(A/N: Since you guys are the greatest readers ever, you get a bonus chapter! It's all about our favorite red-sneakered foil, the only one who can actually sing in this whole story, Harriet Hemings! Enjoy!)

Harriet is the daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, but you knew that already. What you didn't know is their story, and much of hers. That all ends today- it's Harriet's turn, and she's got a lot to say. She's kindly shared with me some flashbacks, and I'm going to relay them to you.

I sit on the floor in front of the couch, one fist rubbing my eyes. It's late and I'm tired, but there's no way I'm going to bed before Nina. She's sitting on the couch, her long hair immaculate and her pajamas clean. Even now, at seven, I want to be like her. Nina's special- that's what everyone says. She skipped seventh grade, and now she's cruising through eighth with the best grades ever. My mom and dad say I don't have to be like Nina, but I want to be.

"Tell me the story again, of how you met." Nina bounces up and down. She smiles at me, revealing her purple braces.

My mom, Sally, laughs. "Again? Nina, we told you last night."

Nina reaches down and pulls me up next to her. "Harriet hasn't heard it!"

Thomas hugs Sally and kisses the top of her head. "I suppose it could bear telling one more time."

I clap my hands and rest my head on Nina's shoulder. She's my stepsister, but the two of us get along really well. It's nice to not be the only kid in the house, nice to talk to Nina when our parents are fighting (again).

"Once upon a time," Sally begins. Thomas cuts her off.

"That's not how you start a true story! My way is better."

"No, it's not! We're talking to kids, Tommy." Sally clears her throat. "As I was saying, Once upon a time, there was a man named Thomas Jefferson. He was very sad-"

Thomas cuts her off again. "If this part is about me, I get to tell it! Anyway, he was very sad, because his wife had died, leaving him with a tiny baby girl." He reaches over and pats Nina on the head, and she laughs. "He wasn't quite sure what to do, and spent a few months living in depression and squalor."

"What's squalor?" My seven-year-old self has no idea what most of these words mean.

"Think of your messy room. The whole house was like that." Sally taps me on the head. "Speaking of, you need to clean that."

"Tomorrow," I whine.

"Anyway, after a few months, I got bored with depression and squalor. Besides, when you have a two year old, you need to do things like grocery shop and go outside. So, I called a housekeeping service." Thomas hugs Nina.

"They sent a young woman named Sally Hemings to come and clean the house." Sally hugs me. "She took one look at the mess, put on some music, and got down to business."

"Thomas walked in early," Thomas continues. "He saw this beautiful young lady, singing into a feather duster to an old Journey song. He was holding his baby girl in his arms, and he nearly dropped her when he saw this lady."

"Explains how Nina turned out the way she did," I crack. Nina shoves me, and I land on my butt on the living room carpet.

"Sally came to clean the house every week, and every week, Thomas came home a little earlier. He wouldn't always be as surprised to find her jumping around, dancing, and singing. He liked to watch her- she made him feel happy."

Sally pulls me up from the carpet. "Thomas was kind of awkward, and didn't know what to do. He liked Sally a lot, but was too shy to say more than 'thank you' and 'I don't mind doing the dishes'."

Thomas breaks the story for a moment. "I never said that!"

"Well, you should! I'm sick of them." Sally clears her throat, then returns to the story. "One day, Thomas came home really early. Sally turned to him and said-"

"Let me tell this part!" Thomas grins. "Sally turned to him and said, 'Are you going to ask me out, or do you stare at all the maids like this?' And Thomas said, 'When you phrase it like that, I suppose it's a good opening for me to ask you a question.'"

"Aww, Dad, Mom had to ask you to ask her out?" Nina gives Thomas a brace-face grin.

"Believe it or not," Sally giggles. She and Thomas are acting like a high school couple, and it makes me happy- they don't often get along.

"So they went on a date. One date became two became ten became thirty. Around the fiftieth or so- this was nearly two years of dating now- Thomas popped the question."

I scrunch up my face in confusion. "How do you 'pop' a question?"

