There were eight of us in my family, mum and dad, myself as the oldest child and, incidentally the only girl, one set of triplets and one set of twins, thankfully neither set of which was identical, I was seventeen, my brothers were fifteen and fourteen when our parents decided that we kids were old enough to look after ourselves while they had a second honeymoon. So off they went for two weeks of fun in the sun leaving me, as the eldest, supposedly in charge. My brothers had other ideas, however, and I was seriously outnumbered, after the first day I just gave up trying to keep them under control and concentrated on keeping the house tidy. That in itself was a full time job, five boys equates to a ton and a half of mess, I liked my brothers, but they were a lazy bunch of sods who couldn't seem to do anything without making a mess of some sort and I was getting fed up with running around after them by the fifth day.
"Listen here you mob," I said firmly as I stood in the living room looking at my five brothers lounging around, "I'm fed up clearing up after you, you don't make this much mess when mum and dad are around and I don't see why you should do it now, I'm not your slave you know."
It was only as I finished speaking that I noticed that the boys were passing around a scotch bottle, it was nearly empty yet I was sure it had been full that morning. They were also whispering together which was always a bad sign as it meant they were up to some mischief or other. Gary, Mike, Frank, John and Len all looked up at me with silly grins on their faces and I knew that they were drunk, I snorted in disgust and was about to turn away from them when Mike spoke.
"That's not a bad idea you know Rita," he said, his words slurring a little, "just what we boys need."
"What is?" I asked in total puzzlement.