"This is it?"

    "It's nice, isn't it?"

    "And why did your Aunt give it to you?"

    "Well, she wanted to go on vacation."

    I turn to him with such a confused look on my face and stare him directly in the eyes and say, "You realize vacation means she's coming back, right?"

    "It's um," he rubs the back of his neck with one hand and pushes up his glasses with the other, "more of a permanent vacation. That's how she described it."

    I roll my eyes and rub my head, "And she left you her daughter to take care of?"

    "No, Charlie's parents, my aunt and uncle, died a long time ago, so her brother, Tyler, took care of her, until he died. So then Aunt Cassandra had to take care of Charlie, and now she's gone on vacation, I mean, moved to Hawaii, of course."

    "So, how many rooms are there?" I ask, my neck stretching as I look up at the extremely tall yet thin building.

    "A kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and three bedrooms. The one at the very top is Charlie's. It's surprisingly roomy. Our two rooms are, well..."

"Freakishly small," I finished his sentence for him. "Yeah, I could guess." We start to grab my stuff out of the mini van. My previous house was so small that all of my belongings could fit in a minivan with plenty of room to spare. Chester already had his stuff in his room since he got to the house about a week earlier than I did. I still had a previous mission to be sent out on last weekend, so I just told him I hadn't finished packing yet. Thank goodness I have a best friend gullible enough to believe everything I tell him. Don't get me wrong, I love him like he's my own brother, but I have to make sure he doesn't know anything about my "job."

I work at this sort of agency type thing. We fight against burglars trying to steal money and stuff like that. It's no big deal. We just have to stop them from killing people and getting enough money or equipment for a machine of mass destruction. Simple! Haha, not really, but we have to go through so much training that I think is unnecessary, but you never know. I've only been working there for about four years. Some other guy died on the job. They keep telling me that the longer you work for them, the more this group of people gets to know your weaknesses, but I try not to let those words scare me. At least I get this summer to relax a bit. I don't have to worry about anything for three months.

I climb up what seems like an endless amount of stairs with Chester right behind me. I've got two suitcases, and he's lifting my bag full of my sheets and blankets above his head trying to keep his balance. We get through the kitchen and living room and down a hall to another couple sets of stair when he trips on the last flight of stairs and brings me down with him.

"You klutz!" I laugh.

"Sorry!" he looks up at me smiling and pushing his glasses back up on his nose. I throw the bag above my head next to my door and chuck the suitcases through the doorway. They land perfectly straight, and Chester looks at me in surprise. I shrug my shoulders. I'm not afraid to show off some skill. I mean, that's how I got my job.

"I bet you couldn't have done that again if you tried."

"We'll see about that," and we go back to the car to grab a bag each. We sit back on where we fell on the stairs. "Whoever lands their bag perfectly on top of a suitcase without knocking it down gets five bucks," I challenge.

"You're on, How!" and of course I land it perfectly on the suitcase, and Chester misses it by a mile. "I landed it on the windowsill! Do I get extra points?" I roll my eyes at his remark and we both laugh.

"That's it!" I stand up and dust off my hands.

"That's all? Really? Wow."

"You saw my last place! It was a dump. I barely had room for even this little stuff. This hovel of a room is larger than the entire old house!"

"I guess. Your place really sucked."

"Thanks," I roll my eyes again and chuckle a bit.

"I didn't mean to insult you!" he waves his hands with a little expression of worry on his face.

"Naw, I agree with you. It was really screwed up. It was the only place I could afford," I lie, again. I lived there because no one would expect a freaking special agent to live in a dump. I guess that plan fell through.

"Charlie's going to be home from school soon," he runs his hands through his reddish hair.

"She's still in school?"

"Just for another couple days. Today's Wednesday, so she's got until Friday till she's off for break."

"So for the rest of the Summer, I'm going to be living with this cousin of yours?"

"It won't take too long to warm up to her," his eyes drift away signaling he's lying, so I scoff and shake my head.

"How am I going to live through the Summer with a kid I barely know?"

"Hey," he narrows his eyebrows, "How, she's like a sister to me. I hang out with her all the time. After her brother died, I, y'know, kind of filled in for him."

"At least tell me a little bit about her first. Maybe I could strike up a conversation," I suggest as I head into my room and sit on my new unmade bed.

"That's going to be a little hard," he runs his hands through his hair and let's his eyes drift once again.

"Why...?" I persist.

"She, uh, doesn't speak."

"Chester," I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. "How could you have not said this before?"

"I don't know, I mean, I was going to, but I never got the chance to, and I guess it would've been best for you to know ahead of time so you could, like, I don't know, think about it more, or prepare yourself, but it's not that hard to warm up to her, she's, y'know, kind and sweet, she's understanding, but like y'know a bit hard to understand herself, she doesn't really open up to people-"

"Makes sense since she can't talk," I smile, stopping him from his nervous ramble.

"Yeah, I guess," he laughs a bit. "She's really not that bad. You just have to be able to have patience, is all."

We find ourselves the kitchen to see some chips and half a jar of salsa left in the cabinet and fridge, so we decide to fix ourselves some lunch, even though it's already 2:00 in the afternoon. We're just sitting there silently until I finally speak up, "What should I say to her?"

"Dude, she's a normal human being, it's just that she doesn't talk."

"Does she use sign language?"

"No. People close to her can understand her without having to have any necessary form of communication with her. My aunt was always frustrated with her since she never really was with her too much."

"So, she's always been unable to talk?"

"No, just since a couple years ago, three or four. After her brother died, you know, they were close and all and she just stopped talking. It happens to a lot of kids who go through traumatic experiences like that."

"What about losing her parents?"

"She lost them at too young of an age to really understand," he shakes his head.

"Poor kid. How old is she?"

"Charlie's about twelve, almost thirteen."

"So she's a kid who can't talk in middle school," I sigh, "dear god that must be so tough for her."

"I guess. She's never really shown signs of being bullied or anything," and just as he finished that sentence the door to the kitchen opened a crack, and a fairly tall girl slips in with long, wavy hair a much deeper red than Chester's. Her face is spotted with a small amount of freckles, and her eyes are a dark blue as opposed to Chester's light blue eyes.

She waves a slight little hello at me and smiles shyly as Chester introduces me, "Charlie, this is Howard, or How."

"Hello there! Nice to meet you," I say in my friendliest most articulate voice so that she understands. One eyebrow raises as her eyes widen looking over at Chester, and she smiles, almost chuckling.

"Um, How, she's not deaf, nor is she three," he says and starts to laugh a bit too.

Embarrased, I sit back in my chair and quietly utter, "Sorry."

She smiles at me with eyes that say, "It's okay. I get that a lot." I could almost hear her voice through her facial expressions.

"I bet you do," and she nods at me.

Chester looks back and forth at the both of us acting quite confused until, "Oh! Wow, that was oddly quick for you to understand what she was, you know, 'saying'."

"Oh, I barely even noticed she didn't say anything." Charlie smiled at me and nodded her head at Chester. She then continued to cross the kitchen, set her backpack down on the couch, and up the hallway to the stairs she went.

"See How? She's not so bad!"

"She's nice, and you're right for once: you can understand her."

"I said people that are really close to her, though. Usually I have to sort of translate for people who meet her for the first time ever. What I just saw was really weird."

"We just clicked, I guess," I picked up another chip, dipped it, and crunched on it.