Surviving the Andersen Brothers

My Run-In With the Weed-Wacker

Zach and I lounged in the Library below my room, a thick thriller in my hand and a thin horror in Zach’s. We laid on opposite ends of a double chaise lounge on a Friday afternoon after school, Zach’s feet by my head and my feet by his—he was shirtless again; I came to realize that most of the boys in this house walked around shirtless. Caleb didn’t but everyone else did.

            The first week of school went by rather quickly, though my photography class dragged on. I had no one to talk to in that class, Vincent left to sit with Lucas—which only proved that Vincent only sat with me the first day to help me—and everyone else wasn’t particularly concerned with my presence. Lucas still watched me from across the room and, every now and then, I could swear I saw Vincent watching me from the corner of his eye. The twins seemed to get along easily with the students around them but they kept to themselves mostly.

            Zach thought it was weird for Vincent to suddenly stop all contact with me but neither one of us really questioned it. We just went on with our lives.

            My bruised arm first turned black, then purple, and right now, it’s a nice blue color. No one at school questioned what happened to me. No one cared and the ones who did already knew.

            “Zach, Jasmine, garden duty,” Walter’s voice boomed over the intercom.

            “Garden duty?” I questioned.

            “Mowing lawns, clipping shrubbery, raking leaves… things of the like,” Zach explained, dog-earing the page he was on. “All the kids take care of it.”

            “You all do that yourselves?” I asked.

            Zach nodded. “Dad may be a doctor and Mom might be a lawyer, but they like to teach us responsibility. I guess Walter has recruited you, too.”

            I shrugged as we left the Library and went out the front door. The landscape was massive. It was intimidating.

            “How long does this usually take?” I asked, keeping the panic out of my voice.

            “Hour or two.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.

            No big deal, I told myself, just millions of things to hurt yourself on out here. Stay positive, Jazz, no hospital trips today.

            Zach noticed my unease and he bumped my elbow with his.

            “Come on,” he suggested, “you can help me prune the garden.”

            I smiled. That would be easy. I followed Zach back to the shed where the rest of the Andersen brothers were getting supplies, all of them shirtless aside from Caleb and Vincent—it was unusually warm for this time of year.

            “Jazz and I are going to prune the garden,” Zach told them.

Walter nodded, winking at me. I blushed and turned away—a reaction from his shirtlessness. “Vincent, mow the lawn. Lucas, trim the trees. Michael, edge the lawn. Caleb… rake the leaves…. Jacob, chop the wood. I will be cleaning out the rain gutters on the house.”

We all collected our equipment and went our separate ways, Zach and I being the only pair equipped up the Yazoo with sheers and clippers to take on the beasts that were the shrubs.

Zach looked at me with a pair of clippers in one hand and a twig—like a cigarette—in the other.

“Is you ready for this?” he asked, applying a thick southern accent.