9.1 (S)He’s just not that into you

After taking Michael Kyoti, the Grim Reaper wandered upstairs and started chatting to Joanna and Nicola about his relationship with the family and how much he was going to enjoy reaping souls at their parties, and he looked forward to seeeing a lot more of whichever Kyoti triplet became the heir in the future.  It was the first time the girls had ever really considered the whole heirdom issue.  They’d known for a while that one of the three of them would have that responsibility in the end, but none of them had ever really thought much about whom it might end up being.

Joanna decided to take her responsibility to the family seriously and went out looking for potential mates.  She didn’t have a great deal of success.  The neighbour across the road threatened to punch her…

…and her friend-seeking mission to the park was hindered by her unique choice of spot to play in.

Nicola, meanwhile, had had her fair share of loving, and whilst the idea of being head of the household was tantalising, there was one small problem – she couldn’t imagine the Emperor of Evil (which she was hoping to become) walking around covered in baby sick.

Their sister Gemma seemed a more likely target, but since her last boyfriend had died, she hadn’t had much chance of romance either.  The girls’ mother, Rae, decided to do something to help Gemma.  Now she had reached the top of the medical  profession she would have more time on her hands and she needed something to do to take away the pain of losing her beloved Michael.  She had met a guy a while ago whom she thought might be Gemma’s type.  He was rich, single, and, um, “quirky”.

Donnie Sawyer had a strange habit of talking to himself when he thought no-one was looking (and sometimes even when he knew they were).  He was somewhat unconventional, but he was harmless enough.

Rae invited Donnie round and made herself scarce whilst he and Gemma tried to bond over juice.  They talked about their interests and their fears.  Donnie was obsessed with the evil bunnies that lurked in the bushes waiting to eat you.  Gemma wasn’t impressed.  She  may have had her neuroses, but this guy was a total fruitloop.

Whenever Donnie came to visit, he would inevitably end up playing the guitar and dreaming of becoming a rock star…

…whilst Gemma was getting into novel writing.  Her latest work, ‘Gemma Quest’ was going very well indeed.

Eventually they found themselves in the bathroom-home of all flirting and romance-at the same time as each other, but Donnie spoiled the mood by having a little accident.

Fed up of their inability to connect, Rae asked Donnie to move in with the family, hoping that eventually he and Gemma would pair off.  Donnie began working towards his dream of being a rock star by getting a job in the music industry.  It was the first job he’d ever had – he was rich and a bit of a couch potato and hadn’t really ever motivated himself before.

Learning that Donnie was a couch potato like her intrigued Gemma and she wondered if maybe they had more in common than she’d first thought.  And of course, he was rich, which was a good thing – all she had wanted was to live off a rich man rather than getting a job, and that was becoming a pressing need.  Since Michael passed on, things were a little troubled in terms of the Kyoti household finances.

They’d been so busy grieving that they missed a bill payment and had their lamp repossessed.

And young Alfie Win became the first Kyoti teenager in a long time to take on a part-time job to help out, although he didn’t exactly enjoy working at the spa too much.

He did like Donnie, though, as did Joanna.  Gemma looked at the way Donnie got on with her siblings (and was hated by the evil alien replicants Jono and Nicola) and she started to think more about whether he was a serious marriage prospect.

Some more bathroom flirting ensued…

…and eventually they shared their first kiss.

Seizing the moment, Gemma decided to propose to Donnie.

Donnie refused.

Gemma stormed off, unimpressed.  This guy was behaving like a bit of a jerk.  She had been beginning to find him somewhat attractive, and the feeling was reciprocated, but there was something holding him back – and if she was honest, something was holding her back, too.

Over breakfast the next morning she contemplated what to do – should she really marry a man where there was no particular ‘spark’ between them?  But as Alfie Win chatted about longing for another new car, she realised having ‘the spark’ wasn’t what really mattered.  Donnie was a bit annoying, but he wasn’t a bad man, and there were even some things about him she liked – he could watch TV with her, and he was pretty good on a guitar.  They could be friends, they may even become really close over time.  And he was rich, which was the most important thing.

She proposed yet again, and this time he accepted.  They set the wedding for the next day and booked the park across the street.

The day didn’t get off to a flying start when the family got word that Harry Kyoti had died, but hey, death becomes a Kyoti party, so the show must go on.

Gemma carrying a half mixed bowl of waffle batter to the ceremony wasn’t a fabulous omen, mind you.

When the lovebirds arrived, they discovered their guests dispersed all over the large park.  The guests seemed more interested in chatting to each other than in celebrating the marriage.  Some guy calling himself “The Ninth Doctor” kept hanging around and shouting randomly in the background.  It all felt rather less than romantic.

