Blame it on the Wedding Dress

Chapter 1: Friday

It all began that evening before my sister Katie's wedding.

Well, I should mention that the big change happened that evening, as "everything" began much earlier. My name is Peter. Together with my family I live in a big mansion in southern England. I have three sisters older than me: Linda is 31 and lives in the West wing of the mansion. She is married to Harold and teaches English and physical education in our local preparatory school. Linda has always been kind of a replacement mother for me and my two other sisters because my parents are both lawyers and spend most of their time in their office downtown.

Katie is 28 and lives with her fiancee in the East wing of our large house. She currently studies modern history (at least I think so) at the university after having studied algebra, Greek history and whatever else. Her future husband is very proud of his well-educated wife-to-be and his income allows him to pay all of her expenses. Katie is a very pretty woman -- she has blue eyes, long blond hair and the face of an angel. And people tend to think that she would be one -- but deep inside of her a devil is living. If you don't do what she wants -- beware! If she's angry -- you better run for shelter.

My youngest sister is Nelly. She became 20 last week and is six years younger than me. She is in the middle of an apprenticeship for a medical secretary. Nelly is a very nice girl and we understand ourselves very good. We often talk and have tea together.

I run a small computer consulting company since I finished my studies two years ago. Although I have rented a small office downtown, I do most of my work from home -- who could live without the internet, today? And such, I am the family member that spends most of its time at home, followed by the parlourmaid or the gardener maybe.

The mansion is quite ample, and all our units have separate entrance doors so that we do not need to meet ourselves unintentionally. Of course, there are some connection doors, but these are closed most of the time. For convenience, we share some facilities of the house like the laundry. Why buy an own washing machine and a tumble dryer if it's possible to use mum's? No child would decide differently, correct?