Life is good." Thought Tara as she walked under the ivy covered breezeway by her back door. "Despite the fact I'm grounded, I'm doing okay. Oooh, I hope Michael doesn't care that I'm five minutes late."

"Ouch!" She yelped as a branch caught in her new blowout. "At least I didn't get an up-do. It would so be ruined by now. I bet Kelly's is." Tara's best friend Kelly had gotten hers into an up-do and then was a total spaz all day because she was afraid it wouldn't hold.

"Hi Tara!" squeaked a voice from behind her.

" Oh, hello Daniel.", talking to the dorky fifth grader from next door was not exactly number one on her To Do List. "Why were you in the bushes?"

Tara saw Daniel flush. "I was just, um, admiring the flowers. Here this is for you!" He held out a single crumpled rose. Tara was about to laugh at him, but when she saw the hopeful look on his face; she couldn't bring herself to do it. Tara stifled her laugh as she took the rose from Daniel.

"Ouch!" she said for the second time that night. "Thanks. It's, um, really pointy." She said as the thorns bit into the skin on her hand.

Daniel started to smile shyly. "You look nice."

Tara was about to roll her eyes and tell him to get lost, but thought it would be nice to have a second opinion. Sara had said she looked nice, but family doesn't count. "I hope Sara can cover for me long enough." Tara thought. "I can go to the prom, pig out on cookies and punch, dance my heart out, and be back before anyone notices." Tara mentally reassured herself.

"You don't think the rhinestones are too much?" she asked Daniel. She had started to chew her nails but remembered too late; she had already ruined her nail polish. As she blew on her nails she said to Daniel, "It was hard to decide between them and the turquoise." As soon as the words left her lips, she was disgusted with herself. But then again he is Michael's brother; he might have some good tips, even if he was ten.

"The rhinestones are better." Daniel nodded wisely at her like girls were always coming to him with their jewelry dilemmas. "The blue in your dress would have diminished the impact of the turquoise. The rhinestones enhance the coloring and go better with the emerald brooch that you have pinned to the material resting on your voluptuous hip."

"What?!?" Tara exclaimed. "Daniel if you could stop crushing on me for one moment, you might not be so annoying!" Instantly Tara regretted saying that. Sure he could be annoying, but he did come in handy. Who else was going to deliver her messages to Michael when she was locked in her room? Tara still couldn't understand her parent's harsh punishment. Tara was five minutes late for her curfew, and they went all Alcatraz on her. She wondered what would have happened if she was ten minutes late. "Sorry Daniel.", she said quickly when she saw the tears in his eyes. "I am really stressed right now. Where on earth is your brother? He is twenty minutes late!"

"He was in his room when I left. We had Reubens for dinner and he said his didn't agree with him. I also think he bathed in cologne or something. Now the whole house smells. When I told him that, he got all freaked out and is probably trying to scrub it all off. He will probably be another half an hour."

"What?!? The prom starts in twenty minutes!" Tara shrieked. "Shoot. I hope my parents didn't hear that." She whispered, after she realized what she had done.

Thirty minutes passed but there was still no sign of Michael.

"Daniel! Why isn't he here yet?!?"

"I don't know!" Daniel wailed. "He said he would be here by now!"

Tara was finished being patient. She whipped out her cell phone and dialed Michael. "Where the heck are you?!?"

.

A weak, raspy voice on the end whispered "Help. Help me."

Alarmed Tara asked "Michael what's wrong?!?"

"Help me. Can't breathe. Dead."

"Dead! Who's dead?!?" Tara screamed into the phone. But all she got was a dial tone.

" Oh my god! Daniel call 911! We need help! Be as quiet as you can." Tara started to sprint away. "Whatever you do, don't follow me!"

The wind felt cold against her face, and seemed to freeze the tears in her eyes. Tara was frightened of what she would see, but her legs propelled her through the bushes, the garden, and across the McKinsey's front lawn.

"Be okay! Please be okay!" Tara sobbed, her tears no longer frozen. "Oh god, Michael, be okay!"

Suddenly the leaves shook on a nearby bush. Tara gasped and then screamed in horror. A person was crawling out from behind a bush! The person moaned in pain. Tara swallowed another scream. "Sam! What happened to you?!" Daniel and Michael's older brother drenched in blood lay facedown in the dirt.

Epilogue

It turned out that Michael had a psychotic break due to ergot poisoning, which is caused by a fungus in the rye bread which he ate for dinner in his Reuben. He murdered both of his parents by brutally stabbing them with a carving knife while they were doing dishes. He then went after his brother Sam who was washing his car. Sam was also murdered. During a brief moment of sanity, Michael realized what he had done, and attempted to commit suicide by slitting his own wrists. Michael did not succeed in taking his own life and is now in custody at the Hampton County Correctional Facility. Daniel was safe because he was at Tara's house when the murders happened, and is now staying at Tara's house as a foster child. Sara, Tara's older sister was going out with Sam at the time and is now in intensive therapy. Tara, was both heartbroken and horrified at what her what her boyfriend had done and is also now in intensive therapy, and her prognosis is fair.