The day the Jones family drove into the
quiet neighborhood of Riverview, people of the street decided to greet them
personally, as they had done before for every new family arriving to their
community. It was a small town and they all believed a good relationship
between neighbors was essential to improve the lives of everyone and even in
order to prevent major catastrophes like someone disappearing from the face of
the Earth or the kids being a little withdrawn.
However, the Jones’ didn’t receive anyone on
their first date. Every single person who went to their door was received by a
little girl who told them they were really busy with moving and that they
should get back once they had been done unpacking and setting their lives back
together. Our of respect, people decided to come back later, although many
housewives were insulted to be refused entry, especially if they had cooked
something delicious.
A whole week passed until the Jones’
themselves invited everyone o their home. They sent very nice invitations and
tried to make every single family on the street feel they were sorry to make
all children look around. Too many people thought that was something only
strange folk did and they certainly didn’t wanted to live nearby anyone like
that. But the invitations changed their minds, as they were never courted in
such a nice way.
It was a Friday night when everyone attended a
dinner party organized by the Jones’. Children were admitted but had to leave
the party at 10 in the evening. The Jones family was composed of several
people: Lucy and Bert Jones were the mother and father of the family. And it
had to be said they were very particular: they only wore black clothes and
appeared to be as in love as a couple of teenagers, kissing around and barely showing
people more than they needed to see.
The kids were only too; there was Regina, the
young girl that had opened the door for people when they had been moving and
Jonathan, a teenager with baggy eyes that seemed to have never slept a day of
his life. There was also a very skinny woman that spoke in another language,
probably one of the adults mother. And finally, there was Brock. He was a very
tall man, with a bit of a silly expression on his face. He seemed to be their
employee or something.
He spent the whole party in a cornet, as if he
was verifying that everything was going smoothly. He made the glasses bang
chilled again by the staff the Jones’ had brought for the event and he seemed
to vanish every so often. A rumor saying they had one more member of their
family started to grow after that and because of that strange employee.
In any case, the party had been a real
success. Now every single person knew who they were and, although they were
called eccentric and other similar words, the Jones’ became an integral part of
the community of Riverview. Yet, children would never go alone to that house,
for example if they had lost a baseball or something like that. Children had
invented that the woman was a witch that failed to be a proper one. They were
scared of her because she was nothing like they were used to.
In school, the Jones’ children were almost
always alones, especially the teenager. He was obviously dressed much more
conservatively than the rest of the children and seemed to be sensitive enough
to make beautiful drawings and art in general. His teacher was impressed from
day 1 because of the small masterpieces Jonathan had created for him in such a
small amount of time.
As for Regina, she did have a lot of friends
but sometimes she said she felt alone and strange. She thought sometimes that
her family was too uncommon and that because of that she failed to connect with
anyone else. And when she did connect, she felt bad because she assumed that
wasn’t what a Jones family member would do. They would talk about it and
discuss it and see the options. They were very uncommon parents and it was
often that the kids had to solve their problems by themselves.
With the passing of time, the Jones’ house
turned into the street every single kid avoid and also every adult ran in from
of. It was like if their happiness was sucked away by the sole presence f the
house. And then there was that monster, that enormous man that appeared no to
be ale to talk. But he did talk but had decided years ago to limit the amount
of things he said because he thought it was not necessary.
Brock was not really a Jones but they had
brought him to town and every single person wondered what did he do in that
house. It wasn’t as if they had a mansion were help would be needed. Some
people saw him in sometimes around the commercial area of town, buying
groceries or running errands while the Jones’ were out. Everyone just stared at
him because of his height.
Every neighbor thought he was maybe the
weirdest but the parents were not really the most normal people. No one
actually knew what it was that Bert Jones did for work. The only true thing was
that he left every single morning at the same time and he was the first husband
to arrive to his home at night, something that most housewives around there
thought was very curious, as they were used to their husbands arriving always
late, with food already cold.
But Bert was always there for dinner and
kissing Lucy’s face every time he arrived into his home. It was something the neighbors
also grew very curious about, the fact that they didn’t really hide the love
they had for each other. No other couples in town were like that, maybe because
it was such a conservative place. They were the only ones to actually show that
they were in love and that their relationship seemed to work.
Lucy also left in the mornings, after her
husband, but returned very early in the afternoon, possibly to make dinner.
Those were the assumptions the many eyes looking at them could make. Maybe she
had some type of part-time job or she had something to do with family. Either
way, she would always have her black hair in the same style and her clothes
were always similar, very dark and kind of revealing for the taste of the
community.
Yet, as odd as they were, the Jones’ always
attended the social gatherings. Whenever there was a meeting of the
neighborhood patrol or some kind of reunion at the mayor’s office, they would
always be there, husband and wife. They liked to help and were always very keen
on making others feel happy. It was strange from them but that’s what they did
and most of the time their attempts actually work. They were very beloved in
that regard and many envied them for it.
Of course, some people were actually scared
and never really bothered to talk to them too much. There had been a small
group of people who had refused to go to their welcoming party and had done it
because they thought that they had been rude from the start, not receiving
people into their home just because they were moving. They also thought they
were strange because of their behavior and their looks.
Jonathan was teased in school by the kids of
those people. One day he was sent to the nurse’s office because one of the boys
that thought he was weird had pushed him in the yard and he had fallen and hurt
his chin. Both Lucy and Bert picked their son up from school that day and they
seemed to be very surprised that such a thing had happened there with their
son. It didn’t seem like something they understood.
They lived there for a couple of more years
until they felt they had enough of their reputation as “the weirdos” on Riverview.
So one good day, a single moving truck took everything away and the neighbors
only knew about them leaving when Brock was seeing driving the truck out of the
city. The next day, the house was on sale and there was not a single Jones to
see. They had tried and failed again. It wasn’t the first town they settled in
and many more would come, as they had done for so many years now.
