It didn’t take long to recount the story to officer Dion, I could see he was having a hard time holding laughter in as I explained how the events unfolded. When I was done with my explanations, he turned his chair to dab the laughter tears from his eyes without my notice. When he turned back, he had a form ready for my signature.

  “So how are Liddy and Reeves doing?” I asked, trying to redirect the mood in the room as we filled out the papers.

  “Well, Liddy just started pre-school and Reeves is in his 3rd year. Sign here,” he pointed to one of the blocks. “Reeves is convinced that his new teacher is related to ‘He Who Should Not Be Named,’ apparently he assigns them too much homework and takes away the crayons when it’s time to start book work.” Dion pointed to another block, “Sign here too.”

  “So that makes his teacher a Dark Lord?” I asked as I signed the document, “Awfully young to be watching that movie don’t you think?”

  “The kid is 7, going on 19 most days, and 7, going on 3 other days. I swear they grow up too fast,” Dion added the new form to an awfully large folder full of documents from their previous visits. “Now, you know the spiel,” Dion scratched his head, “Stay out of ...”

  “Trouble, and keep my record clean, yeah yeah, I know this one by heart.” I said as I watched him push my file back into the drawer, it was a hard push to get the folder back in.

  “Well then this time it should at least be a month before I see you back in my office,” Officer Dion said a smile in his eyes. “Which does bring up a point, Luna was asking the other day when you're going to come over for dinner again?”

  Lyri rose from her seat in front of Dion’s desk, grabbed her bag and turned to head to the entrance of the police station. One day,she thought to herself, one day, these situations will happen and have absolutely nothing to do with me. Her face relaxed as she decided how she was getting home. She felt a slight vibration coming from her shoulder bag and reached in to grab her phone, answering it. “Hi Mom,” she said while taking a breath.

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  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why I’m at the police station this time… would you be willing to pick me up? I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

  “Thanks, mom.” She stood there wondering how many times she would tell this story. Wandering over to the side of the entrance, she leaned against the building while she waited for her mother.

  She pushed off the wall when she saw her mother pull around the corner, the moment she stepped away from the building, the sky opened up pouring rain. She grumbled to herself as she pulled her bag over her head and ran out to her mother’s vehicle. It took a moment before her mother unlocked her door, by that time Lyri was soaked clear through.

  “Hey Mom,” Lyri climbed into the passenger seat, dripping fresh water all over the seat and floor.

  As soon as they pulled away from the curb the heavy rain abated into a calm drizzle. Neither Lyri nor her mother bothered to comment, it had been a normal occurrence that things would go unexpected whenever Lyri was nearby. Something small would always be turned into something much larger, and for some reason always hard to explain. But in all the occurrences that happened to her through the years whenever someone was hurt it never seemed to be hers.

  There was that time when she was a child, just after she moved to a new school and one of the other children gave her a toy car, it was an amazing car in red with movable wheels and even the door opened. It wasn’t even five minutes later when the child became enraged that she was playing with their toy car. Confused the young Lyri went to return it only for the child to slap her hand away, causing her to toss it from her head. The car had bounced off the back of a chair and hit the child across the bridge of their nose. It had hit hard enough to leave a scar, causing the child to go into a rage, throwing a fit and accusing Lyri of intentionally hitting him with the toy car, after stealing it from him. That had been the end of her public-school days, her mother instead deciding home school might be best.

  Lyri explained the events of the day as her mother drove them home. The unexpected rainstorm all but forgotten.

  “And the Job, how did they take it?” Her mother asked.

  “What Job?” She shot back bitterly, they had terminated her the moment her fellow colleague fell through the window, accusing her of being a “liability”.

  “Ah, I see.” Her mother knew this all too well. She had to home school Lyri her entire elementary years. Then tried to send her back to school for middle school, only to have to home school her again, after there was another incident that occurred not long after the 2nd year had started. And then again in high school, her mother sent her to public school. This time waiting until she was in her junior year, which worked in her favor, having no major outstanding incidents to force her to leave school.

  “This is already the 9th job since you graduated from college.” Her mother pointed out.

  “Yeah, I don’t think there is another publishing company in the area that would even consider hiring me at this point.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot to mention your brother is home.” Her mother turned into their driveway.

  “Wait,” She paused a moment, “You mean Reiner is home…” She gave a short squeal, as soon as the car stopped, she dashed from the car, and into the house. Her brother was there in the kitchen, “You punk,” she called out as she crushed her little brother in a hug, “You should have told me you were coming home from college.” Reiner laughed, then squeezed his older yet much smaller sister until she squeaked out from loss of air and pounded him on the back.

  He released her then, “Well, if you let a guy get a word in… and why are you wet? … On second thought, don’t answer that,” he said as she gasped to regain her air. “Great, now I’m all wet.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to cut off my airways,” She accused.

  “Right right,” He patted her on the head, “You’ll be fine, so the whole goal of this visit was to surprise you, so of course you wouldn’t know about it.”

  “Really!” She squeaked.

  “Reiner make the table!” Their mother called out as she entered the kitchen, “Lyri go get changed.”

  The siblings looked at each other and laughed before they set off to do their mothers tasks, Reiner was her favorite person in the world. The younger brother who was always happy and full of spunk, he had been the silver lining to all her “sideways” luck. For every “sideways” thing that happened to her, good things would happen to him, the two always seemed to balance each other out.