AN: I have a confession... I legitimately considered deleting Powerless. Just getting rid of it and wiping away every trace of its existence. I really can't stand it. It's a legitimately bad story. I went back and cleaned it up a bunch, but it doesn't make up for the story's big flaws. Jonathan is too... "villain-y"; The story was rushed; I didn't proofread; some of the dialogue is just... awful; I didn't properly plan it all out. I just don't like it. I think about this story a lot, and I want to continue it just to get it all out of my head. But overall, I just hate it. You ever read something you wrote when you were a young teen and it's super cringe-worthy? This story is that for me. I started it as a freshman in high school, and it's just so bad to me now, and yet I am forced to continue it (not really, but I feel obligated to). I'm glad you guys enjoy it, and I love getting your reviews and hearing your feedback. I appreciate everyone who reads this. Otherwise, I would have deleted it a long time ago. I hope you guys enjoy what's to come.
xxx
The warm, cozy little house glowed softly with the sunlight streaming in through the windows. The aroma of blueberry pie filled the kitchen and dining room, and Old Lady Daniels hummed contently, standing next to the oven, while Greg sat at the dining room table with a short stack of white paper and a red tool box full of crayons and colored pencils.
The afternoon was almost pleasant, and Greg almost felt cheerful. His mother didn't normally allow him too many sweets, and so Old Lady Daniels never failed to compensate for the lack of them.
But there was a bad feeling in his stomach, the same kind of feeling he got before the dentist, or the same kind he got when he opened the shower curtain and found a nasty spider inside the bathtub.
"Old Lady Daniels?" he said, and she shot him a stern look.
"Gregory."
"I mean- Mrs. Daniels?"
And then she smiled. "Yes?"
He looked down anxiously, set down his crayon, and then looked back up at her. "...Is Wirt coming home?"
Mrs. Daniels looked almost shocked by the question, and then her expression softened to something more solemn. "Of course he's coming home. He'll be back in a couple of hours at most."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm 110% sure." She stuck an oven mitt over her hand and opened the oven up. With a gasp, Greg leapt up from his chair and sped over to marvel at the beautiful, golden-crusted pie emerging.
"That looks fantastic!" Greg enthused, watching as Mrs. Daniels set it onto the stove and pulled the oven mitt off. She wielded a knife and set the blade on the edge of the pan. It eased right through the crust with a satisfying, light crisp and the steaming, sweet, rich filling. She did it another three times, slicing the pie evenly into eight pieces.
She reached into the cupboard above the stove and retrieved two plates. "Which piece do you want?"
Greg examined each piece thoroughly, and then pointed at the one with the most crust on the back end of it. "That one!"
Mrs. Daniels served him his chosen slice. "One for Gregory..."
She slid a second slice of pie onto the other plate. "One for me..."
From atop the fridge, and fetched a thin box of plastic wrap and tore off a square of it, then covered the rest of the pie with it. "And we'll save a couple of pieces for your mother and for your brother."
Greg smiled with his mouth full of pie. "Okay!"
Meanwhile, the hallway outside of court room A2 was not quite as bustling as it was eight months ago. However, Wirt's body ached with the stress-induced tension, and there was the dreadful feeling of nausea sitting in the middle of his chest.
"You alright?" Sara asked him. He nodded, not opening his mouth in fear of bile splurging out and landing down on the brown carpet.
After a minute of silence, he gulped. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
"Wirt, you didn't drag me into this - you know this isn't your fault."
"Actually, it is. And now my mom is going to have to pay some big fine, and I'm going to live the rest of my life as a felon, and I might have to go to prison-"
"They'll tear you limb from limb in prison," Matt muttered from a couple of feet away, and Jason glared at him.
"Shut up, Matthew," Jason shot back, and Wirt felt a whole new level of overwhelmed by the fight that was surely about to ensue.
"Stop it," Sara hissed at them like a mother to her brawling sons. "Not now."
"Yeah, this is your fault," Jason said, and Matt looked at Sara.
"He's still doing it!"
Sara pinched the bridge of her nose with exasperation. "Well, it's not like he's wrong, Matt."
"What?" He gawked. "You're going to say it was my fault, but not his fault?" He gestured toward Wirt, who desperately did not want to be the center of this argument.
"Yes!" Sara and Jason replied in livid unison.
"You kept hassling him, man! Going all, 'Do it, do it, we won't get caught-'" Jason, even with his... pinched-sounding voice, nailed the nearly spot-on impression.
"He could've said no - I wasn't threatening him or anything! It was his backpack, his choice, so I don't know why nobody's holding him accountable..."
"Can you guys please stop?" Wirt protested with his hands over his face.
