The Cards Dealt Chapter 1

Marcia

I walked up to the house, knowing that’d I’d rather be anywhere else than on this house’s stoop. Since I was born I’d stayed in the local orphanage, and been passed around from foster home to foster home. The orphanage was constantly sending kids away, and they usually came back within months. I usually caused a stir that got me sent back shortly after my arrival because of Emily. Emily was my best and only friend. Ever since we were little I’d been standing up for her against the enemies that she couldn’t protect herself from. She’d arrived at the orphanage when she was seven, and I was nine. By then I’d already been exposed to all the bad in the world, but she’d had a good life, until her parents died in a plane accident. When nobody was there to take her, she ended up on the doorstep of an unwelcoming orphanage. I knew how to take care of myself because of growing up there my whole life, and I took her under my wing and treated her like family. She was the closest thing I had to it. Anytime I left, older kids would start picking on her, but as soon as I got back there was hell to pay for anyone who had touched her.

My reputation at the orphanage was solid. I was quiet, but I was dangerous when need be. I could hold my own, and I wasn’t to be messed with, which was good for me. I wasn’t much of a people person. My parents had died in a car accident before I was born, apparently. The doctors had been able to birth me, but with no knowledge of who my parents had been they simply dumped at the orphanage. The Mistress at the orphanage had fed me that story since I was little, but I wondered how she knew that but couldn’t tell me the name of my parents or anything about them; all I knew was that they had died in a car crash and left me to the orphanage’s care. Life definitely wasn’t ideal, but by the time I could walk and talk I’d grown used to the environment.

Then a few weeks back I got the big news. They’d discovered who my parents had been, and apparently I had living relatives; three brothers who lived not too far from the orphanage. I went to high school with two, and the other one was over eighteen. All three were older than me, and had apparently thought I’d died in the accident. Now I stood on their doorstep with nothing more than the clothes on my back. I didn’t bring anything with me, knowing that the chances of them keeping me were slim to none; and if they did decide they wanted me I could walk to the orphanage and get anything I left behind.

Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door, and felt my heart pounding in my ears. After a few seconds the door swung open. The youngest brother stood before me. His name was Curtis; he was just a grade above me, and he seemed nice enough. I had only seen him in passing every so often; looks like I’d be seeing him a lot more lately.

“Hi…Curtis.” I hated how awkward my voice sounded. I cleared my throat and persevered. “Is, um, Patrick home?”

“Um, yeah, Marcia- give me a sec.” He closed the door slightly and called for Patrick, all the while my hands grew more and more sweaty. My stomach roiled with nerves.

“Hi, how can I help you?” Patrick asked. He had on old blue jeans and a t-shirt. It was so normal, and I could only imagine what he thought I wanted, and how surprised he’d be when he learned the truth.

“Um, my name is Marcia. I go to high school with your two brothers.” My fingers shook as I undid the envelope in my hands. “I grew up in the orphanage down the street; both of my parents died in a car crash before I was born, and the doctors were able to give birth to me. It turns out that…well…um…” It was harder to get the truth out than I thought. It felt as though someone was strangling me. “…it turns out that I’m your sister.” I blurted it out finally, and shoved the papers into his hands. A few seconds passed before he even registered, and then his eyes widened and he simply stared at me. After a couple of minutes he stared at the papers, but I think he was too shocked to actually read the words.

“You have no reason to feel obliged to adopt me. All you have to do is say the words, and I’ll go back to the orphanage without any woes.” I assured him. I waited for him to express fake apology, when in reality he was relieved that he didn’t have to deal with me. I had had a lot of people do that, and I never really minded; I understood my problems but other people didn’t, but they did comprehend enough to know that they didn’t want to keep me.

“You look kinda like our mother- except for your eyes. Our mother had blue eyes, yours are obviously green.” He was right. I had bright green eyes and auburn hair; it hadn’t ever occurred to me that I might look like either of my parents. For a split second I felt a pang of longing burn in my chest, but as soon as it arrived I dismissed it.

“Like I said you don’t need to feel obliged to-“

“I don’t. I want you to stay here. I’ll give you the final choice, but I’m ready to sign the papers when you are.” His abrupt trust of me threw me off, and I grew more and more uneasy.

“Alright…” I didn’t know what to do.

“Come on in. We have a lot to talk about.” He opened the door, and I carefully stepped into the house.