Still, the couple started to hold hands and as they looked into each other’s eyes, they prepared to make their vows (even if Gemma’s brother Seth was looking away from them).

But, of course, Gemma’s mobile phone went off at the opportune moment with a fabulous opportunity to mend a friend’s stereo which she couldn’t resist.

They were ready to start again, but Gemma got hungry and demanded Jono whip the batter for the waffles for her before she proceeded.

Jono then had to go to work, and Rae was left holding the waffle pan ready to take home to cook.  In the meantime, all the guests left, bemused that they hadn’t actually witnessed any nuptials.

Gemma and Donnie decided to use their his’n’hers moodlet managers to get themselves back in the mood whilst Rae went home to cook the celebratory waffles.

As night fell, Gemma and Donnie had their own private wedding under the stars… and came home to the news that Gemma’s aunt Emma Mabel had died just after leaving the ‘ceremony’.  Gemma started to panic… were the fates against this marriage?

8.11 Take it like a man

Michael Kyoti loved his six children.  Although they were often challenging and sometimes difficult to understand, he did have a real affection for them all.  He was really excited because all three of his sons were about to grow up.  He cradled baby Alfie Win, wondering if he would ever cradle a newborn again, and grateful he’d got to experience childrearing so many times.

Jono Kyoti was the first to age up.

He made a big show of deliberating over what he wanted to become in life… but really he’d known for some time…

…he wanted to be a Master Thief.

Seth Kyoti was next, and although he pretended to be holding things together, as he blew the candles out, he couldn’t do it.

He had a massive freak-out at the thought of staying in this madhouse any longer.  He wanted to be Swimming in Cash, but the family were already doing that.  He didn’t want anything else from them.

He was ready to leave  – but there was one person he was afraid of leaving.

Before he left, Seth cleaned his teeth three times, washed his hands twice and tucked his big sister Gemma in.  He was so afraid that she would be destroyed by the government and their alien conspiracy.  He really hoped their parents would look out for her.  He was ready to go but he would miss his big sister more than he could say.

Gemma was devastated to say goodbye to Seth, but she was also glad that he was going to get himself out, and get himself to safety.  She decided it would be her duty to protect their little brother and teach him all the valuable life skills he needed, such as to check for bugs, both the biological and electronic kind, wherever he went.

Alfie Win was such a little charmer that he helped Gemma feel a lot happier.

Joanna was also enjoying having another little brother to play with and she loved spending time with Alfie Win.

Of course, once or twice, Nicola managed to swipe some candy from him and stay true to form.  However, she didn’t get to do it as often as she’d like, because she had other priorities.

She and Jono had made a pact to both rise to the top of the criminal career together – he would become a Master Thief, like their ancestor Joseph, and she would become the Emperor of Evil like their ancestor Cinderella.  Together they would rule the Valley.

All this meant that the Kyotis’ legendary cops’n’robbers room was getting a lot of use…

Of course, policewoman Joanna tried to use the room at different times to her evil criminal siblings.  In the past she’d have been far too good to share her home with her enemy, but since her ‘mid-life crisis’ as the family called it, she’d become much more laid back.

All three began rising up their respective career tracks…

…with Joanna adding another police car to the family’s fleet…

…and Nicola raiding Cinderella’s old wardrobe.

The evil duo were happy to conspire regularly over games of chess.

Joanna’s suspicion of her family members had perhaps gone a little far when she tried to interrogagte her bemused uncle Harry in the town library when he was doing a book signing.

Gemma was still Gemma.  She was still determined not to work, determined to marry a rich man – maybe her boyfriend Joel, if he could ever stick around longer than five minutes.  She was determined not to let THEM get to her.  Since Seth left, she was on her own fighting the enemy threat.  Her teeth-cleaning and tap checking reached new heights of obsessiveness.

On the eve of Alfie Win’s birthday, Michael put the finishing touches to Jono’s portrait.  He had now painted portraits of all five of his older children.  He dearly longed to paint Alfie Win’s as well though he knew that wasn’t likely.

Alfie Win was a strange child.  Not in the way his brothers and sisters were strange, but he seemed to have huge mood swings – he’d be grumpy one minute…

…and the next he’d be easily impressed with what he was doing.  He spent most of his time playing with blocks and occasionally playing chess or doing is homework.  The family never knew whether he’d jump at an idea or resent it, so they mostly left him to his own devices.

Rae, meanwhile, was still making steady progress in the medical field, and was also getting to know everyone in town – finally achieving her lifetime wish of Golden Tongue, Golden Fingers.

