Nightmares more like. "Yeah." I met Dad's eyes and saw what was there.

"No Dad, I don't need a lame ass shrink or something."

Mom didn't correct language anymore when they wanted to have an Important Discussion.

I wasn't gonna have this one though. I stood, putting my breakfast plate in the sink.

"Caleb, it was a big trauma that you suffered. It doesn't matter that it has been almost a year, the dreams you're having..."

"I know Dad, they're a manifestation. A coping mechanism. So what?" I turned, looking at the parents. "It's not like my grades are suffering, I'm keeping up on stuff around here, things are down with my girl... the Js. Everything's okay, you're worrying for nothing." I gave them steady eyes. A doctor was just going to repeat the same crap I already knew. When you go through something as effed up as I did you need time.

Well, shit... thanks for the enlightenment.

Dad threw up his hands. "I'm just letting you know you have options, you don't have to shoulder everything on your own."

"I know you're there for me, Dad." I turned to Mom. "Stop worrying Mom, you're gonna get a brain tumor or something."

She opened her mouth to correct my grammar but changed her mind, giving me a fierce hug instead.

I wrapped my arms around Mom. Once in awhile it was okay.

We stood like that for a second then I let her go. I had to swallow past a lump in my throat.

Mostly my parents were okay.

I walked out the door, slipping Onyx a food morsel as I went.

Wag-thunk-wag.

****

Lake Tapps

If Jonesy could shut his mouth for a minute he wouldn't have gotten the thing filled with water. He sprayed it out of his mouth, screaming, "Hart!" He picked up the old wooden oar and with practiced ease whacked it with an expert slap that dipped and skimmed the lake's surface at the same time, the water arcing and hitting... Jade, right in the face.

She squealed as I sprung to my feet and dove into the icy water smoothly. I did the sidestroke, I was well-trained in it and reached the canoe as Jonesy dove overboard, effectively tipping Sophie into the lake.

The Weller duo poured into the water, swimming as they hauled the canoe behind them, there were only three and Jonesy's began to float away.

"Hey!" Gramps yelled, his cigarette clamped in his mouth. "Somebody better own that or you'll be cleaning my commodes with a toothbrush!"

John sighed, stripping his T-shirt off a body that had lean muscle where only skin and bone had been a year before. "I'll get it Mac," John said.

"Always cleaning up Jonesy's messes, pal?" The plumes of smoke spiraled around him like he was on fire.

"Yeah," John said dejectedly.

John ran down the cement steps that led directly into the lake and dove in. He swam with as sure of a stroke as mine, having been in the same swim class as soon as our diapers were off. He reached the faded orange canoe as Sophie came up for air, spluttering.

"Thanks Jonesy!" she yelled indignantly, her coiffed hair a wet helmet against her head. The mascara was now super-attractive and looking like raccoon eyes.

Jonesy thought that was effing hilarious and began to drown from laughing so hard. I was on him in a second and dunked him good.

Bry reached us. "Hart, you're not doing it right."

I let the expert dunker have at it.

He dunked Jonesy about a hundred times and finally Gramps said. "Okay, knock that shit off. Grub's on!" he commanded, wearing his BBQ-ing apron, which read, Too Hot to Handle.

Uh-huh.

Jonesy punched Bry a good one in the arm, using his knuckles and Bry turned on him and Jonesy flinched. "Hey man! You effing deserve it, ya putz!"

Jonesy's short nappy hair was already drying as us kids left the water. Jonesy, being the Slowest of All Learners, got over real close to where Randi and Alex were laying in the sun.

Dry.

He tipped his head back and began to bend forward at the waist and back, snapping his wet head over the two sun bathers as he did. Icy drops of lake water splattered over the two and Alex bounded to his feet.

"Jonesy!" he roared as Randi squealed, her naturally dark skin a deep bronze at the end of the summer, her face all pissed as hell.

He ran after Jonesy, who was faster-than-hades shouting things like asshat and clown.

Maybe gay gnome had also been thrown around.

Gramps jogged down the deck with one of those styrofoam noodle things the girls liked to use to float in the lake and swung it low into Jonesy's shins, effectively rolling Jonesy, who harmlessly sprawled out on the unnatural green perfection of Gramp's lawn. Gramps jammed his cigarette into his mouth and leveled the other end at Alex, eight inches and sixty pounds heavier, and snapped that sucker on his flank, with a spring and pull.

It was a little like being hit with a towel that was just wet enough to feel like your skin came away with the blow.

Alex howled and Gramps grinned.

Nice.

"Stop the shenanigans and get your hyper asses at the picnic table like I asked the first time!"

"I hate repeatin' myself," Gramps muttered, strolling away with the five foot noodle bobbing as he walked, the thing casually thrown over his shoulder.

"Ya pain in the ass!" Alex said, a wide welt appearing on his side from where Gramps had nailed him.

Jonesy stood, wiping off blades of grass, sticking here and there to his damp posterior. "There ya go... talkin' about asses again."

Archer rolled his eyes. "You know Mark, it seems you're awfully obsessed with asses yourself."

Jonesy's eyebrows jacked down over his eyes and he opened his mouth to speak.

John interjected. "Hey guys?"

Alex and Jonesy looked at him. "Can anyone say, 'repeat performance'?"

Jonesy and Alex shot glares at each other then stalked off to the picnic table.

The Weller sibs were already mowing through the food likes champs. How Tiff stayed so skinny was beyond me. She ate like a dude. When we got over there, I asked.

She stuffed another bite of hotdog in her craw and said, her mouth full, "See... it's like this. There's five brothers right?" Chomp-slurp-wipe.

Cripes.

I nodded solemnly.