"Asking someone to marry you is called 'popping the question'." Thomas ruffles my hair, and I giggle. "Anyway, he asked Sally, 'Would you be willing to clean the house without getting paid- will you marry me?'"

"Smooth, Dad." Nina fixes her ponytail, sliding her pink scrunchie up and down. "That's really smooth."

"Well, it worked!" He throws his hands up defensively. "I got my Sally, you got a proper mother, and then we got a proper Harriet."

"I think she's an improper Harriet." Nina sticks out her tongue.

"No way!" I jump on her back and pull the scrunchie out of her hair.

Sally pries me off. "Time for bed, little one."

"I'm not little!" I protest, flailing. "I'm vertically challenged!"

Harriet's best memory is that day- a day when nothing unusual happened, but a day when her parents got along. Thomas and Sally have a turbulent relationship on the best of days, but that day was a nice time for everyone. Her worst memory, on the other hand, is a day when Thomas and Sally blew up in the worst possible way. I'll let her tell it.

I'm busy doing my fourth grade homework in my room, and by that I mean puzzling through fractions. Nina was always better at fractions, but she's practicing violin in her room. It's fairly quiet, and if I listen, I can hear strains of Tchaikovsky from three doors down.

My mother's voice pierces through the quiet. "Again, Thomas?"

"I told you, Sally, it was one time!"

I groan and finish writing the equivalents of 1/2. Nina's violin sounds a little jerkier than usual, as if she's focusing too hard. Moving my pen down to 1/4, but my hand jumps and leaves a blue line when I hear shouting from downstairs.

"I never-"

"YOU LIAR!"

The violin screeches to a halt. Something smashes downstairs, and I whimper. I hate when my parents fight, and it happens all the time. The shouting gets louder, and I start to cry. My fractions lie forgotten on the bed as I sniffle on the floor.

The door slides open slowly, and I look up to see Nina. She's holding her violin bow slack in one hand, and her eyes are red-rimmed. "Harriet?"

I'm a mess, with snot and tears smeared all over my face. "I'm here, Nina."

"Come here, baby." She snatches me up into a hug. Even though she's not much older than me- just fifteen- she's a comforting presence, and I bury my face in her sweater. I make her drop her violin bow on the ground by accident, and her foot snaps it in half.

I start crying harder. "I'm sorry, Nina." Nina plays violin more than she does anything else. It's her favorite thing to do.

"That's okay, Squared. I was thinking of quitting, anyway." She calls me Squared as a nickname- I'm Harriet Hemings, or H squared.

"I don't like it when they fight," I whisper.

Nina squeezes my shoulder. "Neither do I, champ, but it's going to be okay."

Something goes flying and smashes downstairs, and I scream and scramble under my bed. It's dusty and dark, and I sneeze loudly, but it's a reprieve. I'm alone, and surrounded by stuffed animals the way I am I can't really hear anything. This is where I go when I'm panicking, where I can hide when everything else is too much. I hit my head on a My Little Pony.

All of a sudden, the dust ruffle on the bed raises up, and Nina squirms along the carpet to lie beside me. She holds me close, ignoring the mess and the dust. Nina hasn't been under the bed with me since we were younger, when I was three and she was nine, like I am now. She'd grown too big to fit, and now her legs stick out from under the dust ruffle and her head is brushing the slats above us.

"It's going to be okay, Harriet. You know Mom and Dad have their little tiffs, but they always make it up in the end."

There's another crash, and Nina winces. I can see, even in the darkness, a tear making its silver trace down her cheek. That's all it takes to send me into floods, and the two of us cling to each other, crying softly. After a few minutes, Nina's breathing evens out, and I see that her eyes are closed. I think she must be asleep, so I try to follow suit, but I'm kept awake. The image of Nina crying is burned against my eyelids, my sister in a rare moment of weakness that breaks my heart more than anything.

(Thank you all so much for 5k reads! I hope you enjoyed this feature chapter on Harriet)