"This is so unfair!" Clark Lane yelled belligerently. "I hate you!" The aggrieved words, bordered to the east by resentment and to the west by petulance, with a side order of irritation, fell effortlessly from the teen's mouth as he whirled to stride angrily toward the stairs of the family home. Not even a nanosecond later he was feeling the scratch of the worn carpet against his nose and cheek, and a sharp knee in his back.
"You have not thrown that statement in my face for many a long year," growled out Clark's current nemesis, close to his victim's ear. "Therefore, I am going to let you off with a strong warning, and remind you of the rules this family has regarding that particular declaration. The rule is "Say & Pay." If you say those words, you and whoever you said them to both have to pay by staying where you are until you apologise, and retract and contradict them. Now, if I let you up to do that, will you behave yourself?"
"Yes, sir." Clark made sure his voice held exactly the right amount of remorse, with a shade of deference in the hope of keeping his butt safe.
Ed shifted to allow them both to stand, and turned his rebel to face him.
Clark took a steadying breath. "I'm sorry I told you I hated you. It was wrong of me."
"Because?"
"Because I love you, Dad," Clark muttered, staring at his shoes.
"Hey, I know you do. Apology accepted." Ed gently lifted his son's face. "I love you too, don't you ever forget that." He smiled. "Now, I think you need to go to your room and sulk for a while." He pointed his renegade teen to the stairs with a not-so-subtle pat on the bottom.
Clark was flabbergasted. This was not the way it was meant to go, he was meant to be the one in control here. He was supposed to lambast his father, stomp up the stairs, and slam his bedroom door in protest. Then his father would come upstairs, they would discuss the situation, and Clark would convince him Clark was right. Instead, he was being ordered to go upstairs and sulk. Kinda took the gloss of his brilliant scheme, didn't it? It was so unfair!
XX XX XX XX XX XX
"This is so unfair!" Ed burst into his son's room and sullenly flung himself into the chair by the desk. "I can't help it if I'm the most popular, handsome, athletic, and smart guy in the whole school! I can't help it if people look at me everywhere I am, follow me everywhere I go, and ask my advice on everything. I mean, except for this one girl, that is." Ed's tone turned wistful. "She's new and she's gorgeous and she's brainy and as for her . . ." Ed cupped his hands in large melon-sized claws up by his chest, and had to bite his cheeks to stop from laughing as Clark's face blushed redder than a sunburnt red tomato and his mouth opened easily wide enough to fit six said tomatoes in. "Only problem is, she won't look at me, won't speak to me, even changes direction when she sees me. But then I heard about this party she's giving. It's the perfect opportunity for me to make my move. The whole school is invited, so I'll be perfectly safe. It's my chance to finally get her to notice me." He waved his hand in dismissal. "Yes, I know it's going to be unsupervised, and there's going to be underage drinking and illegal drugs there. But you can trust me, Dad. I'm fifteen, for goodness' sake! I'm gonna follow her around the whole night and be her security guard – discreetly, of course. I won't let anything happen to her. By the end of the night she and I will be the only people left standing. Sober and sane, I promise, even if I have to lock us both in a broom closet to get her away from everybody. I can do it, Dad. Please? Can I? Please, Dad, pleeeaaase!" he begged.
Clark frowned as he sat up from his prone position on his bed, where he had been listening to music prior to his father's impromptu entrance. "So let me get this straight. The whole school is invited, so it's going to be safe, yet you anticipate having to hide in a broom closet to protect this girl?"
Ed nodded enthusiastically.
"She obviously hates your guts," Clark pointed out, "yet you are prepared to haul her, without her expressed permission, into an enclosed space with just the two of you, no witnesses, and lock the door behind you?"
Ed nodded again, just as enthusiastically.
"And," Clark carried on, "even though this girl has arranged her party this way – with drugs and alcohol, and without adults, and therefore, in all likelihood wants it that way – you are going to stop her having the fun she wants to have, and then expect her to be grateful that you've saved her life and fall madly in love with you?"
Ed nodded again, with even more enthusiasm, appearing pleased that he'd won the argument.
"Seriously, can you even hear yourself? That is the craziest, most illogical plan I've ever heard. Not to mention this girl is underage, and you've made no plans to get home again. Not gonna happen," Clark vetoed the night out instantly.
"But, Dad!" Ed whined, while mentally filing this new information away for later use, "I can do it, honest. Please, Dad, let me go. Everything will be fine, trust me!"
"It's not you I don't trust, it is all the other people," Clark replied. "I'm not going to allow my fifteen-year-old son in a room, unsupervised, with hormonal teenage stoners and drunks. You're not going, end of."
"I hate you!" Ed blustered. "This is so unfair!"
"No, what's unfair is you - acting like me, which made me act like you and have to admit to the logic and fairness of your argument," Clark griped with a barely disguised grudging admiration for his father's creative and perceptive strategy.
"Did it work?" Ed's eyes twinkled.
"Yeah," Clark acquiesced reluctantly. Then he brightened. "I've just got one question, though. You said "I hate you". So, do I get to dump you on the carpet too? You being me, and me being you, and all?"
"Gotta catch me first!" Ed challenged, already with one hand on the door handle and one foot in the hallway.