ABOUT THE BOOK
Annie Fletcher has an idyllic life. A step-father who loves her. Siblings who mean the world to her. And a whole slew of overprotective “uncles” who are always there for her.
But when a bully at school targets the seventh-grader, Annie’s on her own. But after getting some advice from Truck…it’s game on.
**This story was originally included in the Naughty & Nice Aces Press holiday anthology which came out in December of 2021 and is no longer available.
THE BULLY
Emily glanced toward the front door when she heard it open. She waited to see her daughter’s happy face as she entered the house after school. It was hard to believe Annie was twelve, and already in the seventh grade. She’d always be her little baby, but she was growing up fast.
But instead of Annie coming into the kitchen, pulling herself up on one of the chairs at the table and chattering happily about what happened in school that day, she clomped right past the doorway and headed for her room without a word.
“Annie?” Emily called out.
In response, she heard her daughter’s bedroom door slam shut.
Blinking in surprise, Emily stood in the middle of the kitchen, frowning in the direction of the hallway where Annie had disappeared. Deciding to give her some time, Emily turned back to the lasagna sauce she was putting together for dinner. Fletch should be home from the base in an hour and she needed to get the pasta in the oven if it was going to be ready by the time he arrived.
Ethan, their son, was two and currently occupied by a video on the TV. Emily was doubly concerned about Annie because one of her favorite things in the world was her little brother. She doted on Ethan. Ever since he was born, Annie was like a second mother to him.
Emily remembered when they’d first realized the depth of Annie’s love for her brother. Ethan was around four months old, and Annie had begun to eat much less at dinner. It took her and Fletch a couple weeks to figure out what was going on. Annie thought her brother wasn’t getting enough to eat, so she was hiding food and bringing it to him at night, after everyone went to sleep.
Apparently, she remembered how Emily would forego food so Annie herself could eat, and was attempting to do the same for her brother.
Fletch had a long talk with her, explaining that they had plenty of money to buy food for all of them and, as Ethan was a baby, he could only eat formula.
Annie constantly looked after her brother, even after that. Another time, while doing yardwork, Fletch found around a hundred of Annie’s little plastic Army men on the ground outside Ethan’s window. When he asked her about it, she told him they were there to protect Ethan from anyone trying to break into his room.
She also had a tendency to climb into his bed in the middle of the night. Even now, when Emily or Fletch went into Ethan’s room in the morning, they’d sometimes find their daughter sleeping curled around her brother. She read to him regularly. Would sit with him for hours, reading the same book over and over again and never seeming to get tired of it.
So the fact that Annie came into the house and completely ignored her baby brother said more about her mood than anything else could.
After putting the lasagna into the oven, Emily washed her hands and, making sure Ethan was still occupied, headed for Annie’s room. She lightly tapped on the door.
“Annie?”
“Go away!” her daughter said, her voice sounding muffled.
Emily frowned. “I’m making lasagna for dinner,” she told her daughter, knowing how much Annie loved the dish.
“I’m not hungry!” was her response.
“You want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Emily asked. “I’m a good listener.”
“No! I just want to be alone!”
She sighed and backed away from the door. Annie was usually a very happy-go-lucky kid. Not much got her down. Emily had been warned about the pre-teen years, and about seventh grade girls especially, but she’d hoped, Annie being the tomboy that she was, she might avoid some of the turbulent emotions that came with being a teenager. It seemed that wasn’t the case.
Emily spent the next hour hoping Annie would come out of her room and go back to being her normal happy self, but that didn’t happen. She sent a text to Mary, knowing how close her daughter was to the other woman, and asked if she and Truck might want to come over for dinner.
Luckily, Mary agreed immediately, making Emily sigh in relief. All her friends were awesome. They never hesitated to babysit when she wanted some alone time with her husband, and she did the same for them. Rayne and Ghost had just had their first child, a boy they’d named Billy. Kassie and Hollywood’s daughter, Kate, was a year younger than Ethan, and watching the two toddlers play together was adorable and heartwarming.
Their husbands were a big help with the kids as well, now more than ever. They were all transitioning to administrative roles within the Delta Force organization, and Emily couldn’t say she was upset about it. Fletch loved serving his country, but Emily, and the rest of her friends, worried obsessively about them when they were deployed on dangerous missions.
By the time Fletch arrived home, Emily still hadn’t seen her daughter, and she was a nervous wreck. This wasn’t her Annie at all, and Emily hated that her daughter wouldn’t talk to her. For the first six or so years of her life, they’d only had each other. They were best friends. Even after meeting Fletch, who her daughter completely adored, the bond between her and Annie remained strong. So her daughter not speaking to her felt incredibly wrong to Emily.
“What’s wrong?” Fletch asked the second he saw his wife.
Emily wasn’t surprised he could tell something was up.
He gathered her close, wrapping one arm around her waist and palming her cheek. “Ethan okay?” he asked.
Emily nodded. “Yeah. It’s Annie.”
“Annie?” Fletch asked in surprise. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, she won’t talk to me. She came home from school in an awful mood. Went straight to her room without even greeting Ethan.”
Fletch frowned. He also knew how much her brother meant to her. “Is that why you invited Mary and Truck over for dinner?” he asked.
Emily couldn’t help but smile. Mary had probably texted Truck, who’d most likely asked Fletch what time they should come over. “Yeah. She’s always been close to them. I figure if she won’t talk to me, maybe she’ll tell one of them what’s bothering her.”
“I’m not ready,” Fletch sighed.
Emily frowned in confusion. “For what?” she asked.
“For Annie to grow up. I want her to be my sprite forever.”
“She will,” Emily reassured him.
Fletch shook his head. “No. She already doesn’t look to me for everything anymore, which I hate. I’m no longer Daddy Fletch, I’m ‘Dad.’ She’s gonna go to high school, and her friends are going to be more important than spending time with us. It won’t be cool to hang out with her dad, crawling all over the tanks at the motor pool on base. She’s gonna marry Frankie, move away, and we’ll have to beg her to come home every now and then to see us.”