AN: Hey, I've had this idea going around in my head for a couple of months now so, since it's the holidays, I thought I'd try it out and here it is! I'm open to all reviews and criticism so please don't be shy! I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I do not own TMI or its characters. I just drive them crazy ;)
Twelve weeks.
Twelve weeks in Juvie.
Twelve weeks in Juvie, in The Institute.
Twelve weeks in Juvie, in The Institute, with 6 other delinquents.
Twelve weeks in Juvie, in The Institute, with 6 other delinquents, who are just like me.
How hard can it be?
All I've got to deal with is orange jumpsuits and crappy canteen food. Easy just easy, I think as I pack, my life into two suitcases. Do you know how difficult it is to pack your whole life into two suitcases? Yeah it's easy just easy.
In go sketchpads, pencils, paints in tubes, paints in cans, spray paint, paintbrushes, rollers, charcoal and all my other much needed art supplies. With one suitcase full, I begin with my clothes dumping practically everything in, skinny jeans, tee-shirts, pyjamas, shoes and the minimal makeup and jewellery I own. Who knows, maybe they'll let us wear our own clothes. I add in books and certain other things I convince myself I'll need. Before stuffing in every last morsel of art supplies I can fit. Finally having zipped up my suitcases, which I painstakingly painted to make it look like it was raining in a soft yet bright green, I collect them up and walk out of my room.
Having shut my door, closing a door on my life before as well, I look up and see Jon doing the same. A suitcase in each hand with the door shut behind him, he looks just as he did months ago, yet so much has changed. His white-blond hair, his startling green eyes, even his jaw and nose, they're all the same. He's still wearing the usual black t-shirt, black jeans and black combat boots and yet he's changed, it's in his eyes. The grim expression from before changes to a grin when he catches sight of me, he's not nearly as put together as he thinks he is.
"Hey sis," he sings out.
"Hi Jon," I say tiredly.
"Come on, turn that frown upside down, princess."
"I'm not really in the mood, Jon"
"Oh no, you are not leaving like this." However, before he manages to do whatever he planned, we both smell them.
Pancakes, literally, the bread and butter of our family.
And then we're shoving and pushing each other as we fight to be the first to reach the kitchen first, with our suitcases and bodies intact.
"MOVE, Clary!" Jon shouts as he uses a particular manoeuvre of using his suitcases to trip up my ankles and shove past me.
"Hey, no fair, that's cheating, we banned that rule." I yell after him as I wait for the perfect time.
"Uh uh, that rule was banned the time before and that was a one-time only ban. Sooo we're back to you can't cheat when there are no rules" I have no idea how he managed to pant that out while running with two bags that guessing from the thumping on the stairs are jam-packed but he did somehow.
And then my chance opens up we're moving down the second flight of stairs and Jonathan is forced to shift to the side to right the bag in his right hand, leaving a space open on his left. The banister. I take it with a split second thought. I hoist my bags in front of me, giving Jonathan a slight push into the wall as I leap onto the banister, sliding sideways with my bags pointing towards Jonathan. I poke out my tongue as I slide past him, hearing him yell as he gets back up, "You cheater, that move is not fair."
"Oh?" I say with as much fake sympathy as I can manage.
"Yeah, just because you're shorter and lighter than me, does not mean you get to use the banister."
"So, like you don't use your height and, unfortunately for me, rather large muscles?"
"Exactly." He pants out as he fights to catch up with me. "Wait what?"
"Either way," I reply over my shoulder, "you can't cheat when there are no rules, right?" And the smell of victory is in the air that is until I feel a tug on my foot and I'm crashing towards the ground. Yet as Jonathan moves past me I swipe his feet out from under him and then he's the one crashing down right next to me. With both of us grunting on the ground, neither able to gain the upper hand and stand up I drop my bags hoping for the weight loss to help me, however, Jonathan seems to be thinking the same way, for his bags are released seconds after mine.
