Bart Smith put another dish in the drying rack and grimaced at the several plates and cups still left in the soapy water in the sink. What he wouldn’t give for the luxury of a dishwasher.
His younger sister, Julie, sat at the dinette set in the small faded yellow kitchen doing her homework. She was in the last year of high school. She twirled one finger around several strands of her long red hair. That was something all the Smiths had in common, crimson red hair.
The front door of their apartment slammed so hard it rattled the dishes in the drying rack. Julie looked up, her cornflower blue eyes wide with dread. Bart’s stomach clenched as he listened. He held his breath
“I’m home, you lazy brats,” Ronnie Smith yelled from the living room. He stomped toward the bathroom in the hallway.
“