"If I want to get any food, I have to jockey for position!" she said, picking up a second hot dog while Sophie, Randy and Jade looked on in a sort of fascinated horror. She must be breaking some chick rule that I wasn't aware of. She looked around and shrugged. "Ya never know in my house when the next meal's comin' or how much there'll be."

Made a sort of perverse sense, I guess. In my house Mom was always a little grossed out by my Food Consumption. It was less than Alex's though.

Gramps came up with a huge ass fork in one hand and a cookie sheet piled high with a buttload of dogs in the other. He surveyed the decimated food load on the picnic table and grunted, "Humph!"

He piled more food on the center plate and all us guys had our fourth dogs. The girls stared.

"What?" Jonesy asked.

Tiff responded for him. "The chicks don't eat like you swine."

"I'm not a pig, Tiff!" Jonesy said, offended. Mustard and ketchup hung at the corners of his mouth and he had orange fingers from the Cheetos.

Everyone laughed and he frowned.

Sophie dug in her mammoth purple zebra striped purse and extracted a compact mirror out of the thing. She opened it and with great showmanship, faced Jonesy with his irrefutable reflection.

He sorta paled then regrouped. "Shows I liked the meal!" he said in his own defense.

I was silently worried about my face too when Jade leaned in and whispered, "You're okay," and patted my leg. Nice, busted by the Empath girlfriend.

A car pulled up and I recognized Mia's tin can.

I didn't even have to look at her car to know it was her, Bry swallowed nervously, running a hand through his hair which only made it messier.

Post-lake hairstyle, with a dash of sunblock.

Kinda funny.

She strolled over, a light tan emphasizing her naturally dark blond hair hair and hazel green eyes. She had a deep green tank on with skinny straps and really short chocolate-colored shorts.

Weller's mouth was literally hanging open and Tiff said in her calculated awkwardness, "Flies dipshit."

"Huh?" he said, kinda dazed.

Jonesy, the twin of Tiff said, "Shut your mouth, moron... you're catching flies."

Mia strolled to the red and white checkered tablecloth of the picnic table and pressed tanned thighs against it. "Hey guys. Am I too late?"

"No!" Bry jumped up so fast he hit his head on a low joist for the upper deck. He winced and grabbed the sore spot.

"Mia can kiss it and make it better, Weller," Jonesy smirked and Mia frowned.

Mia turned her gaze to Jonesy and said, "You need a napkin, Jonesy."

I was always shocked to see how red Jonesy's skin could get, as dark as it was.

Tiff smirked, she was all about everyone's discomfort. Of course, she was immune.

"Not on your life young lady!" Gramps said from behind her and she grinned. Mia was a senior this year and Bry had graduated but he still hadn't found a girl he liked better. But that damn Christi kept him from asking Mia out. They were different chicks. Once bitten, twice shy, Gramps said. Bry just didn't want to take the chance.

"What's your poison?" Gramps asked and her brow furrowed.

"What do ya want to drink?" I translated.

"Oh! Do you have diet?"

"No!" the other girls said in unison.

She looked at them with a question but always polite she responded, "Whatever pop you have is terrific, thanks."

Gramps put more pop on the picnic table and Mia grabbed a dog and a root beer.

"Okay," Mia began, "I'm here. Tell me what all the big deal news is about."

She looked at everyone's faces and I looked around for Gramps. "The adults aren't here yet..."

"I'm an adult," Bry said.

"So's Carson, smart one," Tiff said, clarifying that number didn't equal maturity.

"His name's like a swear word," Jade said, shaking her head in distaste.

John put up his palm. "Okay guys, can it." He put his palm out to Randi, continue.

She took a deep breath, the suntan oil on her skin gave it a slight sheen in the bright shade of the covered deck. Alex put a strong arm around her, his size overwhelming hers.

She began telling us what was going on, when she was done, there was a stunned silence.

"It was really accidental, actually," she said, spreading her hands away from her body. "One minute, I was in realm, the next... I was somewhere else."

Sophie shrugged. "It's okay, you finally got to your acquisition point."

"Weren't you listening Sophie?" Tiff asked with a trace of condescension.

Sophie narrowed her eyes on Tiff.

Uh-oh.

"No... it's not exactly an acquisition point. It's more like an acquisition world."

A tear escaped her eye and Alex glowered, Defense against Tears impossible, and she angrily swiped it. "My mom's pissed. It was fine when I was just Astral Projection. Now..." she shrugged and Alex put her fallen hair behind her shoulder, staring momentarily at the smooth bareness of it. He swallowed and I smiled a little at his obvious Distraction that was Randi.

"Anyway," she went on. "Now that I can float around to different places..."

"What is this place?" John asked reasonably.

Yeah, that.

"I don't know but it's here... somehow. But not."

"Please explain," John said.

Jonesy shoved a bunch of neon orange Cheetos in his mouth and said, "Yeah, tell us about cool shit we can explore later."

"How old are you Jones?" Sophie asked, irritated.

He smiled, his teeth an orange glaze and said, "Older than you sweet thing."

"Yeah, by like, what... a week?" Tiff said, her mouth in a sneer of superiority.

"Still am."

"Okay, we're off track again," John reminded.

"Right!" Jonesy said, stabbing an orange fingertip in the air, no napkin in sight. He sucked the orange gunk off his fingers and I got the crooked mouth.

John and Alex sighed, both turning their attention to Randi.

"So," she went on, blithely ignoring the Cheeto Event. "When I didn't come back from my acquisition point in time, they sent in a level five."

"Wow, those are the big damn guns!" Sophie said, aqua eyes wide.

Randi nodded, solemn. "Then they called in my mom and they stuck me with the juice."

"Awful, huh?" Sophie asked.