It was a simple home, obviously lived in by only males. There was blue carpet, a brown couch, and a small television on a stand. No pictures lined the walls, and they had the bare necessities. I kept my combat boots on and sat on the edge of the couch.

“So, you said you grew up in the orphanage?” Patrick asked. I nodded. “That must have been…hard.” I could hear the pity in his voice and groaned inside my head.

“No, not really. I have a best friend in there; she’s like family.” Although I thought that it would be befitting to smile, I couldn’t force my lips to turn up even the slightest.

“Were you always at the orphanage, or did you move around a lot?”

“I went to about one foster home a year, but never stayed for more than a month.” I had already decided before I came that I was going to try and be as honest as possible.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because, something happened that made them realize that I wasn’t the type of kid they wanted. Most of the time I did the things on purpose, because I knew that I couldn’t leave Emily alone.”

“Emily’s your best friend?”

“Yeah. Ever since we were younger I’ve been taking care of her. You know, making sure that older kids didn’t pick on her or treat her bad. She never was much of a fighter, and as long as I was around nobody challenged her.” I shrugged nonchalantly, shocked at myself for being so honest; I never opened up about myself.

“So, you can fight?” No judgment entered his tone, and I wondered what he was thinking.

“Um, yea. Growing up in an orphanage it’s almost second nature. Older kids love messing with younger kids, and you shortly learn how to hold your own.”

“You said nobody messed with your friend. Does that mean you can take down older guys?” Curtis, who’d sat by silently, was staring at me with awed fascination. I shrugged.

“If I have to,” I replied.

“Wow. How do you do it?” he questioned. He was pushing into personal space, and my stomach contracted as panic threatened to overtake me. I took a deep breath.

“I learned a few things here and there, have a couple of tricks up my sleeves. And muscles don’t hurt.” I shrugged again without meaning to. I was thankful when they let the subject drop.

“You just figured out you were related to us?” Patrick steered the conversation back to the important stuff.

“Yep. A few weeks ago the mistress of the orphanage told me that I have family.” I didn’t mention that she’d also told me to get my annoying ass over to them so that she doesn’t have one more mouth to feed. “It took that long for the paper work to come in, and once I had that I was good to go.”

“This is just so…incredible. I thought for sure that you’d died in the crash with mom and dad. Knowing that you’ve been alive all this time…” Patrick trailed off and shook his head.

“Pretty shocking,” was all I could muster.

“Well, we’re happy to finally-“ Patrick was cut off by the door banging open and cracking against the wall. Without meaning to I jumped off to my feet. The third brother stood in the doorway. He was a year older than Curtis, and had the strangest name; Sodapop. When I saw him in the hallways he did leave a lasting impression; he was strikingly pretty. Guys weren’t supposed to be pretty, but he was. Until you saw him fight you would believe that he belonged with the white collars rather than on our side of town, but when he needed to he could hold his own and kick some ass. Right then he was bleeding out of his nose and looked as drunk as a skunk.

“Pat, don’t freak. I won the fight.” His words were slurred, and he wobbled on his feet. He walked forward and literally stumbled into me. Instinctively my arms shot out and I caught him before he crashed onto the ground. Had blood not been coming out of his nose, I would have sat him on the couch, but I assumed they didn’t want blood stains. Trying not to panic, I supported most of his weight and took him outside, to the front porch.

“Who’re you?” He asked. I ignored him, praying that Patrick or Curtis would come get him off of me.

“Marcia, I’m sorry.” Thankfully Patrick pulled him off of me then, and I was free of his weight.

“Are you going to do something about his nose?” I asked.

“Probably just leave him out here until the bleeding stops?” I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was being serious. “What? I’m not a nurse.” He muttered defensively. I let out a small smile.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” I asked. He shook his head. I sighed, resisting the urge to laugh at what a guy he was. “Alright, well we’ll just have to use his shirt, since it’s already got blood all over it.” My heart was thrumming unrealistically fast in my chest as I stepped forward and pulled his shirt up over his head. I wadded it up and stuck it to his still bleeding nose, and forced his head backwards. “As long as…as long as you keep pressure on it, it should be alright.” I was breathless, and my stomach was knotted. Human closeness always caused me anxiety ever since what happened all those years ago.

After a few minutes of doing that, the bleeding stopped, and I felt the nose to see if it was broken; it was.

