Now, if he was being honest, the only thing Billy knew how to make was toast.

And half of the time, he couldn't even keep that from burning. But if he had to cook up a mediocre dish or two so that he didn't get thrown in jail for trespassing, Billy was sure he could figure something out...

Spaghetti should be easy enough, right? He found the pots, in a box in the corner of the room.

"Alright, water in a pot. On the stove... How do I boil it?" Time to bring out the ole' phone.

After a bit of Googling, Billy set the noodles to a boil, locked the kitchen door, and tossed a couple of boxes of noodles into the pot. Once they were nice and soft, he realized he probably should have emptied the boxes into the water, so he fished out the cardboard with tongs.

After that grueling diversion, he carefully emptied a glass jar of tomato sauce into a pot and set it to cook on high. Once it began to steam, Billy started to feel proud of himself. Look at him, heating a sauce. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad after all.

Then it started to bubble... and splatter all over the stove and wall. He hurriedly turned down the heat and threw a plate on top.

Finally, he was back to something he knew how to use. Billy grabbed a loaf of bread and slid it over to the toaster. He pushed down the lever and sighed with relief. It was almost over.

BEEP! The toast shot out of the toaster like a rocket, and soared over Billy's head, crashing into the wall just as Sierra entered the room.

"I'll have to tell Leo that the toaster needs fixing again," Sierra observed, casually picking up a plate off of the counter on her way past.

BEEP! The other side of the toaster warned. Sierra lifted the dish and skillfully caught both flying slices of bread. She set the plate down in front of Billy as if everything that just happened was completely normal.

Sierra was a stunningly beautiful girl, a year or so older than Billy. The type you'd expect only dated the best athletes or movie stars. She had long, wavy, brownish-blond hair, and grey/green eyes. Her frame was taller than the average female: about a forehead shorter than Billy's. But the part that stood out the most was a knockout smile that had Billy searching for his breath.

"So you're our new chef?" She asked, sliding into a barstool, at the island in the middle of the kitchen.

"Uh, yeah," Billy stared at her incredulously, snapping his mouth shut when he realized he was gaping at her.

Sierra gave him an amused grin. "What?"

"What? Nothing I just..." He stuttered "I thought I... locked the door,"

"You might have tried," she laughed. "It looks like it should work, but it doesn't. Same as most of the brains in this family,"

"Cool," Billy laughed. Then he held out his hand. "I'm Billy,"

"Short for William?" She guessed, accepting it with a shake.

"Yeah,"

"Alright. I'll call you Will," She smiled. With almost a pose, she introduced herself "I'm Sierra Chamber,"

He nodded "Nice to-"

"You're burning something,"

Billy cursed a unique curse and ran over to the stove. He started to pull the plate off the sauce, then yelped and yanked away his burnt fingers, immediately trying again with the other hand. Another curse.

Sierra put a cloth over her hand and pulled the pot off of the eye. Then she dragged Billy over to the sink and instructed him to run his hands under cold water while she inspected the sauce.

"It should be alright, as long as you don't scrape the sides or bottom," she informed him, stirring the sauce carefully.

"Hurry up in there!" Jakob yelled from the dining room. "I'm hungry!"

Sierra rolled her eyes, excused herself with a smile, and leaned out the serving window. "Put a loaf in it!" She snapped, throwing two pieces of toast at him.

By the time Sierra and Billy carried the plates to the table, Jakob was still picking crumbs out of his hair.

"What were you doing in there?" Jakob glared at Sierra with suspicion.

"Working out," Sierra replied, sarcastically.

"What kind of exercise are we talking?" Josh wanted to know.

"Oh wow!" Mom interrupted hurriedly "This looks delicious. Did you make it from scratch?"

"Yep," Billy lied automatically. But ignoring the look he received from Sierra was difficult. She obviously did not believe him, after observing his talents in the kitchen.

"It's beautiful," Mom smiled encouragingly.

"Mine tastes like cardboard," Josh announced frankly, putting another forkful in his mouth.

Jake dug out a piece of cardboard from his noodles and nudged Jack. He leaned over, and they examined it like a long-lost treasure.

"Did you make that, too?" Cassie snorted. Jakob laughed along with her. Not because it was funny, but because the thief had blown his alibi.

"You're hired," Mom smiled.

Jakob choked on his toast. "WHAT?!"

"Since you're 16 already, I can pay you minimum wage," Mom continued, ignoring everyone's surprised glances, and Jakob's outburst. "You can also have room and board. The house is pretty big,"

"Mom!" Jakob exclaimed. "You're straight up offering a THIEF to live here! Who knows, he could be a murderer too!"

Billy bit his tongue. He wanted to defend himself, but he knew he wasn't exactly in the position for that. Luckily, Sierra had his back.

