Disclaimer: I don't own Cheaper By The Dozen or any of it's characters.
A/N: In the movie Jared Padalecki plays the bully but he goes un-named so I decided to name him Mica Daniels.
The day after Kate Baker had left for New York for her book tour was everyone's first day of school. Tom had dropped the younger kids off at their schools while Charlie had driven himself and Lorraine in the 'Oldsmobile'.
As Charlie pulled into an empty parking spot, the old car gave an embarrassing squeal, there were a group of five sitting on and standing around the car in the next car space. Lorraine thought one of the two guys was pretty cute, that's when she noticed them snickering to each other.
'Great' she thought to herself grabbing her bag.
"Come on Lorraine" Charlie said quietly and opened his car door. It gave a loud protesting squeak. Lorraine followed suit. The pair had shut their doors when one of the five gave a 'Moo' the group burst into laughter. Lorraine turned and looked at them, it was apparently the cute one who had done the mooing. Lorraine looked him up and down from his chocolate brown slightly long hair to his sneakers.
"I guess he's the funniest guy in the herd" Lorraine said and started off in the direction of the main building. Charlie was still standing there looking at them when he turned to follow Lorraine and knocked his knee into the back of the guy's car causing the alarm to go off which made the group laugh even more.
Charlie and Lorraine walked into the admin office where they were given their class schedules, locker numbers and combinations and a form that all their teachers had to sign then had to be handed in when all of them had done so.
"I'll meet you back at the car at 3" Charlie said and went in search of his locker. Lorraine turned and did the same. When she found it she checked her schedule to see what text books she would need for the first few lessons and then stashed everything else in her locker. As she was doing this the first bell rang. Looking down at her schedule again she then went in search of her first class. Biology with Mr Kirk.
The second bell had just rang when she finally found the classroom. Seeing other students already seated Lorraine walked in and went straight up to the teacher and gave him her form to sign then he pointed out an empty seat.
"Everyone this is Lorraine Baker, she comes to us from Midland Illinois. Lorraine if you have any trouble don't hesitate to ask one of the other students or myself and we'll help" Mr Kirk said.
"Thanks Mr Kirk" Lorraine said sitting down in the pointed out seat. Reaching down into her backpack Lorraine took out a notebook and pen and began taking notes while Mr Kirk talked to the class about osmosis.
The next few lessons weren't that bad other than the amount of homework that was handed out. The other kids weren't so bad either, of course you got some that were jerks like the few this morning but Lorraine just ignored them. By lunchtime Lorraine had even made a new friend, her name was Justine they had a few classes together and Justine had showed Lorraine around a bit as much as she could between classes. The pair stood in line and bought their lunch then found an empty table to sit at and began to eat their lunch. They hadn't been sitting there long when a tray was put onto the table. Lorraine looked up as Charlie pulled out the chair next to hers and slumped down heavily into it with a sigh and began eating his lunch too.
"How's your day been so far?" Lorraine asked Charlie as he took a sip of his drink.
"Could be better, the jerk from this morning hasn't let up all day" Charlie replied pushing his food around on his plate.
"What jerk?" Justine asked. The two siblings pointed him and his friend's out easily enough, they were mucking around at their table.
"Mica Daniels?" Justine asked.
"Yeah you know him?" Charlie asked.
"Who doesn't" Justine replied then she changed the subject and the three of them talked about random things for the rest of lunch. When the final bell rang at 3 o'clock Lorraine couldn't help but feel relieved. As she was packing her things into her backpack Justine asked her if she wanted to go around to her place and get started on their homework.
"Sorry I can't, maybe another time" Lorraine declined. She wanted to but she could just imagine what the house was going to be like when she got home and knew her dad would need help.
"That's ok" Justine said then walked with Lorraine to Charlie's car where he was already waiting.
When the two of them got home it was a mad house. Because their mom was away the younger kids decided to take the opportunity to run riot. You know the old saying 'While that cat's away'. The house was a disaster zone. For some reason Nigel decided it would be fun to throw darts at Kim while Mike abseiled down the side of the house. Kyle had been sick then Henry unintentionally mopped it up with his back and had been sick then too. Jake who was washing the car had gone and stuck a bucket on Jessica's head. To top it all off, after dinner and while everyone was settling in ready for bed Tom informed all the kids their mom was going to be away longer than expected.
Two more weeks!
Lorraine had spent the afternoon in her room trying to get her homework done while everyone else was wreaking some form of havoc. She was sitting on her bed reading a magazine when her dad knocked on her door then told her about her mom staying away longer. Lorraine then decided to lay it to him straight even though she was reaping the rewards of the both of them working, Kate Baker being away for two more weeks was so not a good idea. She had only been gone a day and look at all the whacked things that happened already, was he prepared to deal with that for that long? That's when he mentioned he needed to get help from an outside source. There was no way he was going to hire a babysitter. Lorraine then told him to call Kate, she would understand and come straight home and iron out the whole mess but Tom being Tom, he flat out refused.
"Why not spend more time at home?" Lorraine asked. But he then went on about how 'it wasn't an option right now'. So the next day when he got home from work he tried to get help from several babysitting services, but no-one took him on... I wonder why? With much difficulty they tried to make things work, the three oldest Baker kids were baring the brunt of it all especially with Nora having to take time off work to help out around the house.