“Alright, it’s broken. It can heal itself, but it will heal crooked unless I put it back in place.” I told Patrick; Sodapop had stayed silent.

“Go ahead and set it straight.” Patrick told me.

“It’s kinda painful.” I warned them both. Patrick didn’t object, so I grabbed the bridge of his nose, and quickly pushed it back straight. Sodapop gritted his teeth, but made no objections. After I finished we went back to the living room, where Curtis, Patrick, and Sodapop sat on the couch. It felt better to stand, because I was move around.

“So who are you, sexy, nurse?” Sodapop asked me, and then winked. I didn’t know what to say or do; normally I’d throw a punch and call a guy names, but he was my brother, and I wanted to start out on a good note.

“Soda, don’t be gross. She’s our…sister.” Patrick seemed to have trouble saying the word, and hearing it made my stomach jolt.

“We don’t have a sister, Pat.” Sodapop pointed out the obvious.

“We do, we just didn’t know we did.” Patrick took a few minutes to explain the situation. Sodapop sobered up quickly as the news sunk in, and he looked at me hard for a long while, before taking a deep breath.

“Well, today certainly has been weird. First I get into a fight with a white collar and win, and now I come home to a very pretty, hot sister who also may or may not have a nursing degree.”

“No to the nursing degree. I’ve just had to clean up a lot of bumps and bruises after fights.” I told him, attempting to lighten the mood. I tried to ignore his pretty, hot comment because I was not going to let that go any further.

“Huh. Well then, sister, why the hell did they just tell you about us now?”

“The orphanage didn’t know who my parents were. People never actually care once kids are in the orphanage; they honestly just came across you guys on accident. One of you guys must have a name in the system, otherwise they wouldn’t know. The mistress there doesn’t ever do anything she doesn’t absolutely have to, so she must have had to fill out paperwork.”

“None of us should be in the system. When our parents died I wrote down that our guardian was our aunt.” Patrick cut in.

“You can get into the system for more reasons than lack of guardians. If kids have criminal records, or anything like that they get marked in the system because if they get so many offensives they can stick them in there rather than juvenile detention. It’s cheaper, and gets rid of the nuisance.” Those kids were the worst in the orphanage. They would come in and they’d try and cause as much problems as possible. They knew that we were tough when we needed to be, but they weren’t afraid to get themselves into trouble. Eventually they’d be permitted to leave and the orphanage took a collective sigh of relief and slept better that night than they had since the time the nuisance arrived.

“Oh, well that would be me then. I have a few little demeanors here and there.” Sodapop said. “Of course, I probably should have twenty more than I actually do, but you know how it is. This side of town is much less prestigious than the other side, and the cops don’t bother us unless we touch their territory or do something a little more bad than a simple misdemeanor.” I nodded, knowing that I should have had my ass thrown in jail for some of the crap I’d done, but the cops pretty much avoided this side of town.

“Alright, well that explains that. I guess now all we have to do is get you moved in, and…start living life?” Curtis made everything sound like a question. He seemed the quietest of the three brothers, and I liked him for that. Sodapop reminded me of myself; doing stupid things without thinking and get bumps and bruises for it. Patrick was definitely the patriarch of the family, making sure to handle situations with a firm hand and make sure it benefitted everyone.

“Wait, you’re just going to let a complete and total stranger move into our house just because she says she’s our sister? So what if she knows about our parents’ death. She could have picked that up in the newspaper; ya know maybe she found it whenever she was young and has been psychotically planning this for years and years.” Sodapop’s words made my temper spike, and I bit my tongue for a moment so that nothing snarky left my lips.

“I have the papers in my hand.” I held them out towards him. “That is, if you know how to read.” The comment slipped off my tongue without permission, and I closed my lips before others could follow.

“Someone’s got a temper.” Sodapop grabbed the papers, and looked over them. “How the hell and I supposed to know if these are legitimate or not? You came here all alone, without anyone dropping you off, and expect us to buy this bullshit?”

“Soda, c’mon., why would she lie?” Curtis tried to defuse the situation.

“Because she’s a con artist, isn’t it obvious?”