"He doesn't look like a thief to me," she observed, looking Billy over. Everyone paused to study Billy's clumsy, lanky, form. His honey blond hair, brown eyes, and mostly his casual button-down, jeans, and boots. Not exactly a ninja costume.

"Alice is going to have a security system built into it," Leo pointed out, hesitantly. Then he jerked his thumb at Cassie. "Plus, we have her,"

"I can whip your ass," Cassie told Billy, politely.

"Not you too!" Jakob glanced around the table for help. But somehow, nobody seemed to be leaning toward his side. "Josh?"

Josh looked up at Billy intently. "Are you going to make me donuts? And will you delete the profile on any of my games?"

"I have no idea, and no..."

"He can stay,"

Jakob threw himself down into his chair in exasperation, joining it on the floor.

"Uh, that's okay," Billy assured them. "I live just down the road. My grandparents don't care what I do, so long as I'm out of the way,"

"Perfect," Mom smiled. "Can you come and make meals, in the morning, around noon, and say... Five o'clock?"

Billy's brain said "No" but what came out of his mouth sounded a whole lot like "Sure,"

"Come sit down next to me," Mrs. Chamber patted the seat between her and Sierra. "My husband is out of town for a few weeks, you can use his seat for now. I'll introduce you to the family,"

Over the next hour, Billy became acquainted with Mary Chamber and her eight children: Dennis, Jake, Jack, Cassie, Leo, Jakob, Sierra, and Josh.

Dennis was a four-year-old boy, busy picking tomato sauce-covered cardboard out of his food and dropping it in the lap of either Leo or Jake, whichever didn't happen to be paying attention at the time.

Jake and Jack were eleven-year-old twins, whose only physical difference, aside from their clothes, was their hair. Jake's hair was soft and pillowy, whipped neatly to one side. While Jack's looked he'd been through several bad days of sleep without a comb. Jack's claim to fame was close-up magic, which he demonstrated by turning his spoon into a fork, under Billy's nose. Jake's talent lay more in the field of mentalism.

"Look me in the eyes," Jake snapped his fingers to grab Billy's attention. "Have you ever kissed a girl?"

"Yes," Billy nodded.

"You lied,"

Billy looked slightly unnerved. "No... I didn't,"

"Think of a name," Jake snapped again.

Billy was caught off guard by the quick change of subject. "Uh... Okay,"

"Repeat it over and over, in your mind," Jake snapped his fingers repeatedly. "V... Vi... Vic... Victoria,"

"Stop that," Billy leaned away, dumbfounded. "God that's creepy..."

Cassie was 13 and had a knack for causing people physical pain. Her cover was that she was a boxer. She had brown, bob-cut hair, almond-shaped eyes, and a small stature that did not betray her true strength.

"Some guy stole Leo's glasses yesterday, and Cassie beat the shit out of him, right outside the gym," Jakob regaled, checking to see if Billy got the hint.

"Wish I could have seen it," Leo grumbled.

Leo, the nerdy-looking, basement dweller, called himself an inventor. The rest of the family called him a safety hazard. The rumor was that he'd destroyed more houses tinkering than he had years of life under his belt... He was 15. But despite his bad luck, Mrs. Chamber adopted him soon after adopting Cassie.

"So you guys moved to this house because he-"

"Don't ask," Leo interrupted, waving Billy off.

Jakob was next up on the age ladder, at 16 years old. The same age as Billy. As far as anyone could tell, his talents were non-existent. He was of average height, average intelligence, and average social skills, just your average teenager, who had, he insisted, no purpose in life. He only seemed to care about girls, TV, girls, video games, girls, music, and girls. And he liked it just fine, the way he was.

Sierra came next, at 17. She was probably the most beautiful, liveliest, girl that Billy had ever even been close to. While it was obvious that vanity was more than just a hobby to her, it was not hard to tell that she preferred very little to a good time.

And finally, there was Josh, who had to toss his hair over the back of his chair to avoid sitting on it.

"If Josh doesn't have food, a controller, or hairspray in his hand, he feels like he's wasting his time," Sierra announced.

"It's true, he's a slacker," Mom sighed, producing a smirk of pride on Josh's lazy, carefree, face. "But at least his gaming competitions make him money," she looked to see if Jakob got the hint.

"Josh. Age: 19," Billy wrote, then went back into his notebook to go over all the facts again.

Billy sighed and looked at all the cookbooks he'd dragged to his bed to read that night. No matter what he tried to fill his head with, one thought kept coming back: why had Mrs. Chamber been so eager to keep him? Was there even a chef's job before he'd snuck into their house? He was just some strange trespasser with no culinary skills. And she said she could pay him because "you're 16 already," How did she know he'd turned 16?

Something was different about this family, and this situation...

It made no sense to give him a job that didn't offer much else besides... A spot in their family. But why?

That's what he fell asleep wondering...

Why?