It was finally my favorite holiday of the year. Call me fat (Sophie already does) but Thanksgiving is, hands down, the best holiday. Anyone who disagrees can fight me.

It was the one day of the year we put aside to just get together as a family and not fight for once. We all were happy and nice to each other and got to sit down for a delicious meal and be thankful for each other's presence. And ever since Sophie joined our family, it's gotten a whole lot better. For one, the food. Now that we know she's Hispanic (the whitest Latina I've ever seen), we know where she got her cooking skills from, and the recipes. For two, she has this connection with the triplets that's different from mine, the type only cousins can have. Obviously our connection is better as cousins and best friends but still. Bex looked up to Sophie as her role model, Rex loved the attention he got from her, and Lex just enjoyed pranking me with her. And somehow, no one knows how, she has been able to get the triplets to stop fighting just for Thanksgiving.

As my favorite holiday, I was heartbroken knowing we moved to a kingdom that didn't celebrate it. But Sophie being Sophie, she knew how to fix it.

"Hey guys!" Sophie greeted our group in the common area before school. School on Thanksgiving, can you believe it? A true tragedy. Our parents almost pulled us out but decided not to because "school is important" or something crazy like that.

"Hi Sophie!" Linh exclaimed, jumping up to hug her. Sophie laughed and hugged her back.

"Wow, I see how it is." I said. "No 'hi Dex! How are you Dex? Woah Dex, have you been working out recently?'"

Marella slung her arm around my shoulders and booped my nose. "Aww, don't worry Dexie. No one thinks you've been working out lately." I huffed at her and looked away, locking eyes with Fitz and his death glare. Honestly dude, ever heard of masking your emotions? We get it, you're in love with Marella, no need to be so possessive.

Sophie turned to Marella. "Thank you. He keeps flexing like he actually has muscles to flex. Like come on dude, no one's buying it." The two blondes high fived.

"At least I'm actually above five feet." I retaliated, instantly regretting it. My cousin and Marella turned to me with hate in their eyes, everyone else looking at me fearfully. The two tiny girls rushed at me and tackled me to the ground with surprising strength. I don't know where from, but Sophie pulled out a container of glitter and Marella had a tube of that eyelash stuff that makes them darker. Marimba, or something like that. I tried to throw them off me but again, they had surprising strength for their tiny bodies.

When they were done, both my eyelashes and my eyebrows were black and I had glitter covering my face and body. I grumbled about inequality and stuff like that while getting up.

"Anyways, what I was going to say before Dex decided to open his mouth," Sophie started, "we're having a friendsgiving and you're all invited!" I looked at her in shock. She really planned an entire friendsgiving for me? The others all looked at her in confusion.

"Friends... giving? What's that?" Biana asked. Sophie's gaze turned harsh before settling back to cheerful. The switch was so quick I almost didn't notice. What did Biana ever do to her?

"Y'know, Thanksgiving but with your friends. Friendsgiving. I know Thanksgiving is a thing in the U.S. and not really here, but y'all don't even celebrate friendsgiving?" They all shook their heads. My jaw dropped with the sheer audacity this kingdom had to not learn our customs and holidays. Oh wait that kinda sounds bad—

"Okay well basically Thanksgiving is where you get together with your family, have a big meal, and just say things you're thankful for and be grateful to be in each other's presence. Friendsgiving is where you do the same thing but with friends. Today is Thanksgiving so we're having dinner with our parents, but I was thinking we can have our friendsgiving on Saturday. We can all spend the day together then have a really big Thanksgiving meal for either lunch or dinner depending on what works for you." Sophie informed them.

The group looked at their calendars and agreed to it, then Sophie ran off to ask her other friends to come. When we met up later in the day she let me know that everyone could make it, and she was having it be a potluck style meal because her, Edaline, Juline, and Bex couldn't make that much food for everyone.

"Can't Grady, dad, Lex, Rex and I help?" I asked. She gave me a major side eye.

"There's a reason why only women cooked a long time ago. Well actually two. Sexist people and the fact that we can't trust people named Grady, Kesler, Lex, Rex, and Dex in a kitchen. Your side of the family are literally chemists, you deal with chemicals, not food." She had a fair point but I wouldn't admit that to her. Instead I threw her over my head like a sack of potatoes, threw her in my car, and drove us home.

"Oh my god could you please stop squealing?" Sophie asked me, adding an annoyed eye roll to the end.

"I'm not squealing." I argued. It was a little hard to speak with all the drool in my mouth from the heavenly sight of our Thanksgiving feast. "And what happened to no fighting?"

"I politely asked you to stop. I don't think that counts as fighting." This time I rolled my eyes.

We all sat down and joined hands. We didn't say grace as a group, instead just a prayer of thankfulness in our heads. We figured it was better that way since we all had different things to be thankful for. When we were done, we started passing the food around.

"Can you pass me the rolls?" I asked. Sophie stared at me dumbfounded.

"You already have three on your plate, besides the fact that you have three plates with mountains of food on each! You're so fat I swear." Edaline glared at her. "Sorry." My cousin grumbled.

"Well yeah but I still want more rolls." She was going to make fun of me either way, I might as well have owned it.

