The Hardy Family Chronicles

A Tale of Several SimsA New Beginning – Part 1

Lee and Kathy Hardy are a married couple, who have just moved into the suburbs from the city. They were once professor and student at university, but Kathy dropped out after falling in love with him. They have two children together, and wanted them to have a taste of the freedom a smaller town provides. The elder, a boy, is called Jake . And the younger, a little girl called Hannah.

They moved away from the city for a simpler life, away from offices and deadlines. They decided to pay their way by growing vegetables and fishing. Sunset Valley was perfect.

Those early years of their new existence were a golden era. Their son Jake showed promise, playing chess at an unusually high standard for his age....

... While his baby sister Hannah's communication skills developed at an astonishing rate. Though she rarely had anything of interest to say from Jake’s point of view.

Time passed easily for the family, and Jake’s birthday arrived. He hadn’t made many friends during his childhood, so the birthday party was fairly low key. But he didn’t mind, being a somewhat solitary kid anyway.

Jake the teenager was just as impressive a youth as ever. He doted on his little sister, who loved him dearly in return.

When he wasn’t playing with his little sister, Jake spent his free time honing the skills an early love of logic gave him.

He fell in love with the stars, and studied hard all there was to know about space, maths and science.

And he didn’t just learn theoretically. He worked on his practical skills too, helping his dad out around the house. They couldn’t afford new appliances when something broke, living off their own produce as they were.

Soon it was time for Hannah’s birthday, and she grew from a toddler to a child.

Hannah was not quite as academic as her big brother, and often turned her back on even trying to be as it would show up the difference between them even more.

Although Lee helped her with her homework, her primary passion was creation. Kathy bought her paint to help her to express herself. She would spend hours ignoring the rest of her family, quietly painting away.

Kathy was proud of her daughters ability, but Hannah was increasingly unresponsive towards her parents. Neither of them really ‘got’ her, closer in temperament to Jake instead.

It didn’t help that any time she wasn’t alone painting, she tried to be outdoors. Her social life was clearly a lot healthier than her brothers. She was always organising the other neighbour kids, though she relied on her best friend Jesse’s phone to do so.

It would have been easy for her to resent Jake the better relationship with their parents, or mock him for his lack of social skills... But her brother always had a special place in her heart. Jake could do no wrong in her eyes.

Hannah’s childhood was similar to her brothers, in that it was short and mostly uneventful. Her parents frugal lifestyle made adventures impossible, and hobbies few.

But given Hannah's temperament, it seemed unlikely her teenage years would pass as uneventfully. Her families sleepy existence wouldn’t last much longer.