The next day, it was Corey’s birthday. We bought balloons for him, and a cake, too. 
Candace played on the laptop once she had her slice of cake.
Uh, Candace, the laptop’s closed. What are you doing?
“Huh? Who said that?”
“What? You want more cake, Candace?” I asked her.
“Uh… It’s okay….” she said, while walking outside.
“Bye Mommy! I’ll miss you! Have fun at work!” Candace yelled to Amanda, who was running to her car.
Amanda had a strange job. The work uniform was…. suspicious, to say the least, and her hours were strange. She constantly was on the treadmill, to “stay in shape,” but it seemed like she wanted to look great. I usually have checked the Water Hole Juice Bar at night, but no luck. Was she perhaps not working there, but at an out of town club? Was she even at a club? How I wish I could confront her about this. How I wish I could explain to my kids why Mommy couldn’t tuck them to bed every night. 
Some days, Candace and Corey would play together on the playground we bought. Cassie was more introverted; she spent her days painting and writing. Whenever she wasn’t doing that, she would be worrying about something.
Don’t get me wrong, Cassie and Candace played together, but not that much. I thought twins were supposed to be close.
Sometimes, Corey would bike away to the Riverview Hatchery and fish. 
Of course, he came home for his sister’s birthday.
“Sweetie, do you think their childhood went by quickly?” Amanda asked me before Candace blew her candles.
“No, not really,” I said.
Besides Amanda, their childhoods was boring. :P
“What? Who said that?” she screamed, startled.
Just sing happy birthday, Amanda.
“Okay, fine,” Amanda said.
What just happened?
“I want to become super-duper popular when I grow up!!!!” Candace demanded enthusiastically.
“I don’t care about popularity, I’m hungry!” Cassie emphasized. 
And here’s how Cassie looks as a teen. 
And here’s Candace.
Hurray for new puffy hair. :P
It seems the girls bonded better as teens. 
“OMG! Ur ttly my bff!,” the girls chatted. Apparently, leet speak was added to the Riverview curriculum?
“We ttly need a sleepover sis!” Candace said. 
“I no! We could even go 2 da museum and watch sum kewl picz!” Cassie exclaimed. It’s weird that even calm and quiet Cassie started talking text-talk.
After, I decided to change her hair. She looks better with this hair, right?
“Brighton, it’s late. You have to make an appearance on the Oprah Simifrey show tomorrow for your new hair-loss discovery. Go to bed!” my mother, Alice shouted from the kitchen.
“Mom, not now. I’m trying to decipher what the girls were saying,” I replied, as I typed furiously onto the keyboard. Where did all this lingo come from?
“Brighton, chill a little. They’re just girls. They just want to have fun. You know, like that one song, by Simdy Lauper. Besides, you and Amanda are good parents. You’re a doctor, and she’s a…. I think she’s in accounting, or something? She has to be getting paid the big bucks if she goes prancing around the office like Lady SimSim. Before the Sim Monster, anyway. I mean, what could possibly go wrong,” Alice insisted. I didn’t even know if Amanda was going out to work, or a book club, or anything!
Then, one day, it hit me. She’s a criminal. She always came home with expensive gifts. Not from affairs with rich people or anything, but from robberies. It all added up. Her uneasiness around valuable items, how she walked suspiciously in the night. I felt so confused. Who would help the kids out? How would Amanda positively influence the kids? Once they’d all be teens, Candace would become the hardcore partier, Cassie could hang out with bad influences, and Corey could sneak out at night to fish. No. No. I wouldn’t let this happen. I’d confront this like the mature adult I was.
In the mean time, Alice began to write an auto-biography. She said she wanted to be remembered, and she wanted to get her life saved in ink.
“Yes! I finished! Now to send it to my publisher!” Alice exclaimed, “Hey, are those police sirens outside?”
She was right. Amanda got arrested. Not Cassie, or Candace. Not Corey, either. I looked at her face. She was guilty, no doubt. She rolled down the window so that I could talk to her.
“Brighton, this isn’t what it looks like-,” she tried to explain herself.
“Honey, I know you’re a criminal. You don’t have to lie to me anymore. I just wanted to know why you didn’t tell me earlier,” I told her, trying to hide the anger in my voice.
“Well, I don’t really know why. It’s just not the first thing you mention to people on a date. And besides, would you like Alice to know?”
“Hmm, good point,” I told her,“but WHY are you a criminal?”
“Good question. I’m not sure exactly. It feels like a lifetime wish of mine to become a master thief. I tried going to a shrink about it, and she said that there must be a hidden reason for why I want to be a thief,” she answered,“Don’t worry, I heard jail isn’t so bad. That Lady SimSim video has to be an over exaggeration, right?”
“Mr. Timberson, I’m afraid to say that she will have to spend the night in the slammer.”
“Just a night?” I asked. “Isn’t that too short?”
“No, not really. We just let them out after a while so we could keep our jobs.”
“Um, okay…” I said, confused.
Just as that police car went away, another one came. This time, however, I saw Cassie!
“Cassandra Timberson! Do you realize what time it is? Where were you? Did you spend the night at the bar? Dressed like that?” I yelled.
“No, dad, I wasn’t,” she told me, “I was at Mike’s house. You know, Mike Lobos?”
“You were at a boy’s house?!?” At that point, I stopped. I remembered how Barbie and Bijou left mom because she angered them one too many times. What if Cassie would run away?
“So my sister broke curfew
For my dad, this was an issue.
He got rather angry
He thought Cassie was in an alley.
Now they’re both mad at each other,
But Dad still likes me and my brother.
Looks like Cassie’s out of luck,
Dad thought she was gon-“
“Candace, that’s it! You go to bed, too!”
I tried to hug Cassie, to remind her I still loved her. She didn’t want me, though. She just wanted to be left alone.
Cassie just went to the kitchen, after that, and began to eat away her sadness with some leftover birthday cake. She just tried to make it look like she didn’t care, but it wasn’t working. Deep down, she felt miserable.
She tried to drink and chat with people online, too, to make herself feel better. It didn’t work, she still was sad, though. She was apart from her family, and it was hurting her.
One day, I overheard Cassie tell Candace a secret, while I was watching TV.
“I wanna be popular, like you,” Cassie told her sister, “Everyone loves the popular person.”
“Sure sis! If you try hard enough, you could be pretty like me and stuff, and maybe people other than that Mike Lobos creep could start to talk to you!”
“Pretty? You?” she exclaimed, “You’re not pretty! You have ugly highlights and a flat face! I don’t know what any boy would see in you!”
“You’re just…. jealous!” Candace cried, as she ran away.
I overheard Candace pampering herself in the bathroom.
“There, I don’t look so bad. She’s just jealous. Yeah, that’s it, she’s jealous. All the boys like me more. I don’t get into trouble. I’m the pretty one. I’m the smarter one. I’m the better one,” she said to herself while putting on make up.
Sometimes, it feels like Cassie connects better with Mom and Dad than she did with me and Amanda. She often talked about art and paintings with Billy, and Mom was just nice to her. It made me sad to see her be so close with her grandparents, yet so distanced with her parents and siblings.
Mom and Cassie usually ate breakfast together. They usually ate upstairs, while Amanda, Corey, Candace and I ate downstairs.
With Cassie upset at Brighton, and her sister, Candace, and Amanda being a criminal, how will things turn out? What ever happened to Corey?
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