Yay, an update!
"C'mon, it's not that bad," Hadley complained that night as she sat at the dinner table with her parents.
"Detention on the first day? That beats my record," Mal said.
"Not helping, Mal," Natara sighed.
"All I did was make one joke," the girl defended. "You guys wouldn't have known if a certain someone hadn't blabbed on me." She pointed at her eight year old brother. "Why did I even tell a third grader in the first place?"
Charles shrugged and took a bite of his lasagna. "My teachers love me."
"Goody two shoes," Hadley muttered. "Would it let me off the hook any if I said Nick and Lindsay got detention, too?"
Natara rolled her eyes. "It seems like they always do."
"Yeah, but this time was different! Well, there's nothing new about Lindsay violating the dress code or Nick being a weirdo, but still... it's just detention. Better than being suspended for breaking Nancy's nose last year, right?"
Mal scowled. "Since she's akin to Seth Holland, I can't blame you."
"Mal," Natara scolded. She knew that it was pointless to even make an attempt to reason with their daughter.
Hadley grinned. "But this year, she's gonna get something I like to call revenge. Maybe this time I won't have to bruise my knuckles."
Charles's eyes widened. "You can't hurt people for no reason!"
"Am I the only kid in this family who fights back?" Hadley retorted as she rinsed a plate and put it in the dishwasher. "On another note, Mr. Walton assigned extra geometry because Nick can't live without it, but luckily he's doing mine for me."
"I wish I had someone to do my homework for free in high school," Mal complained. "I always had to pay."
"You actually paid people to do your homework for you?" Natara asked as she turned on the dishwasher.
"You didn't know? Last week he gave me five dollars in case I-" Hadley stopped short when Mal gave her a look. "In case I... uh..."
"Way to blow the secret." Mal stuck his hand out. "Give me my money back, Benedict Arnold."
"I kinda spent it..." Hadley trailed off. "I was walking home and bought a big soft pretzel... and a large Dr. Pepper."
"Wait a minute... Hadley, I gave you twenty dollars last week to buy new jeans and you said you spent the money but you never brought any new clothes home," Natara noted.
"I was gonna buy jeans... but then I bought some cookies at the cookie stand at the mall... and some lemonade... and possibly brownies."
"Well, since this is the third time you've wasted money on junk food, you're cleaning the kitchen." Natara tossed her a rag.
"Aw," Hadley muttered.
"Next time you might as well just steal the money from the bank," Mal teased while Hadley cleaned the crumbs off of the table.
Hadley made a face. "Next time I'm just taking your wallet."
CoD-CoD-CoD
If there was one thing that annoyed Lindsay, it was getting detention. She was certainly no goody two shoes but of course she had better things to do than sit at a desk for three hours. She threw the door to her house open, purposely slamming it with a thunderous bang.
"I'm gonna kill someone!" she announced. No response. "Oh, of course everyone is at work in my time of pissed off-ness!" She stormed into the kitchen and yanked open the fridge.
She snatched a can of Sprite and slurped it madly. "I need some chill-out snacks," she muttered.
Despite her short temper, she was known to calm down within a few minutes. A handful of cashews later, she had returned to a calm state of mind.
She had almost forgotten about being punished in school by the time her parents returned.
"You guys should have been here earlier. I was really irritated and wanted to kick something."
"Bad day?" Jeremy asked, hanging his jacket on the coatrack as well as the one Blaise dropped on the floor.
"I got detention. On the first freaking day!" Lindsay hopped off the couch. "I didn't even think it was possible!"
"Pfft. I got detention on the first day three years in a row," Blaise remarked.
"I was so mad. I wanted to hit someone with a lamp. I don't wanna spend three hours sitting at a desk with nothing to do! It's so- yay! Chinese!" Lindsay's focus turned to the takeout boxes that Blaise was taking out of a large paper bag.
"What did you get detention for?"
Lindsay shrugged and opened one of the small cardboard cartons. "The school dress code doesn't agree with my preferences."
"Maybe you should try to agree with it...?" Jeremy suggested.
