Margaret Ann lives on a teacher's salary with her parents in a bedroom painted to look like Hogwarts. Her favorite pastimes include writing, playing pranks, and generally provoking her closest friends to the brink of insanity. She is the eldest of three children who trace their highly-Caucasian ancestral roots back to the Mayflower on their father's side, and to Jamestown on their mother's*. Her Mom, Lillian, is a part-time accountant, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and, to the chagrin of her family, an irrelevant gossip enthusiast. Lillian's primary goal in life is to see her three children married and settled in other houses on the cul-de-sac, where she can act in a permanent grandmother-babysitter capacity**. Margaret Ann's father, Merle, grew up in small-town Maine, but detests the cold and the snow. He works in finance and can find no greater satisfaction than that of a properly-functioning Excel pivot table***. He also enjoys occasionally messing with the minds of his wife and children. Margaret Ann's rather tacit, not-so-little-anymore sister Elizabeth is a lot smarter than she is and enjoys pulling random objects apart and putting them back together. Elizabeth is in her last year of undergrad, pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. (Margaret Ann believes that she is also secretly planning world domination.) John, the youngest of the clan, is nearly as brilliant, in addition to being a fantastic runner. He is currently trying to remain under the radar until he finishes his last year of high school next spring.
The Hazeltons reside in former-capital-of-the-Confederacy Richmond, Virginia, where they are trying not to be destroyed by the summer humidity and staggering mosquito population. They spell their name like the eye color or the tree nut, not like the alphabetically-challenged town in Pennsylvania.
*Jamestowne was settled in 1607, while the Pilgrims and Puritans did not land on Plymouth Rock until 1620. Merle is continually reminded of this 13-year age gap.
**Lillian's plans for her children's lives do not necessarily coincide with their plans for their lives.
***Your guess is as good as mine as to what a pivot table is or does.
Kyle, Kang, Hazelton, and Kumah