Rae encouraged Gemma to go out and meet some of the neighbours too.  she was secretly concerned about her daughter’s desire to marry a rich man and simply live off him, not least because Gemma had seemed to fall for Joel, the first rich man she met, despite there being a large age gap beteeen them.  Rae would never stop Gemma doing what she wanted, but she did want Gemma to be informed about the choices she was making and not spend her days in a marriage she would one day regret.  Their next door neighbour was bemused by Gemma’s assertion that evil aliens were wearing masks to make them look like real people.  Perhaps he wouldn’t be the next Mr Kyoti.

It seemed no time at all until it was Alfie Win’s next birthday.  He was having an excited day – it was time for a party, and cake!  His big brother Seth was home as were his uncles Harry and Wesley and his aunt Emma Mabel, plus lots of the family’s friends and neighbours.  He was going to be a big boy!  However, when he blew the candles out, it wasn’t him that was covered in sparks…

His birthday cake and the table went up in flames!  The family had heard stories about this kind of thing but never experienced it themselves.  There was an old family story about Carmel Kyoti setting a barbecue on fire several generations back, but she was renowned for being the batty old lady that lived in the attic so no-one was surprised by that kind of story.  However, they never expected to experience a fire themselves.

They called the Fire Brigade and four firefighters came… but the blaze was getting out of control and the firefighters told the family they couldn’t hold the flames back, the fire would have to just blow itself out.

Michael was shocked.  He couldn’t let that happen – he couldn’t let there be a risk of fire engulfing those he loved: his children, his wife, his brothers and sister, his friends, his home, his family’s legacy.

Reaching for a fire extinguisher, brave, protective Michael Kyoti walked into the fire.

8.10 Why do you have to be a heartbreaker?

Michael Kyoti became an old man with little fanfare, because he was far more excited about something else to make a fuss of his birthday…

Yes, he and Rae were expecting their sixth child.  Rae wasn’t entirely impressed with this chain of events; she had assumed she was too old to have any more children, but Michael was thrilled, as he’d been wanting another child for a long time.

Seth was the first of their five children to discover a new baby brother or sister was on the way, and he started panicking.  Babies smell and mess things up, don’t they?  He was extra-fastidious in cleaning and tidying the house that day.

He was also very keen to talk to his friends online to find out signs of how he could tell if the new baby was part of the government’s evil alien agenda.

Jono, Seth’s twin, had other things on his mind and didn’t really care one way or the other about the baby news.  He was getting very interested in swimming.  He loved the outdoors, and loved the feeling he got from working out, so he made more use of the pool than any other Kyoti had done throughout the family’s history.

He also liked to sit at the outside desk and chat, troll on forums or play chess.  Jono was thinking about the future and he had a strong idea what he might like to do when he left school – he just needed to make sure he was ready for it.

Michael and his elder friends were chatting about how being grey didn’t mean life was over.  Michael was about to become a dad again; Joel was dating Michael’s daughter Gemma, and Sarah had a new love as well…

…she was seventh in the line of Nicola Kyoti’s conquests.  Gemma looked on in bewilderment – how could all these crazy people be falling for the evil alien replicant plot?  Didn’t they know the truth about Nicola?

With Sarah romanced and ditched, Nicola was running out of friends that she hadn’t yet destroyed, so she went to the park to play the guitar.  She played all through the night, and once the sun came up, she’d found more new friends whose hearts she could relish breaking.

One Jabe Garcia, the brother of Gemma’s boyfriend Joel, was the next to fall into Nicola Kyoti’s trap.

As she walked away from him, he was incredibly angry and became very concerned for his brother.  Was it really a good thing for Joel to be involved with a family that could produce someone as callous as Nicola?

As she walked away from Jabe, she didn’t feel the pang of regret most people would feel after letting down a loved one – she simply picked up her phone and invited over her next conquest.

Den Jupitus became the ninth Valley resident to succumb to Nicola’s charms.

Only one more conquest and she would have achieved her dream to tear apart the town by breaking the hearts of its citizens.

Although Nicola was on a mission, she still made sure she found time to tell her mother just how disgusting it was that she and Nicola’s father were having a new baby when they were practically pensioners.

Joanna Kyoti had always been the good one, the calm in the storm, but she had become increasingly isolated, withdrawn and depressed.  Since teenhood she’d been comfort eating and hiding in her room.  When she’d announced her desire to become a policewoman, no-one in the family had supported her.

She was becoming increasingly angry and frustrated.  How come Nicola could just decide she wanted to destroy so many people’s lives?  How come Gemma’s sole ambition was to marry a rich man?  How come her parents were even thinking of having another baby at their age?

