This is my longest chapter, I think. It's mainly Py having flashbacks, but it explains a lot (I think).

I'm really sorry for the spelling errors, but for this one I didn't put too much effort in editing/revising, so please be patient. The parts in italics are her flashbacks, or thoughts.

After I get to Mo, everything just happens without me. Like I'm stuck in the past. The past which is filled with flashbacks.

"Frisca?" I scream, while blindly grouping around in the dark. I'm terrified of her shiny new blade. It may have been weeks ago that I saw it, but the dent in my face won't let me forget. "Call. Me. Your. MOTHER!" She yells back, the sound echoing again and again in the small little room. The bare light bulb on the ceiling illuminates here face, a wicked grin coming closer and closer until the light bulb whacks her, straight on the forehead. She falls to the floor with a thud.

I sat on the edge of a bench outside. I'd learned that Frisca rarely came here and when she did, people tended to take large groups of kids away and shield them from her. A natural instinct, I guess. I could just go to one of those groups, the parents were nice about it.

"Are you sure that you're okay, little one?" A kind teacher says to me as I'm the last one left on the playground. "Yes, thank you." She smiles gently, worried, then leaves. "I'm Ms. Brown by the way."

A little girl lies down in the wet grass. Her clothes is as dirty as it could possibly be, covered in dirt and mud and grass stains. A strange streak of red flows down her arm. I lie down besides her, for my clothes are as dirty as hers. I have the same streak on my leg, as well. Everyone stares at me for it, so it's nice to have some that's like me- different. After several hours of staring at the clear blue sky turn orange, then black, the girl stands. "I'm Mo." "I'm Py."

"Okay class. It's the first day of kindergarten aren't we all very excited?" Blank stares look at the teacher. She sighs. "Well, let's start with names. From now on we'll take attendance every morning. Okaaaaaaaay?" Everyone nods mutely. A surprising quiet class. Mo rolls her eyes at me, something she'd seen the big kids do. "Now, let's start... Abigail?" A quiet red haired girl with her head stuck in a book raises her hand, eyes not moving up. "Wow Abigail. Very impressive. Reading chapter books already?" Abigail just nods, eyes still glued to The Magic Tree House. What did she mean by impressive? I've never heard that word before. I tuck my encyclopedia away, just in case. "Next is Alexander!" She says, trying to put some cheer into the room Alexander starts crying. "NOOOOO! It's got to be Alex..." She sobs out loud. An assistance soothes him down, and the teacher continues. "Ardy? Bathilda? Belinda? Bracket? Cleo? Dexter? Fran? Geoffrey? Hannah? Hiram? Ian? Isabella? Izzy? Janet? Jeff?" The list continues. "Puya... Puyalla... Puyallo... Puy..." She get's to P finally. I interrupt quietly. "Py is fine." She looks startled then makes a mark next to my name. But one thing bothers me. Why was my name the only one that she couldn't pronounce?

Skipping along the track with Mo, brushing our hands in the willows. "My Dad is really bad to me." Mo says. "Huh? Dad?" I respond. "Oh of course you wouldn't know." She says, not snobbishly like it should sound, "Dad is another word for parent... your male parent..." Male. Parent. "I think I've heard those words on the radio before..."

"I don't have a Dad. I've just got Frisca. She's really mean as well. I think she wants to kill me." "Tell me about it. Joe is just as bad." She reply's unhappily. "Well then," I say thoughtfully. "If they don't act like parents, let's not call them that. Joe is Joe, Frisca is Frisca. 'Kay?"

"Okay then. Where do we start..." Mo says while looking between the blueprint for the tree house and the tree itself. "Well, I've collected all this wood from the neighbors. Planks, just like you asked. And Mr. Johnson said we could use his electrical saw anytime, but only when he was watching." Mo smiles. "Good. I'm tired of sleeping on the ground outside. Let's hurry."

"Well, it's done Mo." I say while staring dreamily up at the towering tree before me. I can' t see the tree house, but just knowing that it's up there is comforting. "We're gonna spend our first night for 3 years under a roof," She nods sleepily. "We will." "And we're going to have a home to go to." She smiles, "Yes." I stand impatiently. "Well then? What are we waiting for?" She leaps up next to me and we race to the tree house.

I stare at the newly-painted green walls. My feet curl around the black shag carpet that we go ta garage sale and Mo plops into the ugly puke-colored bean bag. I follow her steps, dropping into the blue one, hand clenching a worn teddy bear. "It's nicer this way, right?" I say to Mo, leaning my head on her shoulder. She nods into my hair. "Yup. And now we have sleeping bags! Actual, thermal, sleeping bags!" "Yuh-huh." I pause before saying, "And bookshelves. And we have real toys. And 6 new sets of clothes." Mo giggles. "Now we don't need to do the laundry every day." "Mmmmm... And cookies!" Mo grins. "Speaking of which..." I laugh and bolt up, reaching for the bag. "No you don't!" Her grin widens and she chases me up and down the tree to get the bag of cookies.

