtracked.
"No! No, not at all. You don't need to worry about it," She rambled as she rocked back and forth, drumming her fingers against the envelope.
"Do you want to come in?" Piper asked, gesturing inside with one wild arm. She eyed the envelope, curiosity burning brightly inside her. Any longer and she wouldn't be able to stop herself from snatching it.
"Better not, I'm on a lunch break. Just wanted to give you this," Elodie held out the letter with a wide grin.
Piper felt a rush of relief wash over her as she accepted the envelope.
"The job's yours, if you want it," Finn's sister informed her, flipping over her wrist to examine her watch. The strap, much like the enamel flag pinned to her chest, consisted of rainbow stripes, although her watchstrap had faded and dirtied to darker tones. "But I've really got to dash. I left Finn watching Claire's little brother in the shop, so it will be a miracle if it's still standing!"
Elodie laughed easily, and Piper found herself infected with the relentless enthusiasm she emitted in waves.
She waved goodbye from the doorway as Elodie started a brisk jog up the dirt track, before breaking into a run, and then a flat out sprint.
Maybe she wasn't joking about Finn bringing the shop down.
Piper closed the door and flopped onto the sofa, whilst the Dancemania judges ripped into a terrified looking teenager on stage. She really hated that show. Amy and the rest of her team had been on two years ago; she'd been told that the whole thing was rigged.
With a sigh, she tore open the envelope and scanned the contents. Like Elodie said, she'd gotten the job. If she even wanted it. They seemed like a nice enough family, and she supposed she knew them to an extent. But what if it was awkward? Twelve years changed people.
It was definitely unlike any job she'd had before. Then again, she'd only had one other: working behind the counter at the local supermarket. At least there she didn't have a complicated history with the employing family. It paid better too.
She set the letter on the coffee table and closed her eyes. There was too much to think about, and she felt too tired to sift through the train wreck of her mind.
Later, Frank would come home to find his daughter sleeping deeply, undisturbed by the tacky drama playing on the television.
He was grateful that she was, so she didn't see him take two steps through the door and collapse in a fit of sobs.