Ambitious Heir

            I woke up from a dream one morning. Only, I guess it wasn’t really a dream. Through some sort of odd magic, the witch that cursed my family spoke with me. It revealed a lot, but nothing as important as the fact that I had officially been chosen as heir.

            Then again, look at the competition. Milton and Lois already moved out, so it couldn’t have been either of them. My regrettable twin was a nervous neat freak who happened to be adept at sucking up to parents. And then there were my little sisters. Surely Grandma wouldn’t have wanted to wager on them; they were young enough for their appearances to still be able to take on a drastic change.

            Before leaving for school, I stopped at the picture of my parents. Mom didn’t trust me, I could tell. She pretended to act as though this weren’t true. Sure, she loved me, but if it were a competition, I’d be losing. And I hated to lose. Dad, on the other hand, made it clear quite clear that I wasn’t his favorite. I respected him for that, and loved him despite of it. His death had been hard on me.

            “Well Pops,” I murmured. “Did you think that I’d be the victorious one?” I thought for another second, trying my best to remember life before he was gone. “You didn’t even know about this whole curse thing, did you?”

            My first day as heir went pretty normally. I went to school and pretended to be engulfed in each lesson. I thought about skipping my usual workout session at the fire station, wanting to start on my plans right away, but decided against that. Pumping iron would allow me time to mentally cement my first move.

            After I came back home and showered, my favorite little sister wanted to play. Of course I indulged her. Aubrey was fascinating to me. Insane but apparently unaware of it, unlike Aunt Odie.

            Gloria tried to interrupt our seesaw session. I didn’t care much for that twin. She was boring and often acted out her jealousy of our friendship. Some days I wanted to slap her because of this. Everyone, even me, was jealous of someone. It was uncouth to show it though. And unwise.

            Eventually it was time for me to strike. Knowing how to be a gentleman, I let Aubrey off first.

            I called for a cab, giving them the address I had chosen during my workout.

            It was late out, but I still felt the need to visit the Bird family. Several of their children attended my school, and I knew just how filthy rich they were.

            You see, as heir, I wanted to exceed my grandma’s past fortunes. Money was a growing interest to me. Money and nice things. Oh and power! Once I fulfill one half of the requirements to break the curse, it will be all the sweeter when I refuse to contribute any children. Ha! Won’t granny be pissed? The witch too!

            I devised a strategy for one way to gain some of my fortunes. I’d marry the oldest richest person I could find. My looks were only decent, but I had youth on my side. It was perfectly reasonable that I could become a gold digger.

            Once I convinced my peer to let me inside, I went looking for oldies right away. First I met Rashada Bird. While she was quite pretty, she was too young. There was a chance that she could still bear children, and I couldn’t have that.

            With a little more snooping, I discovered her mother. Jackpot!

            I quickly introduced myself in a charming manner. I did not have much of a chance to make an impression though, as curfew called.

            I was chipper the next morning, devising plans to call the elderly Bird woman. While getting some of Freddie’s love’s turkey for breakfast, I noticed that Mom was ignoring me.

            It became obvious that she was intentionally not speaking to me. I tried to think about all the things I’d done that she could possibly know about. Then I realized that she had not announced me as heir yet. She didn’t know that I knew, unless the witch told her. She must have just been uncomfortable with having to actually say which one of her kids would get all the inheritance.

            Satisfied with figuring out what Mom’s problem was, I went on to school like normal. Freddie glared back at me while I waited for Aubrey. That wasn’t out of the ordinary.

            Some jerk I’d hardly spoken to before invited me over after school. I didn’t know if he was wealthy or not, but I figured that I could check it out. Never hurts to have a backup plan.

            When we got to his house, I knew that it was not worth investigating further.

            The neighbors on the other hand… their barn styled house didn’t look as impressive as the Bird’s, but these people had plenty of land. And a run for horses. Horses are expensive.

            I knocked on the door and was greeted by Bart or Bert Bedlington. I wasn’t positive on the first name, but the last name was one that had always struck me. Descendants of the infamous Bedlingtons, some of the town’s most hated (and richest) people. Surely they had money.

            “What do you want?” the snob greeted me.

“Oh you know, just in the neighborhood.”

He snorted and started to turn away.

“Okay, okay, you got me! I’m really here to see you. I’ve admired you from afar for so long and I just really wanted to meet you up close.”

“Admired me?”

“Yes, you’re so popular and good-looking and charming. How do you do it?”

            My acting worked and it didn’t take long to get asked to come inside.

            Taking a quick glance around confirmed my theories. Rich.

            Unfortunately, the kid was the only person home at the moment. I settled on working on homework with him to pass time.

            The door opened to reveal another teenager, this one a female. She didn’t look any happier to see me.

            She did join the homework brigade though. I became more and more impatient for an elder.

            When my assignments were finished and a haunting started up, I decided that it was time to leave. At least I still had the Bird woman.

            And seeing rich people being plagued by ghosts was certainly a mood lifter.

            Just as I thought all hope was lost, a taxi dropped someone off. The fact that they took a cab wasn’t promising, but that they appeared to be a geezer was.

            I introduced myself to Finch Bedlington, the official owner of that haunted house. Wedding a man might make grandma and the witch all the more mad, so I decided to add him to my options. I certainly didn’t care about gender. Woohoo was simply woohoo, a means to an end.