Hey Jenny,

Lakeville is a tiny town in northern California, it's approximately seventy miles north of Sacramento. Despite the name, there are no actual lakes in the town; the irony. It was called Lakeville because the founder's name was Walter Lake. According to the tiny stone located in the town's oldest house, who was owned by the Lakes, Walter Lake added the 'ville' as a suffix to make it sound more homey. Lakeville isn't the safest place on Earth because if you're looking for crackheads, just head downtown -but it does has to be the home of the majority of the loveliest people on Earth. There's this lovely lady who lives across my house, Mrs. Hampfrey, and she gives home-baked chocolate muffins to my sister, Jenny, every Friday. There's also Mr. Yuan, an old man who was a veteran of the Vietnam war. Poor man, his wife just died a month ago because of heart failure. As cliche as it sounds, he drives a white van and gives candy to the little kids around the town; so nice.

There is a garden located near Lakeville Elementary School. I don't know much about flowers, but I do know that the Lakeville Garden offers various types of flowers from roses to lilacs, tiny ones to bigger ones, and red to purple. Whenever March comes rolling down the calendar, these flowers bloom magnificently. What is significant in L. Gard though is not the aesthetic beauty it displays, but my adorable six-year-old sister who sits on a bench located in the middle of nowhere as she waits for me to pick her up from my part-time job.

The rustic metal gates of L. Gard came into view and as usual, no one's here. Not a lot of people visits L. Gard because just like me, not everyone is a flower enthusiast. An automatic smile creeped on my face when the floral ambience engulfed my senses. I don't actually like flowers; I mean, I find them pretty but I don't actually "like" them. The only reason why I like going here is because of Jenny. The atmosphere this place emits is the same as Jenny's aura; peaceful, blissful, and pure. Following the stones that would lead to Jenny's happy place, I smirked when, as expected, I see her playing with something. It usually is a flower, but today, it's different. It's a long and tall leaf... or leaves.

"Hey Jenny," I crossed my arms and leaned on my right foot, "What you got there?"

She looks up to me and immediately, her oceanic blue eyes glimmered. She puts whatever she was holding down, and races to where I was. She wraps her frail arms around me to give me her version of a bear hug as she beams, "OLLIE!"

"Hello sweetie," I laughed as I hugged her back just as tight. "Are you ready to go?"

She shakes her head in refusal, "In a second!" She pulls me towards the bench, her tiny and delicate fingers are all wrapped around my wrist. "Look at this!" She raises the bunch of leaves and offers it to me.

"Oh?" I took it from her and examined it, "What are these?"

"That's the Bells of Ireland!" She told me as her eyes twinkled. And it's weird, because we are both under the shade of a tree, and yet, her eyes twinkled. Ugh, my sister has to be the definition of adorable.

"Oh..." I blinked, "Are these leaves?"

"No, silly!" She laughs loudly, "It's a flower!"

"Are they now?" Cause it doesn't look like one. But of course, I didn't want to burst her bubble; I left that part out.

"They are!" She scoots closer to me and said, "It is said that the Bells of Ireland means 'Good Luck' in the language of flowers."

"The language of flowers?" I asked in false amazement and my inner sarcastic self couldn't keep herself quiet for any longer, "Flowers now speak, do they?"

She pouts at me when she read my tone of mockery, "Flowers are symbols, Ollie."

"Okay, okay!" I chuckled. Flowers are weird. The Bells of Ireland looks like woven leaves, nothing like a flower I've known and grown up with. It's green and... green. I smiled nicely and gave it back to her, "Here you go."

"No!" She pushed it back to me, "It's yours!"

"Oh?" Oof, I don't like flowers. I can't actually take care of one.

She nodded furiously, "You're going to take the test where you drive soon, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then," She waved her arms above her, "Jenny says good luck!" My sister tends to talk about herself in a narrative perspective; she's adorable.

I heard that the driving test isn't that hard, and plus, whenever I deliver the newspapers, I drive Mr. Ted's pickup truck. So really, I wasn't the least scared nor nervous for that test. But still, my heart soared and I couldn't help but to attack her with a tight hug and twirl her around, "AW! YOU'RE SO SWEET!"

"Ollie!" She laughs, "Stop!"

"Hey Jenny," I gently put her back down on the ground and bent down to her level. Securing our eye contact, I genuinely thanked her, "Thank you."

She grins happily and pecked me on my left cheek, "Jenny says you're welcome!"

Smiling broadly, I stood up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as I lead the both of us outside the L. Gard, "Where did you even get this information? School?"

She grins toothily, "From a friend."

"Hmm?" Whenever I ask a 'who' question, she answers with a name and her first impression. Hearing her call this person a friend without knowing which friend she is talking about seems suspicious. I asked, "And who is this friend?"

She looks away, "Jenny wants to keep it a secret."

Uh oh, she looked away. She lied. And so I told her with a stern voice, "Who is this friend, Jenny?" As I've said before, Lakeville isn't the safest place. Crackheads roam around like they own the place. My parents, if they would even take the title, are always -and I mean, always- not around. Meaning, I am the closest thing as a parent for Jenny. I took the responsibility of raising her, which means that knowing who her friends are in this town is also a part of my responsibility.

"Gabby..."

"Gabby?" I gasped out loud in shock, "Gabriella Quinston? I thought you didn't like her?" Gabriella Quinston is Jenny's classmate since kindergarten. They've been classmate for years now, and ever since, there was no sign of any type of friendship that will bloom in the future. So hearing her call Gabriella her friend shocked me till next year.