It's not until the sound of the bags crashing down the stairs towards us, that we momentarily cease our worm crawling, the shoving of the other while on our elbows as we both try to be the first through the narrow space. It's as if it's in slow motion as we turn our heads to find Valentine Morgenstern whooping as he rides down the stairs with a foot on one of our bags each, white-blond hair flapping, and onyx eyes sparkling. I turn to face Jonathan, well as much as I can without giving up my ground, and give him a quick menacing look, only to find him doing the same. "It seems that we have come to the same conclusion, brother dear." I whisper-shout before I shove him as hard as I can, only to find him shoving me back and I can tell you no matter how much I tease him about being fat those muscles definitely help him. But, I am not going to experience that pain again. Yes, Jonathan and I have been in a similar situation before, actually many many times before.
For if you think Jon and I are pancake fanatics Valentine, our father, is much much worse. So much as look at his pancake the wrong way and you can expect to be grounded for a week. I learnt that the hard way.
Before either of us manage to stand up, without the other pulling us back to the ground, we hear, "Watch out, suckers, those pancakes are mine." And it's bad when Valentine joins the war, for you know that you have no hope, and it's at this point that I know that Jonathan and I have both realised that we are going to go down, again.
I was right as unfortunately for us both, not a split second later we ended up with a face full of carpet and a foot in each of our backs, courtesy of Valentine Morgenstern, yet due to us all being used to this game Jonathan and I automatically reached out to pull him down with us.
Only to realise just how perfectly he planned this.
For at that exact point in time the bags come smashing into us. And let me tell you that having Valentine lifting himself off your back isn't exactly lightweight fun but having four 25kg bags land practically on top of you is a lot worse. And yet that weight also seems to bring back why I need those bags and why they are part of the war anyway. And so with our backs in agony we watch, from the floor as Valentine lightly jumps over us and skips down the hallway, towards the pancakes. The pancakes which should have been mine, groaning Jonathan and I begin to pull ourselves up, pausing again when we hear Valentine's voice ring out again, "Mm mm these pancakes are super good, it's a pity Jonathan and Clarissa couldn't make it to the kitchen. Don't you think Jocelyn?" I don't hear her reply as his words instigate my reaction immediately. A quick push to Jonathan and he's sprawling on the floor as my nose is flooded with the scent of pancakes and my feet thud quickly down the hallway.
Yet somehow, as I'm passing through the final doorway into the kitchen, there's a last shove from Jonathan causing us both to come skidding into the kitchen at the same time. After Jonathan's immature squabbling over who gets the most pancakes as to who arrived first into the kitchen, which was so me, is cut off as I enjoy the delicate delicacy that is a pancake. I zone out of the talking happening around me until I hear Valentine addressing Jonathan.
"… If you bring any disgrace to the Morgenstern hair, as the only child of mine to carry on our Switzerland heritage in looks," he continues throwing me a scathing look, just because mum has red hair, I get all the blame for carrying it on. "I mean your hair, Jonathan, the pure white-blond hair." Cue the rant. "This hair has been in our hair for generations and it has been in our family for generations, if you so much as come back with one hair on that head of yours changed, if you change the colour or shave it off, so help me I will send you to Juvie myself." I snigger at this little exchange between father and son as it's always priceless.
"Dad I know, ok, I've only heard that lecture for the better part of every day of my life."
"Quite, right son, now Clarissa this delinquency of yours," oh great and now Jonathan's the one sniggering. "How could you drag Jonathan down with you?"
"Yes, Clarissa how could you drag me down with you? All I was trying to do was take the brunt of the fall for you." Jonathan says all too innocently. Unbelievable. Jonathan did just as much as I did 'taking the brunt of the fall for you' my ass. Who does he think he is, Mother Teresa?
"Yes, yes you see." Valentine agrees. And yet his confidence wavers when mum narrows her eyes at him.
