My Seven Brothers

Chapter 31 - My Seven Brothers

Summer's POV

"Summer, calm down. You're going to do great," Autumn assured me, rubbing my back.

"Don't worry about it! Everything's fine!" Tyler added. They both looked at Riley and nudged him to say something.

"Well, the worst you can do is completely mess up your speech and fall off the stage," Riley shrugged. Tyler and Autumn sent Riley death glares.

I was too nervous to even process what was going on around me. I was giving a speech to my whole middle school, and all my family, and my town's mayor. I hated public speaking, so I was this close to curling up into a little ball and hiding.

Let me explain what was going on.

About two months after we found out the big secret about our parents, our local news station wanted to write a story about it. After getting the approval from the spy agency, they did an hour long report about "The Tuckerman Secret" as they liked to call it. We had to to give interviews, tell our side of the story, and basically relive what happened. Although it was kind of fun at first, it eventually got really old.

When the story was broadcasted, we sort of became mini celebrities in our town. Whenever we walked down the street, random people would walk up to us and ask for autographs. When we went to restaurants, we would get our seats first, no matter how long of a line there was. I remember I used to think it would be cool to be famous, but now I realized how annoying it was.

At Arrowville Middle School, when the eighth grade graduated, they brought the whole school to an assembly where some of the eighth graders gave speeches. Usually they had the valedictorian, who was Josh this year, the all-star athlete, who was Zak, a person who excelled in the arts, who was a girl named Emily, and this year, they had a 'most inspirational student' give speeches. Guess who that person was?

About a week ago, my principal told me to prepare a two to three minute speech to give to my school. I guess learning that your parents were spies qualified you as inspirational.

I rubbed my sweaty hands on my black and white, off-the-shoulder skater dress. I stared at my white, high-top converse, in an attempt to calm myself down. I had no idea what to write. Since my birth parents moved in with us, I expected them to help me with my speech, but they were just as clueless as I was.

"Thank you Zak," I heard faintly from the auditorium. Zak exited the stage and gave me a quick thumbs up before joining his friends. Ever since I babysat for his sister, we've been getting along pretty well. I even got ice cream with him one day, despite it being a little awkward since Tyler was in the same shop.

"And next, we have Emily, our model fine-arts student," boomed from the speaker. I smiled at Emily before she walked on stage, her golden blonde hair bouncing behind her. She was the last person to go before me. My hands were sweating excessively, and I thought I was going to pass out.

"Just breathe, Summer," Autumn said, as if she was talking to a toddler. I finally decided to say something.

"You know, do I really have to give a speech. I mean, is it really necessary?" I asked Autumn.

"Come on, Summer, you can do this. Just try not to mess up," she added, thinking it would reassure me.

"Gee thanks, best friend."

"No problemo! You better get ready soon. I think Emily is supposed to be done soon," Autumn said with a quick glance to the auditorium. There goes the panic again!