"That was fun today, wasn't it Mo?" I say happily as I reach in and take another apple out of the crate. "Definitely. I couldn't believe that Ms. Brown let us go apple picking with the 3rd graders!" She reply's I much the apple in agreement. "AND she let us take some home too." Mo smiles. "In fact, she let us have one whole tree to ourselves!" MO can't seem to get over this. "I couldn't get enough off quick enough." I mention. Mo chuckles. "You looked like you'd tear the whole tree down." I snort. "Well, at least we know that we'll have enough to last food for the next couple of weeks."

I'm faintly aware of someone guiding me to a police car, slowly shoving my head down and gripping me rather tightly. A screaming sound echoes in the back round, so loud that anyone within a 4 mile radius could hear. Ms. Brown try's to calm me with no avail, and I realize that the shouting is... me.

The rest is a blur of colors and sounds, swirling and changing around me. Images of a bent, crooked Mo won't leave me mind. My eyes are squeezed shut, trying to get the tears out, but just tuurnign red with the effort. Why can't I just.. cry?

"Py. Py. Your parents are in jail. Py. Frisca and Joe have been sent to jail." The words don't process into my mind. So what? Why does it matter that Joe is in jail if MO isn't here to enjoy it. "Py.. Py your parents are in jail." The words don't pierce like they should. parents. That would mean Mo and I are sisters, and I know that we aren't. We can't be... can we?

Ms. Brown hugs me close in the police car and rocks me back and forth. " Oh Py... Oh Py."

"Py... do you understand what's happening now?" Ms Brown says quietly as I stare solemnly at my feet.

"Py?" I want to scream at her. What is it with people and my name? Who else would you be talking to? What else could I mean? Thoughts punch each other again, and again in my brain, leaving my head throbbing.

Ms. Brown sighs, and then wraps an arm around my shoulders.

"It'll be okay, you know that?" I tense first, than relax after a moment. She doesn't understand my life. She never will. And if Mo doesn't make it through, nobody ever will. Why bothering telling her that if she wouldn't understand?

My mind drifts back to the conversation with some police officer. I think he told me his name several times, but it didn't matter. Officer Johnson I believe. I don't think I would have listened at all if it weren't for his first sentence.

"Mo is alive."

I was attentive to everything else, after that.

He explained it all, in a great detail, and I think he was a reliable source.

"Mo is alive," I head stopped thumping against the table as I looked up to listen, eyes watery and bloodshot. Strange what 10 minutes will do to a person.

"Now since I doubt that you'd be interested in your parents," There's that word again. Parents. What does he mean? I asked myself, not for the first time. "until you find out about your sister," What sister? I don't have a sister, and I don't care about her, whoever she is, until I find out about Mo! I was about to tell him this, but he just raises a hand.

"No, let me explain. Mo has been... hallucinating? I'm not surprised, I don't think that she's slept well for several weeks. She's developed a high fever, which I think that you've probably noticed for the past few days. Why didn't you call a doctor, Py? Or get Joe, or even Frisca to do it for you? That would've been the smart thing to do." He looks questioningly at me, expecting me to go on. I just snort.

"I won't say anything until I know everything." I say angrily. Not like me. He nods patiently, then continues.

"But besides that, I think she fell from something. Something extremely high. But there's no way she could have gotten those from a roof, and there aren't any climbable high trees anywhere near that." My face pales visibly, and I know that he knows that I know something.

"She's broken practically her whole left side. If you want more details, go to the doctors. I'm not a bone expert."

"She's being held at the Maple Town Hospital, I presume that you are familiar with the place?" I shook my head. It should be, that 's the only doctoring place for several miles. He isn't surprised.

"Figures. But to the big stuff..."

I want to smack him. Big stuff? Are you saying Mo isn't big? Not important? Thankfully, I keep my senses together and don't.

"Let's start at the beginning The first murder." Murder? He's spoken 2 sentences on Joe and Frisca and I'm already confused.

"Joe killed his mother. He murdered her the day after you and Py were born." Whoa. Whoa there. How did Py get into there? "Another drunken rage I suppose, because the minute that you two came out, silent like ducks," Ducks? Ducks, are the noisiest creatures that I've ever met. Besides humans. Too bad I am one. "he started going mad, according to the nurses. Breaking everything he could. That wasn't much, however. The nurses got him calm in no time at all. He just managed to throw around some towels, but it was a very strange occurrence. But this is besides the point. Apparently he didn't know that Frisca was pregnant, and when he found out he was so angry he murdered his mother. A sweet old lady, as some said. Loved to knit dollies, bake pies, and her pride and joy were her kittens. She was very disappointed in her son, and I feel so very terrible for her when she had to see her son, her very own son stab her to death... The betrayal that she must have felt." But I've zoned out. Py is my sister. I had a grandma. She loved dollies and kittens and making pie. My eyes start to water, but no matter how hard I squeeze, no liquid comes out. "But besides that... After a while one of Ms. Jones friends mustn't noticed she was missing because they called. Her body was never found, until yesterday." I frown. "What was so special about yesterday?"