After The Look, and trust me that look is scarrryyy, I mean people have probably turned over in their grave because of it. The eyes narrow, as the eyebrows are drawn in; the red hair turns from beautiful and flowing to electric and on fire. Luckily dad looks away before too long, giving mum the opportunity to speak as she seems to be unable to while giving The Look. "Valentine, it is equally Jonathan's fault as it is Clarissa's that is why they are both going."
"Sure, sure," he grumbles back.
"Now, we have already been over this many times, Valentine, and given that this is their last breakfast at this table for twelve weeks we are not discussing their delinquency anymore. Understood?" With a sullen nod from dad, mum cleans that topic off the bench.
As dad and mum begin to discuss boring work stuff, and I'm tuning out, again as my pancakes grown increasingly more and more interesting, I feel a poke to my shoulder. "I'm kind of eating pancakes here." I say without looking up.
"Oh right I forgot, for you to eat pancakes you need to apply all of your brain power to life your fork to your mouth and back to the plate."
"Hey, I'm using a knife as well." I fire back, enjoying the banter. Pancakes absorb my attention until I feel another slightly harder poke. "What?" I snap, before finally turning to see Jonathan with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"We're gone for twelve weeks, right?"
"Yes, Jonathan we've only told you that a million times." I reply with an eye roll, talking especially slowly as maybe this time that minor detail will stick in his pea-sized brain.
"Shush, keep it down, I've got a plan." Suddenly I'm all ears as now I know that breakfast is going to get a hell of a lot more interesting as Jonathan doesn't muck around with his 'plans'.
"I'm listening."
"Alright what's the one thing at this table that will cause Valentine's shit to hit the fan?" I give him a blank stare. "Come on, the thing that can get us grounded for months…" he continues watching my face intently so as not to miss the slow recognition, as to what he's referring to, form on my face. "Ok, let's put it together now," he continues, like I'm three and sometimes I honestly think I am, three that is, "We're away for twelve weeks, meaning that he can't ground us until Christmas, so I say rather than just 'looking' at his pancakes, in that way," his voice drops lower now, as his eyebrows wiggle up and down. "I think that we should finish ours off," which when I look down to our plates I realise is roughly one pancake each, "and then we strike, you distract him talk about some art project… ooh even better make it of the Switzerland flag and then I'll grab the pancakes, and chuck half to you. Finally we stuff our faces for a brief few seconds so he can really see what we're doing and then we run, ok? Ok, enact my brilliant plan in five." See this is why I love my brother, we'll have one last 'fun' family feud before heading out in… shit we have only ten minutes.
"Jon" He keeps on eating, ignoring me. Garr. "Jon." I repeat poking him this time.
"Yes, dear sister, if you're wishing to thank me, for existing in this world, even better for existing and gracing you with the pleasure of calling yourself my sister, please refrain from poking quite so hard." I swear my expression turned murderous after he said that.
Two words that's all he gets, "10 minutes."
"Ahh shit" he exclaims. Before picking his pancake up and slamming it into his mouth, as I did seconds before. "Begin enactment of plan, now." He somehow manages to spit that out around his stuffed cheeks.
I turn to mum and dad finding them completely out of it as mum explains about some new artwork or maybe dad's talking about some new contract at his work. Let's hope it was art.
"Dad, in art we have to do a project on a country of our free choice. I decided to do Switzerland as although I do not have the Switzerland looks I wanted to show how much Switzerland means to me at heart," I crap on. Boy am I lucky that dad has somehow forgotten where Jon and I are going, today.
"Yes, yes very wise Clarissa if only Jonathan had your dedication to showing how important Switzerland is to our family." I watch out of my eye as Jonathan begins to move, only to be forced to stop as dad turns to him as he speaks. I've got to distract him.
"Um, so I was wondering if you could help me to gain a better understanding of what is the heart of Switzerland. As I'm planning on doing the Switzerland flag with the cross filled with things that make Switzerland what it is." This is such bullshit how he believes this I don't know. Luckily, saying this crap causes dad to turn his attention back to me.