“Wow.” I said, and laughed. “You are a dick.” Oops. I hadn’t meant to be so rude, but he’d pissed me off. “You want proof? I can bring the god awful mistress to your house. I came here without her because I wanted my first impression to go well, but seeing as it can’t get much worse, I can’t see the harm. She hates us all, and tries to warn the families about us. I’ll never understand why, because all it does is cause the families to not want us, but I guess she would rather be stuck with us and us be miserable than her not have to deal with us while we’re happy.” Anger poured out of me, and before I could lose my edge I stomped out of the house…and into mistress.

She stood on their front porch, looking as bitchy as usual. Her nonexistent lips disappeared even more when she scowled, which was always. Her graying hair was chopped short, and hung in greasy waves around her head. Tacky blue eye shadow coated her eyes thickly, and her orange shade lipstick was too gross for words. I hated her with a passion.

“Maggot, move.” She’d called me maggot since I was young, and every time she did I contemplated throat punching her.

“Mistress, why are you here?” She insisted we called her mistress, but behind her back almost everybody called her Miss Bitch or Witch.

“Because you were missing, and when my children go missing it is my job to hunt them down and punish them.” Her thin lips curled into a smile that showed off her gruesome yellow teeth; I’d knocked one of them out a few years back. She’d punished Emily for something I’d done, and even when I admitted wholeheartedly that it was my fault, she continued on Emily. I had to do something to get the blame on me, and a punch in the mouth seemed the best route.

“Actually, I was going to meet my family. I figured I could do that without you.”

“I’m sure you did, you mangy mutt.” She shoved me out of the way, but I made my feet stay.

“You listen to me, and you listen closely. I am staying with these people, so if you screw this up for me I’ll knock out all of your teeth next time I see you.” Her pupils dilated with fear. Even my dumb mistress knew about my reputation and didn’t want to get on my bad side.

“I’d love to see you try,” she said, and shoved me again. I moved, and followed her inside.

“Guys, this is the mistress of the orphanage. She’s just come to…check and make sure I got here alright.” I gave her a look, hoping she’d play along.

“Not quite. I’ve come to see if you seriously want the little maggot. She’s a thorn in my side; every time I give her away she always comes crawling back to me, begging me to house her again. Of course I oblige, but only because I’m obligated to. She has a horrid temper, and is honestly more trouble than she’s worth. She’s the kind of person that is so fed up with herself and her problems that one day she’ll piss off the wrong person and end up dead in a ditch somewhere; not that anyone would miss the little pest.” My blood boiled, and my fingers curled into a fist. It took every ounce of self-control not to do as I promised and knock out her teeth. “See? A few words and the girl is quaking with rage. The only way to deal with these ones is a bullet to the head, you see. I’ve tried to fix her throughout the years, but she only seems to get worse- especially after she came back from this one foster home a few years ago. A bit of a nasty situation occurred and-“

“That’s enough. You’ve made your point. Now get out before I keep my promise.” My fingernails dug into my palm.

“Now, dear, you wouldn’t want your first impression with your lovely new family to end horrifically, now would you?” Sarcasm dripped in her voice.

“The way I see it, it couldn’t get much worse.” I told her, and then my fist flew up into her lip. It wasn’t hard enough to knock out teeth, but only because I didn’t want to make that bad of an impression. “Now get. I’ve had to deal with you my whole life, and I am done with your shit.” I pointed towards the door.

“Your little girl will pay for this!” She cried. This only fueled my fire, though.

“You so much as lay a finger on Emily and so help me god you won’t be able to walk for a month.” I vowed. She was speechless; I’d never actually threatened her verbally before, not like that. Without saying another word she turned and ran from the home, and I wanted to die. This couldn’t have gotten worse.

“That was…intense.” Patrick finally said. “Um, well, do you have any luggage?” I was thankful that Patrick seemed to not completely flip out about the craziness, and shook my head.

“I left it at the orphanage. I never actually thought you’d really want me. I’ll go get it sometime. I’m sorry about that, but honestly that’s how my whole life has been. Words don’t get you very far, and I usually end up hitting or kicking someone.” I warned them.

“We’re not oblivious to it. Soda always comes home from brawls, Curtis and I just choose not to do stuff like that. It’s not in our favor to have a police record on us. We don’t have an aunt, so when we put her name down as our guardian I might as well have signed my name.” I took a moment to think about that, and realized that they were lucky; had Patrick not done that they would have ended up in the same situation as me instead of being decent human beings. Sure, they didn’t have tons of money or fancy things, but nobody on the south side of town did. When it came to good people, they had to be one of the most decent families on our side of town. Hope grew inside of me without permission. Maybe I’d actually learn what a family was. I squished the hope, knowing that something in my messed up life would ruin it.

