Of Lies and Casserole Dishes
I own nothing.
Jason hopped onto the front porch of his house, coming home from school, and unlocked the door. He snuck past his older brother Peter, who was in charge when their parents were out shopping. He was watching TV on the couch and if he heard Jason, he didn't say anything. That was when he got up. Jason panicked, thinking that Peter had heard him, but no, he stretched and walked in the direction of the bathroom and Jason let out a breath he had been holding. He dumped his book bag on the floor and ran into the kitchen- where he plowed straight into his older sister, Paige.
"Hey!" she cried out when he hit her; she was holding her mother's casserole dish, which was full of spaghetti, and tried not to lose her grip on it. However, the dish was new, as their mother got it for Christmas, and it slipped out of her hands and shattered and splattered all over the floor. "Oh no!" she wailed, "Look what you made me do! That was mother's best dish!"
"What I made you do!? You dropped it!" Jason picked himself up off the floor and tried to avoid the worst of the mess.
"You ran into me!" Thus started an argument between the two.
Meanwhile, Peter had been in the bathroom when he heard the crash and he hurried to find out what it was. He ran to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway, open mouthed at the gigantic mess and bickering siblings.
"What. Happened." He was positively seething as he looked at the two for an answer.
"He did it!"
"She did it!" They pointed at each other and Peter groaned and rubbed his head, trailing it down his face as the adrenaline started to kick in.
"Oh man." He said, panic replacing anger, "What are we gonna do? Mom's gonna kill us!"
"It's Jason's fault!"
"You dropped it!" They were about to start an argument, but Peter quickly cut in.
"Yeah, but I'm in charge! We're all gonna get it!" Paige and Jason looked at each other and then back at their older brother.
"He's right!"
"What are we going to do!?" Peter thought as his little siblings panicked, alternatively flailing limbs and shouting about how they were doomed and there was no hope left for them.
"I got it!" He shouted loudly enough to be heard above the screaming. "You two- stay here and clean this up! Get rid of the evidence!" They nodded. "Since I can drive, I'll just go to the store and buy another one, ok?" Again, they nodded.
"But wait, what if Mom and Dad come back before you?" Jason wrung his hands as he waited for Peter to answer.
"If they get here before me, stall and lie like a rug, got it? Act natural." They saluted him and he grabbed his car keys and ran off.
"Great. How are we going to clean all this up?" Jason looked to his older sister for guidance and Paige thought for a minute.
"In the pantry! There's a roll of paper towels we can use!" Jason immediately ran and got them. "Get the trash can, too." He dragged it out from under the sink and Paige tossed him some of the towels. "Mind the edges- they're sharp," she warned him, pointing at the shards of porcelain.
"I'll get the pasta, you get the broken dish?"
"Sounds good to me."
Elsewhere, Peter was driving like a maniac trying to make it to the store before it closed. He swerved into the parking lot and found a space close to the doors. He took his keys from the ignition and locked the doors and sprinted into the building. There was a nervous lump in his throat as he hurried through the store and read the signs showing the contents of each aisle. Finally he found the aisles for kitchenwares and started to jog over. He immediately jumped back to where he was, crouching down to avoid detection. In the aisle next to his were his parents, arguing over how many coffee filters they should get.
"I'm telling you, Hon, we should get two packs!"
"Roger, we only go through one a week! We don't need two!" At this, Peter stopped listening, sneaking around his arguing parents and dashing into the kitchenware section. His heart was beating a mile a minute while he was frantically searching for the right casserole dish. That was when he heard his parent's voices- and they were growing louder by the second.
Paige and Jason were done cleaning up the kitchen and re-making dinner when they heard the garage door open. Panic set in their hearts and they looked fearfully at each other.
"What do we do?" Jason asked, fear edging into his voice.
"You remember what Peter said! We need to stall them! Act natural!" She turned to the pot on the stove, giving the pasta inside a quick stir.
"How do you act natural?!" He latched onto her arm and tugged at it.
"I don't know, just do what you would normally do!" She tried to yank her arm away, but he had a firm grip on her sleeve.
"What do I normally do? I don't think about that stuff!" Her patience was wearing thin as her little brother continued to panic.
"You're usually driving me up the walls!" she snarled, finally wrenching her arm away from him.
"Well, I wouldn't drive you up the walls if-" He was cut off by another voice.
"Do you two ever stop arguing?"
"Peter!" The boy in question was leaning against the doorframe with one leg casually crossed.
"You're back!" Paige bounded over to him, her joyous tone quickly switching to her 'interrogation' voice, "Did you get it?"
"You mean, this?" He pulled out the casserole dish, already ripped from its box and held it up.
"Yes!" his siblings cheered.
He dumped the dish on the table along with his keys and breathed a sigh of relief. "I almost got caught."
"By who?" His sister had gone back to the stove to check the pasta.
"Mom and Dad," Peter said as he sank down into one of the chairs at the table.
"What?" Paige dropped the spoon she was holding and it clattered on the stovetop.
"How?" Jason asked, staring at his brother in awe.
"They were in the same store."
"Oh, duh! It's grocery night! What happened?" Peter looked over to Paige, who was starting to drain the pasta into a colander.
"How'd you escape?" Jason added to his sister's question and grabbed the dish to bring to her.
"I managed to find the casserole dish and ran like crazy before they found me."
"Wow," Jason said. He was about to say something more, but was interrupted.
"Well, that was anti-climactic." Paige snorted, tossing the pot back onto the stove (which she had turned off).
"Kids, we're home!" their mother called as she opened the front door with an armload of grocery bags.
"Hi Mom, hi Dad! We've got dinner ready!" Paige nudged Jason to get him to play along, which he did.
"Yeah, and we're using the new casserole dish!"
"That's nice honey, it smells good. Please help us put away the groceries before we eat." All three kids helped and soon they sat down to eat the meal Paige and Jason had painstakingly prepared. Dinner went off without a hitch and the kids were complimented on their good food. Peter watched TV after dinner with his brother and sister, while their parents cleaned up the kitchen. It was the least they could do, they said. Everything was peaceful, until-
"KIDS!" The angry roar was practically deafening and the kids in question jumped two feet in the air.
"Guys… you remembered to put a new bag in the trash, right?" Panic setting in, Peter turned to his siblings and prayed that they did.
"Uh…" Paige looked at Jason.
"Um…" Jason looked at Paige.
"Heh, heh. Oops," Paige said sheepishly.
Needless to say, they were grounded.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the story! :D