"KIIIIIIIIIIDS!" Anna shouted. I winced at the sheer volume her voice held. A stampede of little boys were the first to make it to the dinner table. The youngest, and loudest, I didn't know. He was nearly as tall as Joe and Sam, and had hair like practically everyone else in this house - blond. I glanced over at Walker. We were the only two here that didn't have blond hair. I giggled to myself as I began to think of blond jokes that I'd heard over the years.

"What's so funny, Moore? They put laughing powder in your underwear again?" came a voice from behind me, followed immediately by a sharp tug to my ponytail. Instinctively I reached back and slapped Nicky's hand.

I turned around in my seat to say something, but kept quiet once I realized that it wasn't Nicky at all. I cocked my head to the side. It sounded like Nicky, but it wasn't after all. It was the boy who'd helped us get settled in from earlier. He winked at me, and Nicky came up behind him and gave him a good push. Nicky said in a proud voice, "Only I am allowed to pull her hair, you loser."

"Sorry, that ponytail was too tempting," he joked back, as he took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Nicky flopped down beside him. I felt a hand tugging on my pants. I looked down, and saw another strange blond trying to climb up my leg. She suddenly lost her grip and fell back on her bottom. She looked up at me with big blue eyes.

"Help me into my chair," she commanded, stretching out her arms to me. Feeling a bit sheepish, I picked her up and sat her in the chair beside me. I hadn't noticed it before, but it had a big yellow booster seat in it. She continued to stare at me; I looked away and pretened not to notice.

Ezra crawled up into the chair beside her, and eyed the food on the table. Beside me, a tall, willowy girl was flopping down. She looked at me with a grin on her face. "Hey! You must be Alex. I'm Jessie."

"Hi," I said. It was hard to place an age on her. I didn't think she was older than me, but I wasn't sure. She shook out her blond hair, and looked around the table. By then, I noticed that another guy with long blond hair and a smallish girl with short white-blond hair had seated themselves in the two empty chairs. There was a squeal of a chair being pushed across the floor, and I saw another girl towing a chair across the kitchen. She pushed it to the table beside Jessie, and then sat down.

I waited for a moment, expecting more. Instead, Wendie, Jack, Anna, and Walker only came in and sat down in the four empty chairs. Anna smiled at us, and held her hands out. Immediately, everyone began to take hands. Even the little girl beside me was reaching out to hold my hand. So, I placed my clammy hand into her tiny, sticky hand, and my other cold hand into Jessie's. A short prayer commenced, and then all hell broke loose.

Plates were passed around, dishes of food, and glasses were filled. I hadn't even gotten everything on my plate when the little girl beside me knocked over her milk. Jessie got up and quickly mopped it up with a few napkins, and then poured her some more. She sat back down.

After a few minutes, it had quietened down a bit. Anna's voice rose above the noise.

"Guys, we have a visitor with us," she announced. All eyes turned to me. I felt my cheeks flush. "Her name is Alex Moore, and she's friends with Nicky." I knew my face was beet red. I could feel it growing darker by the second.

"Introduce yourself, guys," Walker instructed them. The blond who had felt it his duty to pull my hair was the first to chime in.

"I'm Zac," he said, giving me a grin.

"I'm Mackenzie," the little boy beside Joe said. "But everyone calls me Mac."

"I'm Taylor," the older boy beside him said, smirking.

"I'm Dawn Plymothe," the girl, who I was beginning to believe was surgically attached to Taylor's side, told me. "I don't live here."

"I'm Avery," the girl at the far end of my side of the table said.

"We've met," Jessie shrugged.

"I am Zoe," the girl beside me said, snobbishly sticking her nose up in the air.

"Is that it?" Anna asked when it got back to her. All of us glanced around the table at each other. "Well then," she said. "That was a success. You can now resume eating."

I was relieved whenever they all went back to stuffing their faces. I didn't like having all of those people looking at me. And man, were there a lot of them...