So, I said that I wouldn't update till after the new year, and if anything, I probably should have updated my other fanfiction as opposed to starting a new one, but I this idea came to me after I rewatched all of Outnumbered in preparation for the Boxing Day special, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything else if I didn't write this one.
Happy reading - please could you review and tell me what you think. Thank you :-)
Opening the front door, Pete trudged into the jungle that was his house - having kids certainly changed the way he lived, a copious number of toys thrown about on the carpet, not that you could tell it was a carpet. Possessing kids wasn't loathsome - it was definitely an incredible experience, but once in awhile, it would be wonderful to walk into a house where he could actually move, or sit down, especially after a rough day at work, such as today, where there were three fights in his lesson with 11B alone, and another two in the other four lessons he taught that day.
As soon as he closed the door, he felt himself being engulfed by his youngest child, Karen. "Daddy, daddy!" she shrieked excitedly, as he picked her up, Karen beginning to rattle on about little girls taking pictures of fairies, answering her strange, peculiar, questions, as he put her down on the stairs, bending down to be eye to eye with her.
Once he had answered her questions, she sprinted off again into the living room, abandoning Pete, his youngest son towering over him at the top of the stairs.
"How was school?" he asked, despite knowing he had probably gone home early - this was his son, after all, a passive equivocator.
"I was sent home." Of course, Pete thought, raising his eyebrow, rolling his eyes.
"So you went to the office and told them you were ill, and they just sent you home like that?" Asked Pete.
"Yes! School have a new lady," Ben cheered, shooting back to his room to continue playing with whatever he had been playing with before Pete had come home - probably some experiment with a bird or squirrel that he had been hiding in his room; it was the most likely reason for the mould smell that Pete had begun to notice that had been radiating from his room.
Walking into the kitchen, Pete saw his wife, a thrall to the stove, cooking what looked like scrambled eggs in a, close to rusty, pan.
"What time did they send Ben home?" Pete asked his wife, Sue, kissing her on the cheek, opening the fridge to find some orange juice, which proved quite a task considering the fridge was a representation of their hovel - a mess, filled with absolute rubbish.
"Ten o'clock - he was at school for an hour! Thanks to her, our goddamn son has driving me absolutely nuts all day - he won't shut up - he gave me a blasted recital of Macbeth, using ketchup for the death scenes. Moreover, bloody Veronica has been emailing and calling me all day, even though I told her had two 'sick' children," Snapped Sue, beginning to violently beat up the eggs that were cooking in the pan. Wondering what she meant by two children, Pete put his hand on her shoulder, calming her down. "Mind you, Jake only made it to lunch time," Sue admitted, just as the doorbell rang. Walking over to the door, Pete left Sue with the scrambled egg, opening the door to an unexpected Angela, who brought an air of hubris where ever she went.
"Oh, how nice for you to come round," Pete lied, Ben arriving at the top of the stairs to announce to Aunty Angela that he was extremely ill with the plague, and was sent home at ten o'clock.
"You look quite healthy in my opinion," commented Angela.
"Well, I am ill - your opinion is rubbish," Ben bellowed, scampering, once again, back to his room,
"So Jake was ill?" Asked Pete, walking back into the kitchen with Angela, Sue sighing obnoxiously as soon as she saw her 'beloved' sister.
"Apparently," she said, flicking on the switch of the kettle, and pulling out four mugs, putting a tea bag in them. "According to the lady at the office, he fainted."
"Is he alright?" Angela asked, beginning to rummage around her handbag. "I have some supplements that would bring his energy right back up, balance the unbalanced vitamin levels in his blood."
"Or I could continue to do what I was doing by giving him some paracetamol and letting him sleep," Sue hissed through gritted teeth, angry at how her sister had the nerve to tell her how to raise her own kids, when she hadn't even had any of her goddamn own; the tofu- obsessed air head, rhapsodising over her 'amazing' supplements and mental gymnastics.
"But is he alright?" asked Pete, placing his hands on his hips, concerned about her eldest son.
