7 is the magic number

done anything to be the perfect aunt. On the day he was due back from Holland with Alice, May tidied the house, imagining all the wonderful adventures that lay ahead of them. She just had time to wash the last of the facepacks off before she heard Alice's key in the door. She ran downstairs followed by a liquid stream of cats, rushing down the steps like mercury in her wake, yowling a greeting, relieved not to be alone in the house any longer with this maniac who blended their mother.

Joe rushed into the lamplit hall, glanced up as his aunt ran to greet him and froze in horror. As Alice pulled the key from the lock, he began to scream.

May left soon after that. Small town Suffolk was no place for her. She married an octogenarian billionaire with a feline obsession. Alone at home with a small child, Alice's high spirits didn't last long.
'Go play,' she would push Joe out of the kitchen door as one of her gentlemen arrived to do odd jobs around the house. 'Go find some friends your own age.'

And he did. When Randy and Violet were busy with their own families, Joe would wander out to the trailer park to play with Clive's kids. CJ became like the kid brother he never had. It was the only place he felt accepted, the only place where people didn't joke about his crazy cat aunt and Alice's drinking. The only place in the world he felt like the normal one. There were eight of them in one trailer - Rowena, Clive, their five children and her mother, poor Wilma's best friend .........