It is the summer of nineteen-eighty five. I'm nine years old and living in Riverside California. The place I call home is a nineteenth century, two story Victorian house. I know this is an old house, I found a newspaper clipping in the wall dated from nineteen hundred and eight. I love living in this house it has so many secrets locked away just waiting for me to uncover. We have been living here for several months now. I live here with my three brothers, my mother and her boyfriend. My mother has been with her boyfriend for almost a year. He is a very large man with silvery long hair and a gold platinum beard. I don't like him, I don't like the way he looks, walks or talks. I especially don't like the way he treats my mother. My feelings for not liking him have nothing to do with me thinking that my father should be the only man for my mother. I know they are not happy together, he's always gone on long distance hauls driving a truck, and I guess she doesn't like that. I understand she needs someone, just not the man she is currently with. I feel in my heart that he is no good. I don't think my mom realizes how bad he is, not even after someone set fire to his tractor trailer for doing them wrong, but I guess she's in love with him. She's always the one I want to please, so I try not to complain too much, no matter how badly I want to.
I have been busy spending most of my summer babysitting my mother's, boyfriend's, grandchildren, a infant boy and a toddler girl. They are cute kids, both with blond hair and blue eyes. Of course, I don't think they are as cute as me, after-all I have long blond hair and big brown eyes, and they are only babies. Their parents are always away, off on some kind of business. I don't know exactly what it is they do, but they are extremely wealthy. Several times, while babysitting in their home, I could not help but notice how they always have the latest in electronic devices.