“But you didn’t sign up for a sister. I promise I will completely understand if you don’t want me. I have a lot of shit in my life, and it isn’t going to go away just because I moved into a new house.” Telling them the truth was more difficult than I thought, but it was only because I’d gotten hope without permission.

“We can handle it, and maybe help you get out.” I didn’t reply; I didn’t feel like explaining how there would be endless problems in my life.

“Well, if you end up changing your mind, even in a few weeks, I’ll gladly go back to the orphanage.” They nodded.

“We were cooking dinner when you knocked. It should be done by now. Do you like chicken and mashed potatoes?” Patrick asked, and for a moment I felt like things might be okay.

Sodapop

I’d been in an alley all day, hoping for a fight. Throughout the day I’d had a few beers and a few shots, and by the time somebody good to fight showed up I was pretty wasted. I won the fight, but not before the guy clocked me in the nose.

I lived on the south side of town, the place that cops avoided at all cost and that white collars loved to pretend they could handle. They would join us in the fights, hit on our girls, and drink with us, but when it came time for them to head back we wouldn’t dare think of crossing into their territory. We never actually got along, they really just invaded, and sometimes we’d fight, other times we’d simply drink. I didn’t used to like fighting, my parents had always hated the ragamuffin kids, but ever since they’d died I’d picked up the hobby.

A lot of people find my name weird, but my mom picked it out, so it’s almost like a part of her lies in me. She’d gotten it from a book she loved as a kid, and I liked that it was different. Sodapop wasn’t exactly a regular name, but it was mine.

Anyways, so I’d come home from the fight with a broken nose and a victory, only to find a random girl in our house. Without meaning to, I’d tripped and fallen into her, literally, and as soon as she supported my weight I couldn’t stop staring at those green eyes. They were wide, and beautiful, and familiar. I’d seen her before. I think I went to school with her. She didn’t talk much, but walked with confidence. She was tall, like almost six foot, and pretty skinny. Her arms were really muscular, and her legs matched, but not in the creepy, manly way.

She fixed my nose by putting it back in place with her bare hands, and I couldn’t stop staring at her. There was something captivating about the way her fingers moved delicately, yet shook. Her eyes were wide, making them twice as large as usual, and she looked a little bit scared. She was in shorts, combat boots, and some type of cut off t-shirt. Her auburn hair fell in locks around her face and down her back.

Once we were inside they explained that she was my sister, and I was surprised that I was the only that questioned her ingenuity. She could have been a serial killer. But then this old lady came in, talked crap about the girl, and left after the girl punched her in the mouth. When she punched her, I admired her. She punched with accuracy, knowing exactly how much force to exert and what angle to put her arm at. She didn’t even wince when her knuckles connected. By then I’d remembered her name was Marcia.

The lady left when Marcia threatened her again, and I figured she meant what she said. She was always with this girl in school, Emily, and the old lady had threatened her, and that had been a bad move. Soon after, Pat had announced that it was dinner time. Curtis went back with me to my room to get a shirt since the one I’d had on had been ruined, and I took the opportunity to talk.

“Well, this should be interesting.”

“She seems to always be nervous. If her fingers and moving her foot is tapping or something. She can’t seem to hold still, and the slightest movement makes her jump. It must have been awful growing up in that place.” Curtis was always so perceptive.

“That was almost us, but Pat saved us. I can’t imagine living like that. She probably doesn’t know what a real meal looks like.”

“She’s not a charity case, Soda. She must have been to some good foster homes, but she said she couldn’t leave her friend. It sounds like she has quite a bit of enemies, with the way she acts, and Emily must pay when she isn’t around. I get the feeling that she’s very protective of the girl.”

“That’s a good quality. It means that you have to work for friendship with her.”

“It also means that it will take her a very long while to even begin to trust us.”

With that both of us went out to dinner. I could only imagine what she thought about the house. I don’t know if it was because we were poor or boys, but we never cared about materialistic things. There was a rickety table in the far side of the kitchen, with four chairs all different from the other. In the middle of the table sat a bowl of mashed potatoes, a plate of grilled chicken, and a pot of corn. A plate was set at every spot, which wasn’t unusual because we usually had one of our friends over for dinner. What was out of place was Marcia, standing next to the counter, thrumming her fingers on the countertop and biting her lip nervously.