The dinner passed in a blur, all of us sharing things we were thankful for, like friends, family, our new homes. I ate every single thing on my plate and Sophie and Bex stared at me, shocked. Sophie whispered something in my sister's ear, and then she ran over to me.

"You're fat." The eleven year old stated. I lifted up my shirt to show my rib cage pushing through my skin.

"Clearly not." I stuck my tongue out at her. Sophie walked over to me.

"I don't get it. You just ate twenty pounds of food but I bet you still weigh under a hundred." She shook her head in disbelief.

"High metabolism, suck it." I retorted. She rolled her eyes and pushed me so I went flying into a wall.

"Sophie!" Edaline yelled after hearing the thud.

"Sorry!" Sophie replied with a grin that showed she was very much not sorry.

It was time for our friendsgiving celebration and everyone showed up at Sophie's house around eleven thirty in the morning. We had the big table set up for all thirteen of us. Rex, Bex, and Lex were having theirs in my house so our groups wouldn't clash.

Everyone laid their food on the table and took in the awkward atmosphere. I noticed Sophie had invited Stina and Maruca, which shocked me. It shocked my friends, too, with the glare exchanged between the two girls and Biana.

"What are they doing here?" Biana asked me. She said it in a tone like they had just murdered several babies.

"They're Sophie's friends, and she figured it would be nice to have all of our friends here to celebrate and be thankful for each other." I replied. I noticed Sophie talking to Stina and Maruca on the other side of the room and figured she was giving the same talk.

We all sat down at the table, I was between Marella and Tam, then Sophie was between Keefe and Stina. Thankfully, Stina and Biana were nowhere near each other.

"Okay, so we're all going to hold hands and in our heads either say a prayer or just acknowledge what you're thankful for. Then we pass out food and all out loud say things we're thankful for." Sophie told them. We all did as she said, then Keefe immediately lunged for the food when we were done. Only his plate could possibly rival mine. Sophie rolled her eyes yet again.

Tam scowled when he saw the majority of Sophie's plate had stuffing.

"I don't know how you can eat that stuff." He told her.

"Because it's good?" She asked with her mouth full, causing it to sound more like a mumble. The emo boy's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"No, it's not." He yelped as Linh elbowed his side.

"Don't worry Sophie, he doesn't know what he's talking about." She said, flicking her silver tipped hair over her shoulder as she dished herself a big helping of Edaline's "famous" stuffing, in Sophie's words.

She took a bite then slumped back in her seat, pure bliss on her face. "You're right, this is so good! Can I have your mom's recipe?" Sophie smiled but shook her head.

"Sorry, it's a family secret." Linh mimed a tear by dragging her finger down her cheek and pouted. Tam shook his head in annoyance at his sister's antics.

We all continued to eat and talk in small groups until Sophie got everyone's attention.

"Okie dokie artichokies." She said in a weird voice. Marella snorted her water out her nose in a loud laugh and Keefe could barely keep his laughter contained. "Now we're all going to say what we're most thankful for today. Who wants to start?" Apparently Stina did, which surprised me.

"I'm thankful for having friends that I know have my back no matter what, and don't leave me as soon as things aren't perfect." She smiled at my cousin who smiled back. I didn't know what caused them to be such good friends, but as long as Stina was acting like this to Sophie and not being mean, I didn't mind.

Sophie went next. "I'm thankful for getting to meet all of you, and connecting with you all so quickly. You all are seriously some of the bestest friends I've ever had."

"I'm thankful for Sophie and Dex coming into our lives, especially Sophie because she does pranks with me. And I guess Dex because we can prank him and it's always funny." Sophie laughed and high fived him.

We kept going around in the circle until it got to me. "I'm thankful for not having school shoo-" Sophie threw her spoon and it hit my Adam's apple, hard. I locked eyes with her death glare and visibly gulped.

"Not. Funny."

"Fine." I grumbled. "I'm thankful that I was able to smuggle over my collection of illegal guns-" That time it was the not-pokey end of her fork hitting my forehead.

"Dex, I swear I will actually murder you. Be serious." I sighed and started again.

"I'm thankful that I got to move here and meet all of you and have people to freak out with American horror stories." I grumbled in a monotone voice. Sophie looked satisfied, everyone else seemed shocked at what I had said before. We quickly got back on track and finished our lunches.

After everyone left and we had finished cleaning up, I gave Sophie a big hug.

"Thank you." I whispered into the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around me and turned her head so the side of her face was pressed against my chest.

"I'm a pretty great cousin, aren't I?" She asked with a smug voice. I shoved her away and stomped to my house, hiding my smile from her the whole way.

I'm on a roll with super long chapters, this one's over 2000!!!! I really enjoyed writing this chapter and the friends and family dynamics, plus Stina not so subtly jabbing at Biana because Stina could step on me and run me over with her car and I would thank her. Side note, I have chapter twenty two and twenty three done, and you do not understand the self restraint it is taking to not release twenty three right now, that one is going to be... exciting. I just want you all to be able to read it already so you can tell me what you think 😭 Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed, please vote and comment to boost my ego. I love you all!!!

Avery, out ->

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