"Clarissa, dear you should know, but I think you should draw the rich chocolates and cheeses, the lakes and the mount– AHHH!" Jonathan had struck, in a blur, the pancakes were gone, snatched off Valentine's plate in a move like lightning, and then they were sailing through the air, I stretch my hand up quickly, snatching my half out of the air. I stand up and Jon and I simultaneously stuff his pancakes into our faces. The delicious taste of fluffy pancakes, mmhhmmm, they are amazing. I open my eyes after the last crumb of succulent pancakes have crawled down my throat, to see dad standing up with shock, before we both put up the rude fingers, in a sort of sibling telekinesis, and proceed to stuff more pancakes into our mouths. Finally, the look we were waiting for forms on his face. Rage.
Jonathan grumbles out, "Run!" And I sprint, with Jonathan right on my heels and given the murderous noises behind me dad must be right on his. I turn to the stairs thinking that we might be able to tire him out.
"Jocelyn," he hollers as we all sprint, "they took my pancakes and then ate them in front of me." To all of our surprise we hear mum laughing, and a weird sort of shuttering sound. The stuffing of pancakes, the laughing and shuttering sound from below, the hollers of Valentine, the yells from Jon to hurry up, and finally the pants wracking my body, all combine and I realise I'm happy. It's bubbling up inside me and I begin to laugh too, with difficulty, Jon starts then and it becomes too much. We collapse on the floor, writhing around even dad joins us after a few scathing looks.
Ding Dong. The doorbell. That means ten minutes is up; it's time for Jon and me to go. At least it wasn't wasted. Jon and I, suddenly solemn, turn back and and begin to trudge downstairs, as we pass dad we each get a clip to the head, causing us to duck our heads as we pass him.
"That's for eating my pancakes." He says although his face looks as glum as we feel.
I reach the bottom of the last flight of stairs, picking up my raining green suitcases. I pass Jon, walking to the door to find mum speaking to two Clave officials, the current party in government.
"Clarissa and Jonathan Morgenstern?"
"Yes, that's me but it's Cla–" A nudge from Jon cuts me off. I didn't realise saying my preferred name, was too much to ask for, I snap to the Jonathan in my head.
"Yes, that's us." Jon says finishing my sentence, bringing me back to reality.
"Please, say your goodbyes and then we'll be off."
I turn around finding Jon beside me with mum and dad across from us. Jon steps forwards first, squaring his shoulders before, turning and pulling mum in towards him. She crumples, holding him tightly as he towers over her. I watch as she sniffles saying, "Take care of yourself okay? And Clary she acts big and tough but she needs you."
"I know, mum, okay. I'll be there for her."
"I love you."
"I love you too," Then Jon pulls back, helping mum up before wiping her tears, it's only then that I notice that I've let go of my bags and that I'm pushing past mum and Jon to reach my dad. And as he envelops me in his warm arms bringing me straight into his chest, I become daddy's little girl again. The girl who would run to her dad for anything and everything, knowing that he could fix it with a swish of his fingers, whether it was bandaging my knee or wiping my tears. Even Before that was true. Before, I became a delinquent. And yes, that's me, it's who I am and what I am, saying I didn't mean to do such a thing or coming up with an explanation as to why I did the crime or even an excuse doesn't change a thing. None of those things change the fact that I committed a felony. Me. I did it, a felony.
That's what my mind has been reduced to, a mess of squiggly thoughts with no point to their being and no end to their existence and yet they are somehow keeping me sane. But I know while dad holds me that despite my so called delinquency and my mess of a mind I am still my father's daughter. I know that if I really need him I can come running to him just as I did when I was a little girl and he would try and help me.
"I love you, dad." I whisper into his chest.
He holds me at arm's length then. "I love you too, honey, now come on, go out there and show everyone just how badass the Morgenstern children and their father are." I crack a grin and look over at mum who's raised an eyebrow at dad's comment. Causing him to hastily add to it, "Now, your mum she's in a whole other category, and luckily for you you've got a lot of that category in you too. I mean, look at you." I grin again even as I hold in the tears. I'm going to do as dad says I'm going to bring on the Morgenstern badassery.