"Py, that's when the next 20 murders occurred." I shake my head. "What 20 murders?" I ask dumbly. He laughs mirthlessly.

"Oh, Py. At the hospital in Cherrybrooke, the town next to us. Joe was drunk, and high on just about every illegal drug you can get." He looks down at a file. "All were under the age of 18, except for an 80 year old and a 21 year old. 3 infants were murdered." Strangely enough, the officer doesn't seem to feel any of the pain and sadness mixed up inside me. He just goes on. "They found him through security cameras, and several passerby's that happened to notice a bloody pedestrian. At the same time, Frisca had been getting into a drunken fight. She has pulverized 12 cars, and has severely injured the bartender. Neither of them was having a very good day."

Slowly I take all of this in. Well, they'd both get in trouble at some point or another anyways, so what's the difference of now and any other time.

Officer Johnson peers at me. "Mo? You okay?" I snap up, and nod. "Yes. Back to Py and I's birth."

"Well, you lived with Frisca for a while, but she didn't think she could handle 2, so Joe got 1 of you in court. You, I presume."

I almost wish the opposite. Almost.

"Yes...?" I prod.

He takes the hint and continues. "you were never mentioned again, and I believe that you just vanished from the face of earth. Ms Brown, lovely lady she is, noticed something was up with you, so she began watching your habits. At first she assumed that you were just poor, you taking food from the free-food bin. But then she stumbled across you and Mo washing your clothes, and yourselves," He just had to add that, didn't he? Well, Ms. Brown is like a mother, so it doesn't really matter that she saw us naked, does it? I blush. Luckily, Officer Johnson didn't notice, so I was okay.

"Why would you wash your clothes in a lake, Py?" He asks me. I gulp.

"Ummmm... The laundry machine was broken?" It sounds like a question to me. He just sighs.

"I'm serious, Py. Joe doesn't have a laundry machine. And why didn't you go to the dry cleaners? It's affordable, and Sally is super nice. So why didn't you?" He pulls a shirt out of a bag, then hands it to me.

"Familiar with this, Py?" It was the shirt that I had lost a couple of weeks ago. Covered in blood when Frisca launched another one of her drunken attacks on me. It was where I'd gotten the big gash across my stomach, a lucky hit.

I gulp again. There's a rip across the middle of it, exactly where my cut is.

"Py, that's an obvious knife cut, and I know as a fact that that is your shirt. Ms. Brown was ever so kind as to give us a sample of your blood type. You were learning your bloody type in science, I believe?" I nod tightly. "And it matches the shirt exactly." He points at my stomach.

"There's a cut there?" I nod slowly, again, pulling the shirt up just enough to show the deep cut.

He tsks. "Py, this is serious. Frisca has been physically abusing you your whole life. And you didn't tell anyone?" I open my mouth to speak, but he holds up a hand and continues.

"Every day when you get home you go home to have your mother stab you without mercy? You sleep in a cold room that is covered in blood and stains. There isn't a blanket, and don't even try to deny that you don't stay there. We've already checked the room for fingerprints, and it's covered with yours. Don't deny it, it will just make things worse."

I grit my teeth, and stand.

"You. Are. An. Idiot." I say fiercely.

"Do you seriously believe that I'd go home ever day, a miserable dope, just to see some crazy woman with a knife? Do you really think that I'd not tell anyone if I lived in a shitty room filled with crap? That I'd not tell anyone if I was being starved? Look at the evidence, Officer. None of the stuff in that room is fresh. In fact, I haven't stepped in that house for about 3 months."

I stand and make a move to walk out the door. I know what I know, and I don't need to know any more.

But as soon as my hand touches the knob, Officer Johnson is at my side, hand tightly grasping my wrist.

"Py, I know that you may be upset, but do you think that I'd really believe that you live ont he ground outside? In the cold? This is Canada, it's freezing right now. Are you really going to sleep on the grass in your backyard?"

I think that I was mad at that point, because here I am, in a car, about to show a bunch of strangers where my home is. Just to prove a very obvious point. But I'm not stupid, as they think. I've got a plan.

What's Py's plan? Was it detailed enough, or was it too detailed? What did you think of Ms. Brown and Officer Johnson? Are the names uncreative? What am I doing wrong/right? SO MANY QUESTIONS so PLEASE review! Thank you!