They fixed the power- they still didn’t understand what happened. Trouble was first up. He sat thinking of ways to talk his mother out of this. He gave up and went into Holly’s room.

“Holly? Are you awa..” he was knocked to his feet because Holly’s hand was clenched in a fist and when she pulled it up she punched him.

“Sorry!” Holly said laughing “I really didn’t mean that.”

As they sat down at breakfast and Ilene ranted as Holly realised something. It was if Trouble’s Dad was immune to Ilene’s rants. He could completely switch off and not hear her while everyone else moaned. Holly thought back- he’d done this a lot.-when his beloved team lost, when the Marshelles were there, when Ilene screamed. So he didn’t have the patience of a saint . He could just completely blank things.

—xx———————————————————————

Trouble gulped and made his way into the shuttle- in one hour they’d be on holiday with the Marshelles.

He got into the shuttle and they drove off .

“Remember the last time we done anything with the neighbours?” Trouble asked “The fire department do.”

“Trouble, it’ll be different this time.” Ilene said.

Holly didn’t know what Ilene meant by different but she’d a feeling she was about to find out.

—xx———————————————————————

“Daddy I don’t think you can park here.” Grub whined.

“Of course he can.” Holly replied “This is a car park.”

“Mummy, I REALLY think Daddy should move.”

“Why?” Ilene asked her son.

A voice from behind the shuttle answered for him.

“Because it’s on my foot!” Trouble yelled.

His Dad went to move the car while people rushed around them. Holly picked up Grub to stop him whining. Ilene’s phone rang and she went away to answer it-Mr Kelp followed.

Trouble holding his broken foot came over to them and they stood impatiently with their cases.

“You know how they say every family has “one”? The one who doesn‘t know when to be quite, who always has to have another drink, who speaks too loudly or is overprotective?” Holly said breaking the silence “The problem with you Kelps is the majority of you are like that- you don’t have one. You have at least 10!”

“HEY! The Kelps are fine!” he said laughing “It’s my mum’s side of the family- the Moonie’s- that are all mad. My mum and Grub are only Kelp in name but their Moonie‘s at heart. ”

Two minutes later Trouble’s Dad came back.

“The bad news is- The Marshelles are late. But the worse news is they’ll be here in 5 minutes.” his Dad sighed.

“To be honest the Marshells aren‘t are as bad as our old neighbours.” Trouble said “There was the McDonalds who hated all living things, before them were a couple of troll rights campaigners. Oh and then there were the Sanders. We thought they were normal…until we found out they stocked up on Christmas lights from June!”

Some other stories by xxemxx:

• updates for her secret (sequel to "his daughter")
• Sequel to His Daughter- Her secret
• Decisions Decisions
• Grow up
• His daughter (Updated)-6/2/08!