"He was pretty sluggish earlier, but he's asleep now so he'll be fine, like elastic - it's probably just some bug going around at school - it is coming up to winter, and you know as well as anyone the amount of people that are sick this time of year." Pouring the boiling water into the four mugs, Sue filled them up to the top with milk, piling spoonfuls of sugar into two of them. Handing Angela one of the unsweetened mugs, she turned to Pete.
"Take this one up to Jake, will you," handing him one of the sweetened mugs, keeping the other one for herself, and to rightly.
"Sugar's completely fallacious for your health," Angela butted in.
"Yes, well nevertheless, I think that both Jake and I need it - you can try dealing with Ben for a whole day before you say anything," Sue shrilled, once again, through gritted teeth.
Abandoning the two sisters to deal with their differences over the way a child should be brought up, Pete took his tea, and Jake's, upstairs and into his eldest son's blacked out room, placing the mug on the nightstand by his sleeping son, surrounded by a copious amount of blankets. Pete considered migrating back to the kitchen, leaving his son to rest but decided otherwise. Although it was almost bug season, it wasn't quite around yet, which made Pete curious.
"Buddy... Jakester," he whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. Squinting his eyes, Jake sat up, slightly out of it.
"What, dad?" Jake asked, his voice rather raspy.
"I brought you tea. Your mum said you fainted at school."
"I don't want to talk about it," Jake groaned, rolling on his side, away from his dad, who proceeded to sit on the corner of the single bed.
"Why not?" Asked Pete.
The bullying was serious; there was no doubt about that. At first, Jake had survived, letting them take his money or run off with his bag, which was annoying, especially as he was unaware of what he had done to deserve it, but the bullying was not unbearable; he could deal with not having lunch for one day or having to fish his school bag out of the waste bins behind the school at the end of the day.
The boys then turned to using words from their limited vocabulary, such as chubby, or shortie, or dumb-arse, and so on, keeping with their original methods also. Once again, it wasn't unbearable, but it did worm its way into Jake's head a little more; maybe he did deserve to go without lunch, or breakfast - he couldn't change his height, but he could change his weight, so there was one less name they could call him; Jake also began to stay up a little later, revising over school work, and looking ahead, in subjects like maths and science.
Only when the bullies turned to violence, sporadically, surreptitiously beating him up behind the bike sheds, that it got horrible inside Jake's head, all the self-loathing. Sustaining hundreds of colossal bruises as a result of his weight meant that, consequently, food became his enemy, only eating small meals at dinner, saying that he had had a hot meal for lunch when his parents questioned him; he would also walk to school, which took half an hour or so, telling his parents that he wanted to breathe in fresh air. Just after half-term, he started pulling all-nighters, spending as much time as he could revising; when teachers asked why he fell asleep in his lessons, he would put it down to the amount of football he played. However, they continued to beat him up, Jake having to wear long sleeves constantly to hide the purple and blue forest of bruises on his arms, legs and torso.
However, instead of confining his father in all of this, he merely told him that it was embarrassing that he had fainted in front of his whole English class; rumours spread fast in his school, and he knew what would be waiting for him when he went back to school - he would be called weak, or pussy, then be beaten up.
"Just drink up your tea," Pete said, leaving his son to surrender to sleep.
"You woke him up? What were you thinking?" Sue shouted vulgarly, ignoring the looks from her idolised sister, as Pete ambled back into the kitchen with his own cup of tea, taking a sip.
"I was checking on him. He's asleep again," Pete assured.
"I God damn hope so - I have to work tomorrow and I can't leave him alone, here."
"You don't work on Thursdays," Pete said.
"I have to tomorrow, considering I took the day off today," Sue sighed, placing the, now, overdone eggs on some toast, calling down Karen and Ben.
"I could look after him," Angela piped.
"You're looking after our dad," Sue pointed out, exasperatedly.
"I'll stay at home tomorrow - call in and say he's ill; they can bring a supply in. I only have two classes tomorrow, anyway," suggested Pete, placing the two plates that Sue had prepared on the table for the kids that had just walked in.
