The Other Brothers - Chapter 2

Chapter 2a

Tommy – Good News

I jumped out my bedroom window into our sandy lawn.  I stood and stared out at the ocean as it lapped gently against the beach.  “Why can’t I ever do anything right?” I whispered.  “I’ve tried to be better and cool, smarter than I am so that people will like me.”  A stubborn tear fell down my cheek and I quickly brushed it away.  Then I laughed at myself.  “You don’t care if I cry, do you Pacific?  Can’t hide anything from you.  I guess you probably don’t like me either, coming out here all the time talking your ears off about my problems.”  The breeze flicked my blond hair, and I sighed in response.  “I suppose that if I were as honest with everybody as I am with you, then no one would like me.  Why can’t I just be somebody else?”

My thoughts were interrupted by headlights from behind me, gleaming on the ocean.  The car had stopped at our house.  I ran back to the window and climbed in.  I wiped my face on my blanket so no one would know I’d cried and walked quickly out to the door.  Dad had invited them in.  They were in the sitting room.  I went in, too.

“I have a cousin in France?” Dad was asking.

“Yes a very distant cousin, Jean L’Autre,” one of them said.  “You were his closest relative.”

“Yeah, I think I met him once.  What’s going on?  Is he dead?”

“Yes, and you are the sole benefactor of his last will and testament.  Everything he had, he gave to you.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, would you like to see a copy of the will?”

“Definitely,” Dad said.  The man who had not yet spoken pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and handed it to Dad.

“It is in French.” The first man said.

“That’s alright; I took French in hi…” he stopped abruptly.  He blinked a couple of times, and then reached into a drawer for his reading glasses.  He placed them on his nose and looked again.  “Is this…?” Dad started to ask.

“…Correct?” the man finished.  “Yes,” the man stood up to sit on the couch next to Dad.  “This sum is the amount in his Swiss account, this the amount in his Bermuda account, this the Luxembourg account, and this is his French account.”  The man pointed at different points on the paper.  “This is the cash-value of the landholdings in the United States, and this is the cash-value of the landholdings in France.  This is the amount of all the money, this is the combined cash-value of all landholdings, and this is the total amount.  It’s all in Euros here, of course, so just the money, not the landholdings, would be worth five billion, five hundred thousand, seven hundred dollars, and two cents at current exchange rates.”

I sank to my knees and held my head, trying to keep it from bursting as Dad slumped down in the sofa.  Mom entered the room, closely followed by Dicky.  “Did you just say five billion dollars?” Mom asked.

“That is approximately the correct sum,” the man said standing up. “Of course, you also own over twice that much in landholdings and business shares.”

“T-t-twice?” Mom almost teetered over but Dicky put his arm around her waist to keep her up.

I crawled to my room and scrambled into my bed.  I drifted into a dream of expensive cars and a huge house in France with a topless beach.  It soon changed into a nightmare.  I was made of gold and everyone I knew came and ripped a piece off of me until I was gone.  The only person who realized I was missing was my math teacher, who failed me for not studying.  I woke up and headed to my desk.

Chapter 2b

Dicky – Bad News

I thought I heard someone rummaging in my desk.  I lifted my sleep mask and sat up in bed.  Tommy was peeking at my homework.  “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I just needed a hint,” he said as he closed my notebook and went back to his side of the room.

“Oh yes, I’m sure that’s all you were doing.  How would you even know I’m right?” I pulled my mask back over my eyes to shut out the light from his lamp.

“Ninety-five times out of a hundred you are right,” he said, “Mr. Straight A’s”

He was right for once.  I put on my headphones, rolled over, and turned on my music.  As the mellow sound of classical piano softly reverberated off my ear drums, I contemplated what I would do with Dad’s new-found wealth.  With that kind of money I could go to any college in the world and get as far away from my idiotic family as possible.

I heard Tommy’s bed squeak as he jumped into it.  He turned on his mp3 player.

“I can hear your music,” I complained.

He turned it down.  “Better?”

“Yeah.”  I could still hear it, but I just turned the knob on my radio and adjusted my headphones.  There, it was gone.

I woke up later to someone mashing his hand over my mouth.  It seemed stronger than Tommy.  I started to struggle.  He pressed down harder.  I ripped my mask off.  He was dressed in black.  No, there were two of them.  The one not holding me duck-taped my wrists together and then took off my headphones.  Tommy’s music was on max, probably so Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear the commotion.  Then the curtain between my side of the room and Tommy’s clattered to the ground.  Surprised, I stopped struggling to watch what was going on.  Tommy kicked and squirmed as a man dressed in black clamped his hand over Tommy’s mouth.  Another man in black untangled himself from our curtain and picked himself up.  The man holding Tommy pinched Tommy’s nose shut and held his mouth.  After a while, Tommy stopped struggling.  The man let go.  Tommy fell with a squeak onto his bed, unconscious.  I panicked.  The men who had a hold of me gagged me.  They gagged Tommy, too.  There were four men, two of them carried Tommy to the window and tossed him out, one held me, and the fourth held the duck tape.  I started stomping on the floor, hoping Mom and Dad would hear.  The man holding me lifted me off the floor.

“Pourriez-vous retenir ses jambes?” he said.  They were French.

The duck tape man taped my ankles together.  They brought me to the window.  On the beach, between our house and the sea, there were two ATV’s and a large four-wheel drive SUV.  Two men were outside, tossing Tommy into the back of the SUV.  The men came back and I was tossed out the window.  They caught me.

“J'ai ce garçon,” said one of the men, “Vous allez démarrer la voiture.”

The man who had spoken grabbed my ankles and slung me upside down over his back.  The back of my head collided against his backside as he walked .  My hands dangled below me.  I saw the other four men jump out the window.  Suddenly I was flung into the back of the SUV.  I landed on top of Tommy.  Two of the men climbed in the back of the SUV and the doors slammed shut.

Go on to Chapter 3!