Joanna couldn’t take it any more.  She felt like she was cracking up, like everything she once thought she was – good, sweet, clever Joanna – was changing.  She didn’t know who she was any more.  Eventually she snapped.  Maybe all she should want from life was to be Swimming in Cash.  So she sold some of the old family paintings that had been in the family for years, and she sold one of the old sports cars to replace it with a Margaret Vaguester.  It felt good to be reckless for once, and in a weird way, it was fulfilling.  She got a strange glow from the experience.  Something in her personality had shifted in a real way.

She kept on pursuing a career in the police, but suddenly she didn’t feel as much of an urgency to get to the top of that career anymore.

Joanna wasn’t the only one fulfilling wishes.  Nicola had invited her friend Jon over for a bit of romancing.

…followed by a bit of heartbreaking.

Ten broken hearts ought to be enough to make her mark on the Valley once and for all.  Nicola Kyoti was incredibly satisfied with herself.

Whilst the younger adult Kyotis were having these milestones, their parents were having another, as their sixth and final child was on his way.

Alfie Win Kyoti arrived safe and sound, with no idea of the craziness of the family he’d just been born into.

8.9 Why do fools fall in love?

Love was in the air for the Kyoti family.  No sooner had Nicola broken up with boyfriend Timothy than she rushed off to the park to meet her next victim true love.

Spencer Funke couldn’t resist her charms, expecially when she gave him an amazing massage.

It wasn’t long before they were a couple, but then Spencer had to suddenly dash off and use the toilet before things could go any further.

Nicola made the most of Spencer being inconvenienced by popping across the road to the Plaza to flirt with Ani Jone;  mooching a good meal from her at the same time.  Nicola had an ‘interesting’ approach to romancing, to say the least.

When Spencer returned, she asked him to join her at the theatre, and promplty dumped him in front of the large crowd leaving the show.

Her aunt Emma Mabel was one of those leaving the show and was somewhat ashamed to see her niece behaving so badly, especially towards one of her many friends.

The next day, Nicola invited Ani over, romanced her, and promptly broke up with her.

Michael looked at his daughter with despair.  Wasn’t this the third relationship she’d had in as many days?  He would never understand that girl – how could he have failed so badly as a parent that she was the result?

Love was also in the air for Wesley, who was hoping to soon top his career.  His relationship with colleague and close friend Jinny Bloomwood was eventually becoming something more.

He invited his boss, Joel Garcia, around that evening to talk about work.  When Gemma heard that Joel was rich, she got chatting to him, and the next day she invited him round to talk some more.

Joanna Kyoti came back from work at the Police Station to find both of her sisters flirting with some guys.  This was yet another of Nicola’s many conquests, and she couldn’t keep up with her, but she was worried about what Gemma was getting herself into: flirting with their uncle’s boss, and whilst Nicola was around to be a bad influence on her.  Joanna despaired.  It was getting harder and harder to be around her sisters.

Sure enough, Nicola got the next boy, Andrew, to agree to be her boyfriend, and them promptly dumped him as well.  Rae went out to see the boy and help pick up the pieces – she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d be spending the rest of her life trying to mop up the mistakes Nicola was making.

Wesley saw Joanna was becoming quite distressed and he implored her not to give in, to stay strong, to be the person she was and not be swayed by everyone else, but Joanna wasn’t sure she could be strong much longer.  She felt as though her sanity was hanging by a thread.

When Rae decided to go and read up on her charisma skilling after work, Nicola decided she’d accompany her mum to the library.  She was delighted to get there and find James, the boy that had rejected her first kiss, was there.  Duping him into becoming her boyfriend and then breaking his heart was the most delicious pleasure she’d experienced yet…

…closely followed by doing the same to her former friend Carey, who’d rejected both her and Jono’s advances not so long ago.

Whilst Nicola was busy dumping her sixth partner…

…Joel became Gemma’s first boyfriend.  He couldn’t resist her cute, kooky charms.

He didn’t quite understand her family though, other than his favourite chef, Wesley.  Gemma’s little brother Seth was especially strange, insisting on asking Joel if he was part of some sort of government conspiracy.

Being loved up clearly agreed with Joel, as he soon promoted Wesley to a Five-Star Chef.  Having achieved his dream, he left Michael and the family with an amazing fridge and went to live with Jinny and set up a restaurant together.

Love wasn’t just in the air for new couples, though.  Amidst all the chaos of their children’s lives, Rae and Michael Kyoti remained just as much in love as they ever were.

…and despite both being on the brink of elderhood, there was still as much passion in their marriage as ever.

