Page 7 of Peach Tree Family

"I'm strong too," Ace said looking from Seth to Theo.

"Your big bro just wants to show off," Seth told him though he was the one who was doing that.

Ace still wasn't satisfied, so he kept flexing all the way back to the house. Once they got there, Theo put his buckets on the kitchen floor and helped Seth get the huge pot off his shoulder.

"Didn't want you to get drenched," Theo said, and Seth shivered when their arms crossed over each other.

"Now we flush?" Ace asked as they went into the bathroom.

"Everyone cross your fingers that it's not clogged," Theo said as he tipped a bucketful of water into the toilet.

By some miracle, it did flush.

"Yuck!" Ace said since the toilet was still filthy even after the second bucket of water went in.

"We have to do some serious cleaning in here," Theo said.

"When it's clean, we don't have to go in the bushes any more," Ace said.

"Right, we're one step closer to civilization," Theo told him and Seth saw him smile. The smile didn't last very long, but it was nice to see. But once again Theo turned serious and practical. "We don't have time to do anything about it. We need to go into town. You're going too, right?" Theo eyed Seth, but it wasn't much of a question. Seth got one night there, now he was out on his ass.

"I'm putting in the padlock before we leave. You want a breakfast bar?" Theo asked Ace.

"Peanut butter?"

"All right. Here you go," Theo said, but as soon as Ace got it, he turned to Seth.

"You want half?"

"He can have a whole one," Theo told him.

"No, I'm all right," Seth said since Theo wasn't having any.

"You get peanut butter since you helped us out," Theo told him and pushed one into his hand. "Thanks for your help with the water."

"I owed you for letting me stay here last night," Seth told him though he knew he hadn't given him much choice.

Theo looked like he didn't want to be reminded of that. "You snore," he told Seth.

"Theo, you snore too," Ace said.

"I didn't get a chance to last night," Theo told him as he went to the big backpack in the living room and got out a screwdriver, a padlock and two metal brackets. Seth couldn't believe he brought things like that with him. Then Theo went to the side door, and Seth and Ace went with him.

"This house belonged to our great-grandparents," Theo said. "Our granddad lived here for a little while. Now the house is ours. Unfortunately, the keys got lost."

Ace watched closely as his big brother screwed in the metal brackets. Seth was looking at Theo more than what he was doing. He was very focused but he looked dead tired too.

"You didn't really stay awake all night, did you?" Seth asked, but Theo only took his eyes off his work to glare at him. "Damn. Sorry about that. But I'll be moving on. I just need to grab my duffel bag, and I'm gone."

"Oh, no. Where are you going?" Ace asked.

"Looking for work. Next place where I'm going to try is Peach Tree," Seth told him.

"That's where we're going too," Ace told him.

Theo was standing in the doorway and screwing in the other bracket now, so Seth couldn't go in yet to get his bag. Then he watched as Theo tested the padlock. Now only someone very determined would be able to get in. Seth found that he was relieved to know the brothers would be a little bit safer here.

Going in, Seth picked up his bag and Theo looked at it disapprovingly and how one side of it was held together by duct tape. "You're going to look for work while carrying that?"

---