"Now there's an idea," Sue said.
"It will give me time to finish this pile of marking I have upstairs, as well," Pete went on.
"Great. Ben! Stop throwing food at your sister," shouted Sue, noticing the borderline brawl in the corner of her eye.
"Oh, stop being so austere," Angela scoffed, folding her arms as she went to join the two little ones at the table.
"I'm the austere one?" Sue questioned. "I am nothing compared to you! Who was it who questioned the amount of sugar in my tea?"
"I'm merely watching out for your health!" Angela fought back.
"This is an excellent example for the kids," Pete added in, sarcastically. "And if you keep going, you'll wake Jake up."
"Oh, you can not say anything," Sue spat, sharply, stabbing the wooden spoon covered in the dross of the scrambled egg into Pete's chest.
"I thought you said it was wrong to stab people," Ben interrupted.
"It is," Sue admitted, turning to her seven-year-old son.
"Then how come you're allowed to do it?" he asked.
"It's different…" Sue thought for a moment, before lowering the 'weapon'. "Have you finished your dinner?" Ben and Karen both nodded. "Why don't you go and watch some TV?"
"Can we watch Little Britain?" Ben asked.
"No, you can not," Pete replied, which, in turn, made Ben whine. "Just watch Cbeebies or something."
"Cbeebies is for babies!" Karen shouted. "I'm not a baby!"
"I didn't mean it -" Pete was cut off by an offended Karen.
"If anyone's a baby, it's you!"
"But I'm older than you. If I'm a baby, then that makes you a baby too!"
"I'm not a baby!"
"We get the point, Karen! Just go and watch TV," Sue said, walking over and coaxing them before the living room door.
"Fine," Ben scoffed, stomping off into the living room, Karen following much more calmly.
"Why are you here, anyway?" Sue asked Angela, glaring with a jaundiced eye at the pompous woman.
"Oh, finally! We ask why I'm here," Angela snarled, purposely winding up her younger sister.
"Is your son ill? Have you been violated by both your other son and boss all day long, like termites? No, I don't think you have, so don't you dare comment on the fact that I haven't asked you why you have ceremoniously turned up at our house uncalled for!" Sue whisper-shouted, looking as if she were about to hand out an obituary with Angela's name on it. At that moment in time, Jake came downstairs in his pyjamas and dressing gown, his hair looking like a bird's nest.
"What's wrong Jakeyboy," Pete asked.
"I came wash my mug out; I'm thirsty," Jake mumbled, sleepily. "What's going on?" he asked, cluelessly.
"Oh, nothing, Jake. Go upstairs and I'll bring up some water in a minute," Pete said, taking the mug from the boy, who turned around and made his way back up the stairs disorientated.
"Now, where were we? Oh yes, you were about to give us some half-hearted excuse," Sue remarked, pointedly.
"Well, actually, I am here for a reason. My boyfriend broke up with me," Angela hollered, a tear coming from her eye.
"Well, isn't that marvellous," Sue snapped sarcastically - she couldn't be dealing with all of Angela's ridiculous problems right now.
"Sue, maybe you should go upstairs - I can deal with Angela," Pete offered, his foresight telling him that the argument would not end well, for anyone.
"Fine, fine, I'll go," Sue mumbled, wiping down her top and briskly walking out of the kitchen, head held high.
"Sorry that she's being so boorish; I know breakups aren't easy, but this isn't a great time right now," Pete acknowledged, calmly.
"No, I know when I'm not wanted. I'll be off," Angela jeered, placing the plates that had been at the table, and her mug, in the sink, picking up her handbag from the kitchen island and walking into the hallway. "Bye kids," she sang, as if nothing had happened, poking her head into the living room. "Tell Jake I said get well soon," Angela spoke, before leaving.
"God, she's stressful," Pete mumbled to himself, rubbing his hands on his face, going back into the kitchen to get Jake his glass of water.
"Sue…" he called up the stairs, climbing up them to sit in bed with his wife, leaving the two younger kids to their own devices downstairs, which probably wasn't the best idea.