“I’m hoooooome!” The twins shout in perfect unison. Rebecca cringed at the doors loud slam, then braced herself for the stampede.

“ I'm home!” Slam.                         

“ I'm home!” Slam.

“ I'm home!” Slam.

Rebecca sighed, and massaged her newly aching head. Why did her brothers always make so much noise? She abandoned  her latest project, a robot that could draw (or is at least is trying to), and heads to the bathroom, in hopes that a bath might help. Rebecca turned on the water and sank into the tub, letting the water run over her feet. She turned the knob, and the water stopped. She sank into the waters depth, savoring it's warmth.  Down stairs she could her little sister complaining.

“ Mommy, ‘Becca weft shwap stuff on the fwoor again!” She whined in her high pitched annoying voice.

“Sweetie, stop looking in Rebecca's room.” Her mother answered back, voice dripping with false sweetness, annoyance on the edges.

“ But mommy…” whiny voice again.

“ I said STOP!” and her anger was on full volume. SLAM! stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Her mother stomped down the stairs indicating she had slammed her door shut and was about to yell at her sister. Rebecca let her head sink under the water, and smiled as it muffled all her mother's yelling and sister’s protests. But suddenly, an ear piercing shriek rang out through the house, startling her.

“REBECCA!!!!!!!!” came her mother's angry shriek. Her head shot out of the water. She jumped out of the tub, slipped her nightgown on over her wet body, and ran downstairs. Before she could say a word, her mother was yelling at her at the top of her lungs.

“Where on earth  have you been?!” she shouted, her face turning red with anger.” I have been shouting for you to come down here since 6:00!” She paused, letting the words sink in. Rebecca bent her head low and stared at the ground, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous shade of magenta her mother was turning. “do you know what time it is? 6:13! You should be helping your father not soaking your lazy behind in the tub! And put on real clothes, because you're not going to bed until 9:30 too make up for all the work you missed this week!” Rebecca nodded her head violently and turned to go to her room to change, avoiding her mother's death stare as she ran up the stairs.

Yeesh. she thought as she slipped on a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt. Why does she always hate me? Well, I guess it's either me or my perfect brothers, she thought, rolling her eyes. Why did her mom love her brothers so much, but never cared about her? Maybe if she started working more she could prove herself to her mom. Maybe if she had time, she could ask her dad for help on her invention, she thought her mind wandering off topic. He never seemed to care that she wasn't like normal girls, that she preferred jeans over dresses, robots over make up. She stepped into her big, mucky rain boots, and walked out the front door. Making sure to slam the door behind her, she grabbed a bucket and heads over to the cows. After milking the cows, feeding chickens, pigs, and bailing hay, the sky started getting dark.

She glanced at her watch, 8:37. Abandoning all her work, she went out through the back door. Leaving her dirty shoes out side and exchanging them for her sneakers, she went out the front, but this time, cautiously closed it quietly. As soon as she's out, she ran for the fields, where she knew her dad would be. And that's when she heard it. A soft buzzing, a whirring of gears. Getting louder and louder. And suddenly recognition hits.

Drones. And by the sound of it, a lot of them. She looked up and saw what looked like hundreds of thousands of drones, their silver wings glinting in the moonlight. Abandoning whatever task she was doing, she turns and runs for the house. She bangs through the door and and shouts “ Mom, you need to get everyone in the basement! Now!” She hears her mother's tired sigh in response.

“ What is it nowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” the windows just shattered as about twenty drones zoomed in. “Everybody go!” Rebecca screamed. Seeing that her mother was doing nothing, she grabbed her sister and her mother's arm and ran with them to the basement. Her brothers seemed to have enough brains to pick up on what she's doing. They each hoisted up one of the twins and ran for the basement. “Mom! What are you doing? We have to go now!” Rebecca dragged her mom and dashed into the basement. What to do, what to do, what to do… Rebecca thought over and over as soon as they had shut the door behind them. Ok, first of all, they’re drones. Lots of drones. It would be hard to individually control all of these drones. So they must be all connected to one controller. Or… one system. Click! the lightbulb in her head went off.