Lindsay let out a dramatic groan. "But I'm not a granny! Mom said I could wear whatever I wanted."
Blaise shrugged. "School dress codes suck."
Their daughter poked at a piece of chicken in her takeout box. "They also were all on my case for talking back. The school idiots think I'm sassy. Is that stupid or what? I only sass when people are losers."
Before she could rant any further, she felt something touch her foot very lightly. She looked down to see a small spider crawling across her bare foot. She let out a terrified shriek. "Spider!" She kicked violently and shook her foot madly.
Blaise jumped out of her seat. "Where?"
"It flew off my foot!" Lindsay jumped to her feet and grabbed Jeremy's arm. "Daddy, kill it!" She pointed furiously at the tiny spider perched casually on the floor.
"It's just a little spider. It won't hurt you."
"It's creepy and it has eight legs! It needs to die!
"Come on..."
"Kill it now," Blaise seethed, backing away as if the creature carried a deadly weapon. Lindsay was quick to follow, never taking her dramatized fearful gaze off of the eight legged offender.
Jeremy rolled his eyes and picked the spider up with his napkin.
"Flush it!" Lindsay pleaded. "Don't let it escape! Make sure it's deader than the deadest person alive!" She stopped. "I mean the deadest person dead! I think... just make sure it dies!"
Blaise and Lindsay backed against the wall as Jeremy passed them with the spider and watched as the poor critter was flushed down the toilet. Lindsay rushed in and slammed the toilet lid shut and flushed it four more times.
"If that thing resurfaces, we're moving out," Blaise insisted.
Jeremy sighed. Like mother, like daughter.
CoD-CoD-CoD
When Nick entered his townhouse after school, he held his hand over his bleeding nose. "Mom? I kinda had a scenario on the bus..."
"Kitchen!" Amy called. Nick rushed into the kitchen. "What happened? And why do you have so many books?"
"Well, I love math, so... Mom! Ice pack and washcloth, then I'll tell!" He hopped from one foot to the other as Amy quickly dampened a washcloth and fixed an ice pack.
Nick sat down in a chair. "Okay, we kinda got in trouble so the teacher assigned extra algebra. And since I love it, I think it's awesome! But Hadley and Lindsay hate it do I'm kinda doing theirs. Isn't that cool?"
"How does that explain what happened to your nose?"
"I sorta got excited and fell off of the bus stairs."
Amy sighed. "Nick, please be more careful before you break your arm or leg... again."
"Hey, bus stairs are easy to fall down!" Kai interrupted. "I fell down then so many times the bus driver told me I wasn't welcome anymore."
"See? I'm not the only one!" Nick's voice was muffled by the ice pack. "Oh, and I have detention tomorrow."
"For what?"
"My desk fell over and I broke my pen." Nick rested his elbows on the table. "They're still mad about the lunchroom accident last year!"
Kai shrugged. "I broke the principal's toilet and they mentioned it in the senior yearbook."
Nick groaned and face planted against the table with a thud that caused his nose to bleed again. "Oh, come on! It looks so painless in movies!"
"Stop doing dumb stuff!" seven year old Mia scolded.
"I'm not doing dumb stu- It's still bleeding!" Nick pounded on the table until Amy handed him the roll of paper towels. He wadded them against his nose. "What's for dinner?"
"Pizza."
"Did you get my pineapples and ham?"
"Eww. But, yeah."
"Awesome!" Nick pumped his fist in the air, knocking into the overhead lamp, which swung back and forth on its chain. "My day just isn't working out. Maybe I should start wearing a helmet every where."
"Not a good idea. Turns out you get picked on if you wear a helmet to school... a lot. Not that I would know..." Kai cleared his throat.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Just wash your hands before you eat."
Nick let out a breath before dragging his feet to the sink. He turned the knob, more carelessly than he intended to. It loosened and fell off in his hand. "Seriously?!"
"Nick," Amy groaned, taking the knob from him and reattaching it. She turned the sink on and adjusted the temperature of the water. "Here."
He was able to wash his hands with no further damage until the bar of soap slipped out of his hands. He bent down to pick it up and bumped his head on the counter. "I give up!"
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