8.8 Wishing and hoping

Gemma Kyoti was panicking.  What had she just seen?  She needed to check the taps, check the mirrors, wash her hands, do all of her safety checks, because she was really worried.  Her father was returning items she’d never seen before.  Where had he got them from?  Why was he sending them back?  She stood staring at him, mouth agape.  Michael saw his daughter watching him and knew he needed to tell her something.

Michael hoped he’d done the right thing in admitting to Gemma that he was returning stolen items.  When she asked him why, he told her that the family had been struggling to pay the bills on such a large house and he had wanted new things to sell… but that his conscience hadn’t let him do it.  He promised her he’d never steal again.  However, something had switched in Gemma’s mind.  They needed money?  What could she do to get them some?  She’d never wanted a job, she still didn’t want one.  She didn’t want her name on any records with any employers.  She knew better than to become a pawn in the system.  But she couldn’t help but worry.  Surely there must be something she could do to contribute to the family’s wealth?

It was time for the younger Kyoti children to become teens.  Seth was still afraid of the government conspiracies and demanded they only invited family to the party.

Wesley persuaded them to let his best friend Jinny join them, too.  Other than that, the only guests were Rae’s father and Harry and Emma Mabel.

Jono aged up to be a rather striking young man, and immediately went back to whispering with his big sister Nicola.  Michael eyed his children with suspicion.  It wasn’t nice to feel that way about your kids, and he wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but there was something very unnerving about them.

As the boys sat and watched the family’s favourite channel, Cookin’ Cable, Nicola looked at them both and wondered what Jono could become… and what kind of mischief they could get up to that would freak Seth out…

Nicola had a boyfriend, Timothy, but she was a natural flirt and couldn’t help trying her luck with other locals.  Her best friend, Carey Hart, spurned her advances, though.

Jono thought he’d also try his look with Carey, but she wasn’t impressed.  Rae looked at her children in horror.  What were they doing?  She was good friends with Nicola’s boyfriend Timothy, and she felt cut up on his behalf.  She tried her best to calm Carey down whilst Jono and Nicola ran off, giggling and whispering to one another.

The relationship between Jono and Nicola wasn’t the only one troubling their family.  Seth and Gemma were also thick as thieves and seemed to enjoy babbling nonsense at one another.  Seth’s latest obsession, alongside being afraid of the government, was to be scared of the lakes and sea around Sunset Valley.  There were monsters there.  And they were equipped with sonar.  Everywhere you fished, you were being watched.

Gemma had to go fishing the next day for a science project, but she was terrified.  She felt she was being watched all the time she did it.  She wondered if her little brother was right.

No sooner had the boys become teens than it was the girls’ turn to become adults and decide what to do with the rest of their lives.

Joanna really wanted to be a police officer, and she couldn’t understand why nobody else in the family seemed too keen on her pursuing this career.

Of course, not approving of Joanna entering the force didn’t mean the family disapproved of their fleet of police cars, such as the one Gemma used to drive into town.

Gemma was on a mission.  She had realised that there was a way she could contribute to the family funds but not work.  She would simply marry someone rich and live off their wealth for ever.  It would be simple.

As for Nicola…. well, she didn’t even wait until she’d eaten a piece of birthday cake before taking Timothy aside and breaking up with him.  He would be the first of many.  She’d befriended a lot of residents of the Valley… now she was going to make them fall totally in love with her… and then relish tearing their lives apart.

8.7 The heat is on

Michael Kyoti’s guilty secret was beginning to take over his life.  When he thought no-one was watching, he would sneak out of the house and take something from a friend’s home or public venue, and then he’d sneak back in.  It was becoming an obsession.  He hated what he was doing but he felt compelled to steal and he didn’t know what to do about it.

One of the reasons he’d been so stressed lately, and had thus turned to stealing, was the growing tension between his three teenage daughters.  Joanna, always so good, always so clever, was becoming very quiet and subdued.  She and Nicola had spent their early teens arguing and now Joanna preferred to stay out of her sister’s way.  Instead, Nicola was fighting with her other sister, Gemma.  Michael found the girls’ behaviour trying and he thought Nicola was probably the catalyst for a lot of the trouble.  There was something seriously wrong with his daughter, even though it pained him to admit it.  He tried to confront her a number of times, but she would always put the blame on the others, saying Gemma was just a neurotic freak who was overreacting, and Joanna was just a miserable so-and-so.

Nicola now had a boyfriend, a young man named Timothy, one of Rae’s many good friends.  He seemed a nice kid and Michael hoped he’d be a good influence on her.  He was at a loss as to what he and Rae could do to get through to her.  Maybe love would be the thing that saved her.