With our goodbyes said. Jon and I follow the officials, together, united in our Morgenstern badassery, and our suitcases.
-o-O-o-
The trip there passes quickly despite our lack of knowledge as to where there is. I suppose it was the drugs they injected us with. Everything became sort of hazy and loopy, like when you're looking at one of those funhouse mirrors, or a kaleidoscope, it was the same, but warped. It could've been minutes or hours later, that was how effectively we were blinded. But as I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the funk and gunk from my eyes, I realised from the looks of it we'd arrived. At least that's what I gathered given the 10 or so other young people surrounding me, and Jon.
"You all know why you're here." I jump, at the booming voice, swivelling to face the speaker, even as I feel Jon's body wracking with laughter. Before I could shove him to shut up the pain in the ass the dark eyed, dark haired woman started speaking again, "You were given an ultimatum: join this program and have your criminal record stricken or suffer the normal consequences associated with the crimes committed. It is no surprise what the majority of you chose," she chuckled. Like we had much of a choice, 'despite the lack of knowledge, you possessed, as to what the program entitles." And she's off again.
I zone out, thinking about how much access I'll have to my painting materials and my clothes when I just about drop dead when she drones this out, "You all have certain addictions." What the hell! I think I would know if I had an addiction, I mouth off to her in my mind. "And the Clave believes these addictions are the reason as to why you committed your crimes and if we can cure you of these addictions we believe that the chance of further crime will decrease immensely." What a load of horse shite. She's really on a roll now. I look around at everyone else and see they are wearing much the same expression as I am. Dumbstruck. So I guess I'm not the only one who had absolutely no idea of our 'addictions'.
I vaguely hear the rest of what she says, "Militant like training… 6 weeks with access to addiction… 6 weeks without addiction." And an all-round brilliant time! She leaves not long after, something about leaving us to get settled in. Settled in, my ass.
"Huh?" I mumble, once I realise Jon asked me a question.
"I said, did you listen to any of that?" Jon asks.
"Parts of it." I grumble back.
I stand back, waiting for everyone else to have collected their bags before I go to collect mine, only to find Jon has already hoisted them out and is walking to collect our room keys. "Stupid… annoying… egotistical butthead." I mumble.
"Did you just call me a butthead?" A surprisingly lilting voice asks. I look up shocked, that definitely isn't Jon. I look him up and down quickly: messy golden hair, annoyingly tall stature, twinkling gold eyes … nope definitely not Jon. "I don't think I've been called a butthead since 9th grade."
"Then I think it's about time you were." I snap. Funnily enough rather than getting mad or storming off he chuckles. I mean he chuckles. Really? I shove past him, a frown pulling my eyebrows down, quickly. God, what a jerk. I mean am I really so short that I'm not even intimidating.
He flips over me. I mean come on, how is that fair. One minute I was shoving past him, towards Jonathan. The next, gold and black were blending together as he flipped right over me, I mean right over me, to stand in my path. And if I wasn't so mad, right now, I would even admit just how sexy that was. "Wait up," he says, as if he didn't just flip over me. "I didn't catch your name." He smiles charmingly as if he completely expects me to go weak at the knees.
I shove past him again. Only to have him flip over me, again. "You know, you're kind of sexy when you're mad." My eyes roll automatically. I shove past him one more time, maybe he'll get the message this time. And he flips. Again.
"That is getting so old." I finally say. A grin cracks across his face when I finally talk and I must say he really is gorgeous.
"Well, considering you won't even give me the time of day, I don't have many options." He replies, I can't help it I duck my head and grin.
"You could stop hitting on me entirely." I suggest, hoping I wasn't too forward.
"Now where's the fun in that?
I roll my eyes again, grinning as I shove past him one last time. Calling over my shoulder, "My name's Clary."
AN: Thanks for checking out my story. So, what did you all think? If you have time, please leave me a review so I know whether this idea is worth continuing.
Until next time, chickies,
Xoxo LondonRain324