Of her brothers, Lucy found Gabriel the strangest. Michael was bossy and Raphael was quiet, but Gabriel was just plain odd.
He was an artist of course. His talented fingers could not only coax a chord of sublime musicality from the strings on his guitar, but they could also paint pictures of surpassing beauty.
He didn't hear and see the world in the same sounds and colours as normal people. Or so he said.
Gabriel tended to sleep later than most, as he worked late into the night, and then would wander the house and grounds for most of the day in his pyjama bottoms.
Lucy sometimes wished he would at least wear a shirt.
Once he was playing his guitar on their front steps, shirtless as ever, when the mail lady paused in her deliveries. She stood entranced, just listening to his music - and Lucy suspected - gazing equally rapt at his bare chest. She must have been there at least 10 minutes before she seemed to awaken to reality. She threw a handful of bills onto the ground declaring that a virtuoso, such as he, should not be troubled by such mundane burdens as the rest of us.
Gabriel nodded, finishing his song with a flourish, and the mail lady wandered off to complete her round, tears of joy in her eyes.
Lucy had picked up the mail and brushed off the dirt. Well, the bills had to be paid never mind his artistry.
Gabriel was always fun to prank as you could be guaranteed a satisfying reaction. His distressed calls of 'LUCEEE' sent her scurrying to the basement to hide or out of the house to the park, chortling with glee.
He once slept on the cold hard kitchen floor, preferring it over his soft, warm bed. 'To get in touch with my muse', he said. Whether he did or not, it made things awkward for those intent on breakfast the next morning.
There was no opening the fridge with him in the way.
Her friends at school thought it must be cool to have a brother who played in a rock band. Lucy didn't think so. As part of the family, all you ever heard were the same riffs over and over as he practiced or tried different tempos. You never got to hear a whole song, unless he was playing for the mail lady.
So it was strange when Lucy woke up on Tuesday morning to hear Gabriel playing a rather catchy tune. She tapped her foot along to it.
'Do you like it?' He asked. 'You should you know. You were the inspiration'.
'Me?' she asked.
'Yes,' He replied 'Remember the pink hair? Well I wrote a song about it. I called it 'Pink Hair Rage'. The guys in the band loved it. Sammy put down a great bass line.'
He grinned, reaching out to ruffle her hair. 'We played it last night and the audience went wild. A radio station has asked for a demo tape and there are murmurs about a record deal from our agent.'
Lucy's jaw dropped.
'So' He grinned. 'I am so happy with you that I asked Michael to let you off the hook so you could go to the formal.'
'Really?' Lucy's eyes shone. She would have hugged him if he had been wearing a shirt. 'What did he say?'
Gabriel shrugged. 'Oh something about when Hell freezes over, but I thought you would be pleased that I asked.'