She dashed to the supply closet, and pulled out the computer  she made and hid in here for emergencies. She opened it, and it was immediately taken over by viruses. Her hands flying over the keyboard, she typed away all the viruses to death. In less than a minute, they all stopped. She sighed with relief, and opened up a system that had randomly made an appearance on her desktop. Wow. was all she could think of  when she saw it. It was literally all the information she needed to shut down the drones. Right in front of her face. There's no time to think about how strangely suspicious that was. Typing as fast as she could, She turned all the information into a virus. From her corner of the room, she heard her mother scream.

“Christopher! We left him! We left him all alone!” her sobs echoed through out the basement. “It's ok, we’ll go get him!” she heard her brothers shout over her sobs. Before her mother could respond they ran up the stairs, and opened the door. Big mistake. Drones immediately zoomed  in, knocking over her brothers. Her mother screamed, probably the loudest by far, and rushed to the corner of the room with her sister. Faster, faster, faster… is all Rebecca thought about as she willed the virus to send faster. Her mother was screaming louder now and rebecca's sister was crying and shouting about wanting her daddy.Bingo! The viruses had sent and all the drones buzzing around the room stopped. Time seemed to slow down, and suddenly they all went from being frozen in the air to falling to the ground. Giant chunks of metal flew to the ground. Rebecca screamed as a drone came crashing down on her head.  

  Then the world went dark.

Rebecca woke up in the hospital, her mother by her side, and a pounding headache too go along with the nausea she was feeling . “Sweetie? are you feeling any better?”

“Wmabg hurgleburden?” was all she managed to get out before she blacked out.

When she woke up this time, she was sleeping in her own bed. Her head felt like someone was hitting it with a hammer. She cautiously opened her eyes, and her mother was there, but so was a strange man that she had never seen before. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and he smiled when she looked at him. When her mother saw her, she cautiously said, “Sweetie, we need to talk. Are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah. What do you need to talk about?”

“ Um… well… sweetie, you know that I love you very much but… I'm not your real mother.” she said with a nervous look on her face.

Rebecca’s stunned face was all she needed to know. “Sweetie, I know this is a shock to you …”

“That explains everything!” Rebecca exclaimed as she realized what this meant. Of course she couldn't be her mother, she always believed that men should do everything, whereas Rebecca believed wholeheartedly in women's rights.

“I… it… What?” her “mother” stumbled over her words with an exasperated look on her face.

“You can't be my mother,” she explained,” Because you rely too much on men too do everything. I've always believed in women's rights!”

The face she made showed clearly that Rebecca had said the wrong thing.

“I mean… um … men are very hardworking?” Rebecca said questioningly, trying to cover up her mistake.

“Anyways,” she replied, rolling her eyes,”we’re going to go meet your real mother. This is your father by the way,” The strange man smiled and waved at her.”She has a very… special gift that you seemed to have inherited from her.”

Rebecca pondered in her head what this “special gift” was. Maybe it was her extreme ease around technology. Maybe the fact that she hated everything that other girls seemed too like. Make up, dresses, ribbons,ugh. She swung her legs out of bed and got to her feet, following her “mom” out the door.

And standing right there was her mother. Her real mother. She had the same light green  eyes as she did, same long brown hair, and the same rainbow of freckles that were sprinkled over the bridge of her nose. She felt a familiar feeling in her heart, and a memory just magically popped into her head. It was her as a baby, with her mother singing to her. Was she really good at singing? that would be kind of a useless talent.

I agree, it does seem kind of stupid. But luckily, that's not your special talent.  A voice whispered in her head. She looked at her mother, who was smiling. “Hello Rebecca. I've waited a long time to meet you. And don't worry, you're just as bad at singing as I am.” Her voice sounded exactly the same as the one that had whispered in her head.

And now reader, you have reached the end. A story of a girl who had been lied too, while being withheld secrets about her life at the same time. I would ask you which one is worse, but really they are the same. Secrets are when you don't tell something, and lies are nothing more than secrets. For lies after all are when you keep the truth a secret.