“I expect no lady friends, Billy and no gentlemen for you, Rose, you two are only seventeen, a little later, you’ll both get married and everything will be great,” Father sternly warned us, we exchanged looks and shrugged. To be honest, I never found much interest in finding a husband even though I overheard my mother and father talking about marrying me off to my cousin twice removed, Benjamin Rattray. Our oldest brother, Miles was marrying a lovely young lady after the trip named Diane, we all loved her to death. 

“They’re all either tiny little babies or old, there’s no one my age,” Drew sat down angrily, biting into a loaf of bread. 

“I’m sure there is, maybe they're just not here yet," Billy ruffled the boy's hair. 

"Billy and Rose! Come meet Lydia," mother shouted from outside, we stepped out of the wagon to see a man with her arm wrapped around a roughed up looking but smiling girl, the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen. 

"You're Julian’s sister right?" I asked her when Billy pushed me out of the wagon because I was in his way. 

"That I am, miss," she grinned, I beamed back. "You're really pretty," she complimented me, and immediately I felt my ears turning red, which made her smile wider. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards Julian talking to a native boy, Billy following. She jumped on her brother’s back and started talking to him and the boy.

“This is Mingan, he has a brother, Eliza Jane went to show him her daisy chains,” Julian introduced us, I shook Mingan’s hand. 

“Hello, boys and girls, do you have room for one more? This is Scotty, he’s very shy,” Mrs Driscoll had a boy with big ears and pointy, brown hair by her side. 

“Of course, Ma, we’re very polite young people, isn’t that right, guys?” she wrapped her arm around mine, I felt goose skin appear where she took it.

“Yes, we are,” I nodded, doing a small curtsy, to which Billy and Julian snorted. Mrs Driscoll ruffled Scotty’s hair and left him with us.

“Hi, Scotty, how old are you?” questioned Julian, stepping towards the shy boy.

“Sixteen, seventeen in November, what about you guys? Are you all siblings?” Scotty had a high voice that broke in the middle of his sentence.

“I’m Billy, that’s my twin, Rose,” I joked, slapping Billy on the head lightly.

“Ouch! You bagel sandwich!” Billy shoved me into Lydia, who caught me in her arms but instead of letting go, she placed her arms over shoulders and hung on to me, everyone was laughing including the native boy who hadn’t said a word the entire time. 

“I’m Lydia, I’m seventeen and that’s my brother, Julian, he’s sixteen,” Lydia added, looking at Mingan to say something. 

“I’m Mingan, I’m sixteen but turning seventeen in September,” he explained.

I noticed Miles chatting to some girl in plaits, he looked over to me and smiled before coming up to us with the girl by his side. 

“I see you’ve met Scotty, this is Delores, his sister and I’m Miles, nice to meet y’all,” Miles introduced himself, “I see you two are already best of friends,” he laughed at me and Lydia and instead of being embarrassed Lydia stepped out from behind me and wrapped an arm around me. 

“Yes Sir! I’ve always wanted an older sister,” she mused carelessly but my heart seemed to skip a thousand beats.

We all chucked and began talking over each other, chatting about everything from where we came from and where we wanted to go to gossip about wagon seven, apparently they were all the way from Britain, at least that’s what Lydia claimed. 

“Boys and girls, I don’t mean to interrupt this very important conversation but your mothers are calling y’all for supper,” a man with platinum blond hair came up to us, I assumed he was the newly wedded man with no children. 

“Oh, can’t we eat all together outside?” Julian asked, the man looked terrified.

“O-Oh, well you should go ask your mother,” he stuttered. Lydia’s hand intertwined with mine, giving me a little squeeze, I turned to face her to see that she was wearing a massive grin on her pretty face. We managed to convince our parents to give us some food for all of us and eat outside, together.

 “I saw a nice little quiet area over there, by that tree,” Scotty informed us, Julian said that we should eat there. I saw Drew eating with Eliza Jane, another one of the Driscoll’s (those people had a lot of children like my own parents), Mingan’s little brother and a girl and a boy. 

“Who are those kids with Drew?” I whispered to Billy, who looked up and shrugged. 

“That’s Shannon and Nick, they’re from four and five,” Julian explained. 

While we were eating, Lydia kept staring at me and I felt myself staring back, I noticed her stunning ice blue eyes. How could I not have noticed how bright they were before? They looked as piercing as a thin needle.