"You stay out of this, Wirt-"
And with that came an uproar of Sara, Jason, and Matt arguing and talking over each other, leaving Wirt to stand in helpless silence until a man's voice cut through them.
"Enough!"
The three arguing silenced themselves, and Wirt, although startled by the loud voice, was grateful for the bailiff for intervening.
"You guys are going in now - and I swear to the lord Jesus, if you act like this in there, the judge will tear you to pieces."
Matt and Sara verbalized their confirmations, "Yes, sir," "Understood," while Wirt and Jason nodded silently.
The trial lasted only about an hour. Jason and Sara told their sides of what happened at Wal-Mart, Matt and Wirt confessed their guilt, and they were given their sentence: thirty-six community service hours, on guilty charges of Class B shoplifting. It didn't go nearly as badly as Wirt had thought. But he knew Matt was livid at him, and that his mother was beyond disappointed.
When the session was dismissed, Matt stood up and walked out without acknowledging the group. His demeanor was calm, the kind of composure you put on when you're fuming and don't want to show it. Wirt wondered how Sara could have ever gone out with a person like him. Short-tempered, condescending... narcissistic, maybe? A downright bully.
Wirt felt a hand on his shoulder, and he whipped around to see his mother. Although smiling, She looked melancholy and drained with bags under her eyes.
"Ready?"
He nodded, looking to Sara and Jason. "I'll see you guys later."
They both said goodbye to him, and he and his mother walked out of the room, out of the building, and to the car in a morose silence.
As they got into the car and strapped into their belts, Elspeth asked, "Do you think we should surprise your brother and pick something up from McDonalds?"
"Mmm, I don't like McDonalds."
Elspeth chuckled softly. "Not for you, for Greg, nerd. You think I don't know that?"
Wirt looked away from her and gazed out the window, having no response for her.
Her smile faded, and she sighed, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot, on their way to McDonald's, then home.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Keenan's day was nearly perfect. His favorite choreographer, Melissa, had been at dance class today, and she'd begun teaching them a contemporary combo to a really cool piece of orchestral music. He was never a huge fan of that kind of music - violins and brass instruments didn't intrigue him all that much - but this piece of music had been super cool (his best friend Marcus would call it a banger), and the choreography that went with it... it left Keenan speechless.
His dad picked him up at 5:34, just a few minutes after class ended. As always, they carried a pleasant conversation in the car. Keenan told his dad about his English project on the book Anne Frank - he had to pretend to be a Jewish person in hiding, and write at least ten entries about how he lives - and that he can do seven consecutive a la secondes, and his father told him that Brynn, ten months old, had looked at a picture on him on the refrigerator and said, "...Keeny!"
As soon as Keenan entered the house, however, his mother stood up from the couch, holding a piece of paper he recognized immediately.
"Keenan, I need to talk to you."
He dropped his backpack and walked up to her like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.
Keith left them alone, greeting Brynn who was in her bouncy chair, bouncing and screeching gleefully to PJ Masks.
Keenan and his mother sat across from each other at the table, and she slid the paper into his vision. "I found this in your room."
Keenan stared at it, too ashamed to face his mother.
"Why did you hide this from me?" She asked him.
He didn't answer her. She hadn't known about his multiple failed algebra tests, or about how much math homework made him feel like he was in a foreign country with no knowledge of its language. Until now, as he was forced to face the note his teacher had told him to give to his mother with his final report card of the year, expressing her concerns with Keenan's difficulty picking up on her lessons.
"I wouldn't have been mad at you, sweetie."
"Dad would have been," he muttered, looking down at his lap.
"And what makes you think that?"
"I mean-" He sighed, looking up at her, "Not mad, but... he would've made me quit dance for the summer for tutoring or something..."
"Well, you won't have to quit dance..."
"But I have to do tutoring, right?"
His mom nodded, and he slumped in his chair with an exasperated groan.
"Hey, no attitude. You're lucky I'm not grounding you for lying to me."
"Yeah, I know..."
"Math isn't for everybody. I totally get it. But we need to be sure you're comfortable enough with it so you can do well with high school math. Ms. Olson wants to see you succeed, your father and I want to see you succeed, and I'm sure you want to see yourself do well, right?"
Keenan looked down at the table and nodded.
"It's not every single day, it's only Tuesdays and Thursdays. The more effort you put in and more quickly you do it, the more time you'll have to enjoy your summer."
"Okay," Keenan murmured.
"I love you," his mother said.
"Love you too."
He turned around to glance at his dad and at his sister. His dad was bouncing his little sister in his lap, and his dad, having sat with Brynn and watched this show with her so often, sang the theme song. There was a big grin on her little face.
"Are you going to tell Dad?"
"I'm going to have to let him know." Alison grinned. "But I'll bend the truth a little, okay?"
Keenan grinned back. "Okay."