The younger Kyoti children, Seth and Jono, were as antagonistic as their sisters had been.  Jono always had a malevolent glint in his eye, and Seth always looked slightly panicky.  Occasionally Seth got the edge over Jono in a game of chess, but most of the time, Jono seemed to have the upper hand in their relationship.  They didn’t have the loud rows and crying their sisters had, but there was a quiet rivalry between them.

Jono was often talking with his big sister Nicola, and the family were always suspicious they might be plotting something, but they didn’t want to say anything – anything that got Nicola being nice to someone else couldn’t be discouraged, could it?  When he wasn’t spending time with Nicola, he often had his head buried in a book – but closer observation would reveal that often his eyes weren’t fixed on the text but darting about the room, revelling in other people’s misery and thinking about what he might do to them or get from them in the future.

Seth, on the other hand, was very close to Gemma.  She taught him all the tricks to stay safe in life, such as cleaning his teeth three times in a row and checking for alien spaceships every night before going to bed.  Gemma had taught him to use the internet because the people on there knew the truth, the truth that other people were keeping from them.  She was convinced Jono and Nicola were part of a sinister alien plot to take over the world – and her online friends had helped her become sure of this.

But as Seth started to investigate the alien threat, he discovered something even more sinister.  The government were in on it.  The government were against them all.  And his granny had worked for the government.  What if they’d been probing her house?  The house he now lived in?  Seth knew he needed to check every plughole, every socket and every tap to make sure there were no devices hiding.

Rae, in the meantime, maxed out her guitar skill and was rising through the medical ranks.  She continued to chat to local residents and was becoming very popular and loved in the Valley.  Many residents told her how much they liked her daughter Nicola, who had also taken up busking and was becoming a firm favourite with the locals.

Wesley Kyoti was making good progress in the culinary career and he couldn’t wait until the day he got to be a five-star chef.

He was also becoming best friends with Jinny Bloomwood, one of his colleagues, and he was starting to really fall for her… but he didn’t know if she felt the same, and he was too shy to find out.

Michael finally broke down one night and confessed his secret to Rae.  She shocked him with the revelation that she, too, got tempted to steal sometimes, but she channelled that anxiety into other things – her job, her work, her friendships.  She knew there were some bad tendencies within her, but for the sake of her family and for the good of the community, she had learned to manage them.  She knew Michael better than anyone, she loved him with all her heart and she knew he was a good, kind, family man.  She told him she knew he would do the right thing and that he could overcome his problems.

Michael knew she was right.  Rae encouraged him to channel his energies into other things like she did, so he decided to spend time with Wesley, helping with the cooking and gardening, and to paint more.  He’d always loved painting and now his aunt Daisy was no longer alive, the family would need a resident portrait painter soon.

Michael Kyoti slept soundly that night.

The next morning, he woke up very early and began the process of returning the things he’d stolen to their rightful owners.  He was relieved he had managed to put things right.

What Michael didn’t know was that one of his children was also awake, and was glued to the window trying to work out just what their father was up to…

8.5 Under pressure

Now the triplets were in their teenage years and hormones were flying, life in the Kyoti household was becoming very stressful.  Joanna and Nicola were frequently at each other’s throats, with Nicola accusing Joanna of being a goody-two-shoes and Joanna accusing Nicola of being evil.  It was taking its toll on all the family.

Gemma was becoming more and more anxious.  Her sisters’ behaviour was really freaking  her out.  The time she’d spent on internet forums had convinced her Nicola was an evil alien replicant sent to take over, and it seemed she was beginning with Joanna.  Their little brother Jono was also part of the alien replicant plot, she was sure of it.

The fact that Nicola kept wearing some creepy mask contraption thingy didn’t help to allay Gemma’s fears.  Like the rest of the family, she found that thing sinister and didn’t go near it, but Nicola loved it.  Surely this was proof she was alien?

It wasn’t just Gemma who was stressed out.  Michael Kyoti had a secret.

When he was a teenager and he couldn’t get a girlfriend, he’d had this terrible compulsion to steal something.  He crept into the big house across the road and took some flowers.  He felt so guilty about it afterwards that he sent it straight back.  It had haunted him for the rest of his life.

The trouble was that, even though he was a rising star of the business world – a CEO, in fact – he was getting that urge again.  The stress at home was getting to him and he wanted to relieve it by giving in to his old urge.  So when he was visiting friends, he just couldn’t resist taking something.  It was just a small table, but it scratched the itch.