We all sat down at the dinner table, and slowly began passing the food around. She took the smallest piece of chicken and a spoonful of corn. She skipped over the potatoes completely, and I wondered if it was nerves or if she was one of those girls that didn’t eat.

“Not hungry?” I tried. She just shrugged. I watched her for a moment; she had great table manners, using her fork and knife and eating with her mouth closed. But it was the fact that she barely ate the bothered me, and I didn’t know why.

“Why didn’t you get potatoes?” I finally came out and asked. She snapped her head up from her plate.

“I don’t like them.” She said, and looked down again.

“You don’t like them?” I asked incredulously. She nodded. “Like just mashed potatoes?”

“No. I don’t like French fries, baked potatoes, potato chips, mashed potatoes, all types of potatoes.” She told us.

“Huh,” was all I said.

“If you want something else, we can get you something.” Patrick offered.

“No, I’m fine.” She assured him. She’d barely eaten what was on her plate. Ten minutes passed, and nobody said anything. I don’t think anyone knew what to say. There was a girl sitting at our table who was our sister whom we’d never formally met before today.

I was about to say something, when someone burst into the house. I heard the screen door slam shut, and so did Marcia because her eyes widened and she jumped.

“Soda! I heard you kicked that white collar’s ass-“

“Winnie-“ I tried to warn Winston, but when he bound into the room, Marcia’s chair was empty. Curt, Pat, and I looked at each other, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Who was eating here?” Winnie asked.

“Matthew stopped by, but then had to leave halfway through for something.” Patrick lied nonchalantly.

“Well I can see he had time to eat all his damn potatoes. What’d he do, lick the plate clean?” He picked up the potatoes an put a glob of them on his plate and began eating Marcia’s dinner.

We talked and ate, but Winnie was the only one who didn’t feel the tension. Where had Marcia gone, and how had she gotten away so quickly and silently? One second she’d been sitting there, and the next she had vanished into thin air. Once we were almost finished I gave some excuse about having to use the bathroom, and began searching for her back the hall. She wasn’t there.

When I walked out into the kitchen, the table was void of people, and from the sounds of it they were talking in the living room. “Marcia?” I whispered carefully. She appeared out of nowhere, a figure hidden in the shadows. Her black t-shirt and shorts blended in with the shadows on the wall, and only when she moved was she visible.

“That’s an interesting trick.” I told her.

“I learned it a while back. It pays to wear dark clothes, I guess.” She gave me a small smile. “I just didn’t want you guys to have to explain me unless you wanted to, so I acted in the moment.”

“That was quick thinking.”

“That’s what I’m good at. I think in the moment, and let the chips fall where they may after the decision has been made.”

“We can introduce you as a distant family member for now, or not at all.”

“I think I should give you guy’s time to process before running around telling the whole world,” she said. “I’ll go ahead back to the orphanage and get some of my clothes, come back here and shower, and if he still isn’t gone I’ll just go to bed.”

“How are you going to get out without going out the front door? That back door doesn’t open without being as loud as hell.”

“Where’s my bedroom?” she asked. We discreetly went back the hall and I showed her the last door on the left. It used to be Curtis’s bedroom, but more or less we shared a bedroom. So it had become the guest bed, and now it would have to be hers. It had a bed, a closet, and a window. We stood in the doorway for a few moments while she stared.

“It doesn’t have a lot of accommodations, but we can always get you anything you need.”

“It’s great,” she assured me, and even threw in one of her rare smiles.

“So, how do you plan on getting out of here?” I asked.

“The window, it’s only one story up.” She sounded too nonchalant about jumping out of a window.

“It’s on a hill, though.” I objected. The jump had to be over ten feet long, and she’d probably break an ankle. She walked over and peered out it.

“I can handle it. I’ve done worse.” She opened the window, stepped on the bed, and swung her legs out. She leaned backwards and began shimmying out, and when just her upper back was on the window, she flipped herself over suavely so that she could hang from the windowsill with her fingers. I leaned over to watch her brace her feet against the window, push off, and land perfectly about ten feet from the house. She gave me a small wave before heading off, leaving me astounded.