A/N: After very long months of writer's block here is the chapter 2 for this story.
The bell rang echoed in the emptiness of Mission High School campus and almost every student inside the building got up simultaneously. If someone would have been standing outside the grounds, they would have seen, barely five minutes after the bell, a pack of teenagers rushing home after a very tiresome first day of school. Michelle and Jenny, along with two new friends, were part of that pack.
"What are you doing tonight, Jen?" Jamie Heyden asked her new friend.
"My parents are taking me out to dinner for my first day of high school." Jenny replied, making a disgusted face. "You?"
"Mine are doing the same thing." Jamie answered. "How about you Kim?"
"Same thing. My parents said that the first day of high school is a special day and that I deserved to have a special meal. I'm the oldest in my family."
"Kim had seven brothers and sisters." Jamie added.
"Wow!" Jenny replied, amazed.
"How about you, Michelle?" Jamie asked, glancing over at the blond.
Michelle, who had kept quiet during the whole conversation, turned to her friends. They were all looking at her expectantly. How was she supposed to tell them that, since D.J. and Stephanie had already gone to high school, that her family hadn't prepared anything special for her. She hated pity but she didn't to be left out either.
"I don't know yet." Michelle replied. "My family tends to throw surprise dinners."
"I'm sure that's what they did." Kim said. "I'm sure they're currently preparing your surprise dinner party."
The four friends reached the corner. Jamie and Kim paired up.
"Well we live that way." The two girls announced. "So we'll see you two tomorrow?"
Jenny and Michelle nodded before crossing the intersection. Seconds later, Kim and Jamie were doing the same thing in another direction.
The walk home was far from quiet. The two best friends discussed their day thoroughly, making sure not to forget any important details. James Simons, the hottest guy in the nineth grade, wasn't left out. But the nearer Michelle got to her house, the quieter she got. She listened to her best friend rambling on about James, only nodding every once in a while to show her friend she was really listening. But her mind was somewhere else.
She had met Marshall Philip, a very nice boy in her English class. Marshall had asked her to borrow a pen. She had immediately found him cute and when the teacher had asked her class to pair up, she had immediately asked Marshall. It had been on her way out of class that she had been stopped by Kim.
"Why did you pair up with Marshall Philip?" Kim had asked her, eyebrows risen in confusion.
"I don't know." Michelle had replied, shrugging. "I just find him nice."
"I'm guessing he asked you for your pen."
Michelle had nodded.
"His parents are poor and they don't even have enough money to buy him school supplies." Kim had then explained. "You shouldn't hang out with people like him. You're a Tanner, your dad is on TV. You should hang out with me and my friend Jamie. Our parents are on TV too."
She hadn't known what else to say. She didn't really know Kim but the girl seemed to know a lot of stuff about everything. She had redone Michelle's makeup during their break in-between classes and had the same schedule as her. And Michelle was in no position to pass out friends in classes where she didn't know anybody. So she had socialized with Kim Davis, daughter of Martin Davis, news anchor on her father's TV channel, and Jamie Heyden, daughter of popular journalist Monica Heyden. Later, she had been joined by Jenny who shared the same gym class.
And so now, she thought about Marshall. He had seemed really sweet and nice when they had worked together in class, he had made her laugh and she had been so sure Marshall would have become one of her friends. Now, she wasn't quite sure anymore.
Jenny finally stopped talking and it was only then that Michelle realized they had reached her street. She bid farewell to her friend before walking off in the direction of her house. Her bag was beginning to feel heavy on her shoulders and Michelle wondered if high school would always be like that: a bunch of heavy books to bring home every day in her bag.
Her eyes fell on her aunt's car in the street. She frowned. Rebecca was never home before her. Feeling her heart racing in her chest at the thought that maybe something bad had happened, she jogged the remainder of the distance and burst inside the house. She could hear voices in the kitchen and Michelle immediately knew that everybody was home. She frowned again. What was going on?
She took off her shoes and threw her bag at the bottom of the steps. Quietly she made her way to the kitchen and slowly opened the door. Six heads all turned to her.
"Hey everybody!" She said, tentatively. "What's going on? Why is everyone here?"
"Rebecca and Jesse have some great news to tell us but we were all waiting for you." Danny replied.
"Yeah. We were waiting for you." Nicky added.
"Now that she's here, could you pleeeease tell us your great news?" Joey asked.
The twins giggled beside him.
"Okay." Rebecca said, a smile tugging at her lips.
Then, taking a deep breath, she added:
"I'm pregnant."
Silence fell over the room. Jesse and Rebecca beamed proudly at them while they stared at them in shock. Michelle's eyes immediately went to her aunt's stomach. If she was pregnant, she wasn't far along. Not enough to show, anyway.
"Wow!" Joey finally said, after a few seconds of silence.
"Well congratulations, Rebecca." Danny added before turning to the twins. "Isn't it great guys? You're going to have a baby brother or sister."
"YAY!" The twins cried in unison.
"We've actually known for a while." Jesse explained. "We were just waiting for it to be official before we told you guys."
Danny frowned.
"Official? You weren't sure that Rebecca was pregnant?"
Rebecca and Jesse exchanged looks.
"What's going on?" Joey asked, sensing that the exchanged look had meant something more.
Jesse cleared his throat.
"We've been thinking about it for a while now. With this new baby, the attic is going to be too small for us." Jesse started.
"So about a month ago, we started looking for a new house."
Michelle sighed in frustration. She had done this in the eighth grade, she was supposed to know all this stuff already. She loved math, she was good at it! Yet she couldn't find the answer to that stupid problem.
She couldn't concentrate. The words echoed in her mind.
We made an offer.
They had made an offer on a house. She didn't know much about buying houses but she had feeling, by the reaction her dad and Joey had had, that it meant there was a good chance they were going to move, and soon. She didn't want them to move. Too much had already changed as it is. The house already seemed too big for the seven of them. If her uncle Jesse and her aunt Rebecca moved out, there would only be her, her father and Joey left. She didn't want that. They were a big and happy family. What would happen if Jesse and Rebecca left?
A knock on her door made her look up from her math book.
"Come in."
The door slowly opened and Michelle went back to her homework.
"Munchkin, we need to talk."
She felt the left side of her bed lower as her uncle sat down beside her. She glanced up at him.
"Why do you have to move?"
"We already told you. There wouldn't be enough room in the attic for another baby. We need to move, Michelle. Trust me, we wouldn't be if we didn't have to."
"Then don't. There's plenty of room in the house. You could put the baby in the guest room."
"Michelle, that wouldn't work. Rebecca and I would have to go up and down the stairs ten times a night. Look, I know you want us to stay but we just can't."
Michelle sighed.
"I know. There's just too many things that are changing. Everybody is leaving."
Jesse softly ran his hand over his niece's soft blond hair.
"A lot of things changed this summer, didn't they?"
Michelle nodded.
"Stephanie moved out, D.J. got engaged and stopped coming over. Now Aunt Becky is pregnant and you have to move."
Jesse sighed.
"I know. But it won't be for another couple of months. We made an offer but no one knows if we're going to get the house. Don't worry about it too much, okay Munchkin? Let's focus on having fun for the next weeks."
Michelle smiled sadly.
"Okay."
"Now, tell me about that first day of high school. How did it go?"
The thought of her first day of school cheered her up. With a smile on her face, she began to tell her uncle about her day. By the time she was done, the thought of Jesse moving out into a new house had been completely erased from her memory.