When he come home, though, he felt so guilty.  He was sweating and shaking.  He didn’t dare talk about what he’d done to any of the older Kyotis, so he confessed to his little boy.  Jono simply smiled.  He’d found a new level of respect for his daddy… not to mention a useful source of blackmail material for the future.

Rae took her stress out on the guitar…

…but people dying at her busking gigs wasn’t good for morale.

Wesley wasn’t having the greatest time of things, either.  Progress in his cooking career was slow, as he was so tired from nights of looking after small children.  However, he was so close to his next promotion he could just taste it.  He invited his boss over.  They were friends and Wesley was sure his friend could see how qualified he was to move beyond being a simple Sous Chef.  So after exchanging pleasantries, Wesley plucked up the courage to ask for a promotion… and was turned down.

Little Seth wasn’t exactly getting off to a great start in life, with his big sister forever teasing him.

Nicola, of course, was revelling in all the misery around her.  As long as she was happy and Jono was taken care of, that was all that mattered.

With so much going on, and the stress of living with Nicola in particular, Joanna was falling behind with her school work.  She was good and clever, wasn’t she?  So how come it was just so hard to concentrate at the moment?

To confound the family’s misery, they were visited by a burglar for the first time since Jared’s tiny stereo was nicked all those generations ago.

And as if all that wasn’t bad enough…

…straight after the twins’ birthday party…

…they received word that Rae’s mother Rainey Luna and Michael’s aunt Freya Kyoti had both passed away.

8.4 Here come the girls

Wesley Kyoti was grilling the salmon for a special occasion…

…it was the triplets’ birthday.  As usual, Nicola wanted to do her own thing, so Joanna and Gemma went first…

…and Nicola waited until it was dark and she could get the cake all to herself.

Now the girls were older, they were able to help take care of their little brothers.

Nicola seemed especially keen to help out.  She was very overprotective of little Jono, and there seemed to be something unspoken between them that the rest of the family couldn’t tap into, but were wary of, all the same.

Her interest in Seth appeared to be for entirely different reasons.

Gemma felt she had an affinity with Seth, and she would help protect him from the evil alien replicants they were living with.  Spending all that time with other neurotic couch potato geniuses online had meant she’d become more and more like them, and she was more and more determined to protect herself and her little brother.

Joanna despaired.  She wasn’t sure either of her sisters were good influences for the boys, so she wanted to make sure she gave them as much positive input as possible.  With Gemma and Nicola acting as loose cannons, she wanted to do something to make sure this family didn’t fall completely to pieces.

As the girls got ready to start their new school, it was business as usual, with Nicola segregated from the other two.

Nicola may have felt a little lonely at times, but she was going to work this to her advantage.  She couldn’t care less about what her stupid sisters did with themselves… she was going to make people love her… and then she was going to turn Sunset Valley on its head…

8.3 Suspicious minds

Michael Kyoti loved being a dad.  It was hard work at times, especially trying to keep up with meeting the needs of each of his five children, but he loved them all – and he dearly wanted more.  He didn’t dare raise the issue with his wife Rae, though, as he got the impression she wouldn’t be too impressed.

Rae loved being a mum, but she wanted to achieve her dream of having a Golden Tongue and Golden Fingers, and she also wanted to progress in the medical career.  More babies were definitely not on her agenda – especially as she was worried about the ones they had.

Gemma seemed so neurotic – when she wasn’t lounging around on the sofa, anyway.  Joanna seemed too preoccupied with being good and doing the right thing… and Nicola… well, something was very, very wrong with Nicola.  She was sure Michael knew things were wrong too, but daren’t admit it in case he appeared to be a failure of a dad.  But Rae didn’t think it was about upbringing – the girls seemed to have been born that way.  As for her sons, well, they were too young to display many characteristics, really, but she could swear that occasionally she’d see the same panicked look in Seth’s eyes that Gemma often displayed.  And  Jono… no, he was a baby.  She wouldn’t think it.  It was just paranoia.  She hoped.

Michael’s twin brother, Wesley, was a little thrown by the experience of living with five young children.  He loved his nieces and nephews but they were much more time consuming than he imagined.  He wasn’t getting nearly enough time to practice his cooking or work on keeping his father’s garden in good shape – never mind finding himself a girlfriend, something he was beginning to want more and more.  He couldn’t wait til the boys were at school and he could get some sleep and start to focus a little more on his life goals.

Soon enough, it was the boys’ birthday.

Jono looked as if butter wouldn’t melt, and looking at his bright blue eyes, and his wonder at the garden, Rae thought she must have been a little presumptuous with her fears about how he would turn out.

Seth had less hair than his brother, but it was a reddish-brown shade, halfway between Rae’s and his late grandmother Karis’s, which Michael was really pleased about.

