My alarm goes off even though it's Saturday. I don't think I'll ever get used to my alarm clock. Mom was much better at waking me up, but about a week ago, she said, "William, you're ten years old. Time for you to be able to get up on your own." But I still miss her waking me up.

I pound the thing senseless until it shuts up and I roll out of my bed. My covers fall to the floor and I leave them there: cleaning can wait. I shuffle to the kitchen in my pajamas, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"Morning, William," comes a female voice from the kitchen that isn't Mom's.

"Hey, Aunt Monica. Where's Mom?"

"Nice to see you too," she answers in jest, winking at me. "She had to go back to Quantico to finish up some paperwork, but she'll be back this afternoon. Nice hair."

For some reason, she's always picking on my hair. It's an interesting blend between auburn and brown, and right now it's sticking up in various directions. I make a half-hearted attempt to smoothe it down. "Where's breakfast?"

"Wherever it was when you left it last. This isn't MY house. Want some ice cream?"

I love Aunt Monica.

She's not really my aunt, but she might as well be. It's the same way with Uncle John and Uncle Walter: they all worked with my mom at one point. They all know my dad, too, wherever he is. But whenever Mom has to leave the house, she always gets one of them to watch me. Those college-age, blonde babysitters are totally alien to me.

A bowl of Phish Food is placed in front of me, and I take it to the living room. I'm about to pop in a tape of Men in Black when someone knocks on the door. I let Aunt Monica get it and I press play.

"Mornin'," I hear Uncle John mutter, and I hear them kiss. Yech. I turn up the volume. Kissing is gross. Blowing up aliens and giant cockroaches is cooool.

"Hey, Sport," says Uncle John, who walks up behind me and ruffles my hair, making it messier than it was already. He's really cool. On my ninth birthday he stopped calling me Luke. I feel sorry for him.

I slug his arm and he shuffles back to the kitchen to talk shop with Aunt Monica. They work together at the FBI.

The movie's at the part when K is speaking Spanish. Aunt Monica translated what he really said a while ago for me. She grew up in Mexico. She's been trying to teach me, but my accent sucks. I know most of K's lines, though.

Something sizzles in the kitchen. Uncle John's making a real breakfast. I slurp my melted ice cream quickly so I can have a chance at avoiding his lethal bacon and eggs.

I leave the movie running � I've seen it about a bazillion times anyway � and walk to where the action is.

Uncle John's trying to flip pancakes, but failing miserably. It sticks to the ceiling with a soft "thack" and falls down to the floor a moment later. All of us just stare until Aunt Monica busts out laughing. I can't help but do the same. John thwacks both of us upside the head with the spatula, and I head back to the living room, leaving them to destroy the kitchen.

I�ve seen pictures of Aunt Monica and Uncle John from before I was born, and when I was a baby. They look pretty much the same, but his hair�s grayer and hers seems dyed. And they both have what Mom calls �laugh lines,� whatever that means. They don�t look *that* old�just�weathered, I guess.

But they�re pretty fun. Sometimes when Mom needs to relax and talk whatever it is that girls talk about, she gets together with Aunt Monica and luckily, Uncle John usually rescues me to go play ball or something�stuff that my dad would probably do with me if he was here.

I�ve seen pictures of my dad. Old ones, from before I was born. He was an FBI agent, too, like just about everyone else in my wacked-out family. Mom�s told me the story about a gazillion times: everything was all hunky-dory, then he got abducted by aliens and returned a few months later, dead. They bury him, funeral and everything, and then dig him up three months later and he�s alive. I�m born a few weeks later, and then he had to go into hiding. He emails me and Mom, and sends me e-birthday cards and stuff. It�s not the same, though. I wish he could visit, at least once. I wonder what he looks like now.