"Oh my God! Get off me!"

Screams filled the room as Ben struggled. His big bag of Doritos lay overturned on the floor, orange tortilla chips strewn across the cream carpet.

"Get off! Help! Help! Please!"

Ben kept struggling, his weak arms pushing and pulling as he hoped, prayed, that he could get himself out of this situation.

"Hal, leave your brother alone!"

Hal didn't move; why would he? Ben was all too comfortable to sit on and there was such a good view of the TV.

"Get off me, you dumb jock," Ben protested as he began to punch his brother's torso. Hal deflected the punches easily, laughing all the while. When the amusement began to fade, he forced Ben's wrists together and held them with one hand whilst using the other to tickle his neck. Ben wriggled violently missing the days when Hal was dating Rita. Rita always made Hal stop. Rita always tried to distract Hal. Rita was also very, very attractive.

"Hal Mason," a voice said from above them, calm but with a razor sharp edge. Both boys looked up and Hal's face began to pale. There stood Rebecca Mason, towering over the pair of them. She looked so calm, so relaxed, but her fiery eyes gave her anger away. "Leave your brother alone or so help me I will ground for a month."

"But-"

"I don't want to hear it. Get upstairs and do your homework. Go. Ben, pick up those damn chips before someone-"

Crunch.

Rebecca's face turned beet red. Whilst getting off Ben, Hal had unwittingly trodden on a couple of the chips. As he gingerly lifted his foot, the damage was revealed: three chips has broken into tiny pieces and the orange powder that coated them looked as though it had stained the carpet.

"Don't even think about putting that foot down on the floor," Rebecca warned, pointing a finger at her oldest son. "You can hop upstairs and wash your foot in the bath, you hear?"

Hal sighed and hopped to the door trying desperately to avoid the other fallen chips. Rebecca and Ben both strained to hold in their laughter. At the door, Hal turned around, narrowed his eyes at his little brother and whispered melodramatically, "I'll get you later, math geek."

When he left, Ben burst into howling laughter, his eyes streaming slightly.

"I don't know what you're laughing at, Ben. I want every one of those chips picked up and that carpet had better be spotless. You know there's no food in here."

"Your sons were fighting again."

They sat round the kitchen table eating sausage and mash. The youngest Mason child, Matt, pushed his mashed potato around on his plate with his fork, his sausages long gone. The teenagers were listening to their parents' conversation waiting for the best time to jump in and defend themselves.

"Of course they were," Tom responded to his wife offhandedly. "My brother and I were always fighting at that age."

"Tom," Rebecca hissed. "I'm looking for some discipline, here."

"Oh, right."

"Hal started it! I was going to watch TV when he came and sat on me!"

"Hey! You called me a dumb jock!"

"That's because you are a dumb jock!"

"Matt, eat your mash, please."

"Yeah? Well you're a math geek!"

"I know I am!"

"Boys!" Tom shouted, putting his knife and fork down. "I don't care who started it. You don't call each other names and you don't sit on each other, okay?" Both boys looked down at their plates and Tom looked at his wife. "Happy now?"

"Hal did the sitting," Ben mumbled.