Wesley helped Rae and Michael with teaching the boys their essential life skills.  Jono’s eyes lit up as his uncle implored him to think about ways to make money when he grew older…

…and Seth was very excited when Wesley promised him he’d make him some of his famous nachos and salsa when he was old enough.

The boys were growing well enough, but Rae was still concerned about the girls – and so was Michael.  They wondered what they could do to encourage better socialisation.  The three of them only played together occasionally and even when they did they seemed to have little in common.  They really hoped that having the babies hadn’t meant the girls had started to feel neglected.

Joanna was so serious, always wanting to play chess, read books or give things to charity.  She kept asking if she could look after the babies, or do things to help.  They wished she would stop feeling the need to be so darn good the whole time.

Gemma, meanwhile, spent a lot of time on the computer, hiding behind her hair or checking the taps.  When she did play with blocks, she was always building some sort of alien spaceship and talking about how she would bring the aliens down.  Michael suggested she might want to write science fiction novels like her uncle Harry, but he wasn’t sure if she was listening – the girl was so often in a world of her own.

Nicola, meanwhile, seemed different.  Suspiciously different.  She painted a picture for them and said it was a special picture to show herself being very happy.  She was taking a very keen interest in her little brother Jono, always wanting to be around him when he was learning to talk.  She kept mentioning how she hoped when he was older that he would be her best friend.

Rae and Michael were torn.  On the one hand, they were glad their daughter was interested in her little brother, but on the other, they were worried she might be a bad influence on him.  Because both of them had noticed that when Seth was crying, or someone had to change a nappy and felt a little sickened by the smell, Jono behaved in a way they’d only ever seen Nicola behave before…

…and they didn’t think it was a very good sign of things to come.

8.1 Party of five

For the Kyoti family, death and life were always intertwined, and so Michael and Rae knew the only fitting way they could mark Karis’s passing was to continue producing more children – to celebrate one life by beginning another.

The morning of the funeral and of the triplets’ birthday was a significant day for the family.  Freya had called that morning to deliver the sad news that Daisy had also passed away – so two funerals, three birthdays – and a leaving do.  Harry had decided to strike out on his own.

As the new heir, Michael Kyoti, held his daughter Joanna tight, he wondered what his contribution to the family legacy would be.  He didn’t expect to achieve great things like so many of his predecessors – he was the father of the generation that would birth the end of Lianndra Kyoti’s dream, though, and he hoped he would do a good job of raising his children.  He wondered which of his three daughters would be the one to take on the mantle of heir, and whether he would live to see the day they had children of their own.

As Rae kissed Gemma’s head, she wondered what life would be like as the parents of at least five children.  She loved the girls, but they were very hard work, particularly Nicola, who had a sinister streak already, and Gemma who seemed reluctant to do much.

Gemma had always seemed a little neurotic as an infant, and now she was older,those neuroses were becoming worse.  She didn’t enjoy the party.  She felt like everyone was looking at her, maybe because she didn’t look like her sisters, maybe because she was the odd one out.  She hid her face behind her hair and couldn’t wait to hide from the world.  Her uncle Wesley was talking about putting the barbecue on and she had to beg him not to – what if he started a fire?

Nicola took her cake and sat alone, looking at her sisters and wondering what planet they were on.  She smirked as she saw Gemma panicking and she felt slightly sick at the sight of Joanna trying to talk to all the adults.  Joanna was such a goody-goody.

Joanna didn’t do much to endear herself to Nicola when the first thing she did after the party was go up to what the family called the ‘cops and robbers’ room to play chess.  Nicola couldn’t believe how much of a square Joanna was, or how much of a scaredy-cat Gemma was.  Neither of them even seemed to want to mastermind evil plots with her.

The next day, Gemma and Joanna were up bright and early for the school bus.  Nicola, on the other hand, decided to prove her rebellious credentials by staying in bed and leisurely waltzing into lessons at lunchtime.  Her sisters were really worried about what life with Nicola was going to be like for the next few years – what if she got worse?

The Kyoti men seemed to not quite yet grasp what was really going on with the girls.  Wesley was busy cooking and gardening.

Michael, meanwhile was stressed.  Work were giving him a hard time for always turning up with bags under his eyes after not sleeping.  All he wanted to do was paint.

And although Rae was worried about her girls, she needed to make the most of her maternity leave by using it to socialise with the neighbours…

…and play the guitar.  It was whilst playing the guitar that she went into labour.

She ran all the way to the hospital (Michael got a cab!)

…and it wasn’t long before Jono and Seth Kyoti were welcomed into the world.