"Ew," She wrinkled her nose, "Jenny doesn't like Gabriella." See? She has this look of disgust written all over her face. Even the thought of friendship makes her cringe.

"Then," I put my fallen hair behind my left ear and asked, "Who is Gabby?"

"...Gabriel..."

I frowned, "Gabriel Sanchez? I thought he moved out of this town already."

She looks down on her feet and said, "Gabriel Tiablo..."

I gasped and started choking on my own saliva, "Are you serous?!"

Gabriel Tiablo, just like what his last name rhymes with, is like the devil's reincarnation. It's funny how his parents named him Gabriel, the angel. They probably did that in the hopes of balancing his personality. Well, that didn't work. I don't know Gabriel well enough to call him a good person, but I've heard enough rumors to mark him as one of the people my sister and I should never associate with -let alone be friends with! One of my classmates mentioned that he ran over our school's quarterback because the QB insulted Gabriel's new car. Whether the rumors are true or not, his name is trouble. It literally screams trouble.

"Jenny, Gabriel Tiablo is not a good person," I explained, "He will bring danger to you, okay? Stay away from him."

"Danger?" She asked, "But aren't you friends?"

What? "No," I looked at her with a shocked look, "Why would you think that we are friends?"

"Gabby said that Ollie and Gabby are classmates."

"Yes, we are." I cleared my throat, "But that doesn't mean that we are friends."

"But you are classmates!"

"Jenny, are you and Gabriella Quinston friends?"

She wrinkled her nose again, "No!"

"But you guys are classmates!"

"I don't like her though," She pouts, "She puts gum on my desk."

I nodded and explained my point, "Same goes with me not liking Gabriel."

She gasped loudly, "Did Gabby put a gum in Ollie's desk, too?!"

I blinked, and blinked, and eventually said, "Kind of."

She frowns with a pout and crossed her arms on her chest, "That's not nice of Gabby."

"He's not nice at all," I told her and started walking again, "So stay away from him, okay? Let's go."

When we arrived in our house, as usual, Jenny runs to the kitchen. It is her routine to put water in a bottle, then she would go out and pour it in a plastic bowl she placed in front of her lawn. It's for the stray animals, if any, that would pass by. We live high up in the mountains, and Lakeville's in northern California -meaning, we are bound to have a lot of deers as neighbors.

Walking towards my room, I can't help but to smile when I realized that living a life like this, a life where even when our parents are always MIA -which means that it's just me and my sister- is more than just fine. I'm happy and contented with our life right now. And I believe that's the secret to a happy life. To be grateful of what you have now. I entered my room and went to my desk. Grabbing the translucent tall vase-like glass that contains at least a dozen different types of flowers, I put the Bells of Ireland inside.

"OLLIE! JENNY WILL GO OUTSIDE!" I heard my sister scream on top of her lungs from the living room. And there she goes helping random animals.

"OKAY!" I yelled back while going to the bathroom. I poured out the water from the glass and turned on the faucet to replace the water. Once half full, I went back to my bedroom and placed the tall glass back to where it belongs.

I heard Jenny's fast footsteps when she entered the house, "OLLIE!"

I walked out of my bedroom and saw her eyes all lit up, "What's happening?"

"Ollie, check this out!" She then runs outside the house, which made me scold her for running. Following a few meters behind her, I saw her pointing at the two does that was drinking the water Jenny left out for them."Look! It's just like Ollie and Jenny!"

She was right. One doe was bigger than the other, and I couldn't help but smile because of how adorable my sister really is. I nodded in agreement and called her in before her cuteness becomes the death of me.

Once we're inside, I closed and locked the main door behind us, "What do you want for dinner?"

"CORNED BEEF OMELET!"

Chuckling, I told her to go watch TV while I cook our usual dinner. Jenny loves corned beef, and she also loves egg. Although having the said meal for dinner is weird; it's not impossible. When it comes to me, what Jenny wants is what Jenny gets. Curse me for spoiling my younger sister with everything that I can afford and do.

It was quarter to nine o'clock when Jenny was finally on her pj's and is already lying on her bed. We just finished talking about each other's day, and I was ready to put her to sleep. "Okay Jenny, Ollie needs her beauty sleep."

She smiles, "But Ollie's already beautiful."

I grinned widely because of how bias she is, "Not for long if Ollie's not going to sleep anytime soon."

She ponders for a few seconds, before nodding her head, "Okay. Sing me the song."

I cleared my throat to 'prepare' my voice for my evening concert. Well, it's just one song. I'm not the best singer, I'm not even a good one, but for some reason, Jenny refuses to sleep without hearing me sing 'You Are My Sunshine'.

I took a deep breath before starting to sing the first few lines, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when the skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." I stood up from the bed and said, "Okay, goodnight."

"But Ollie!" She whines, "Jenny wants you to finish the whole song."

"Can Ollie do it tomorrow?" I fake yawned, "Ollie's sleepy."

She pouts sadly, which made me sigh and say, "Ollie promises to finish the whole song tomorrow."

She immediately looked at me daringly while she offers her tiny pinky finger to me, "Does Ollie promise?"

I nodded and locked my pinky finger to hers, "Ollie promise."

"Okay," She grins and sank deeper to her bed, "Goodnight, Ollie."

I chuckled and walked towards her bedroom's door, "Goodnight."

I was about to leave her room when she called out, "Hey Ollie!"

I stopped right over the door frame and asked, "Yes Jenny?

She looked at me straight in the eyes and grins widely, "I love you."

Adorable, I tell ya.

"Hey Jenny," I smiled, "I love you too." And with that, I exited her room and closed her door.