Here you go, party people! I didn't have much time lately, but I managed to finish another chapter! Enjoy!

And in case you haven't noticed yet: I have updated 'Better times will come', too! So go read it right after this one. Kays?

Edward and Maddie got out of the silver Volvo and walked through the door that led to the kitchen.

She was completely at ease - he was looking grim.

Jasper felt their emotions, but did not think much about it at that moment - his siblings were always like that.

But when he heard Edward tell Maddie to 'Tell him', he got suspicious.

Tell whom, or rather: Tell what?

He folded the newspaper and put it down on the coffee table, then stood up and walked into the kitchen where they were still standing.

"Hello," he greeted them casually.

"Hi," Maddie replied and made to walk out of the kitchen, but Edward said, "Jasper, Maddie has something to tell you."

She picked up her pace.

"Ah ah, come back here," Jasper ordered and waited for his sister to stop, huff, turn around, glare and finally walk back towards them.

"Whazzup?" she said in a cheerful voice.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" Jasper asked, arms crossed over his chest and leaning against the kitchen counter.

She thought about that. "If I'd like ... nope, I'm good. But thanks for asking."

So Jasper looked back at Edward and waited for an explanation.

"I'll tell him," Edward threatened.

"Go for it. There is nothing to tell." She shrugged her shoulders as though she couldn't care less, but Jasper knew better. A tiny wave of nervousness hit him, rolling off of his youngest sister. Interesting, he thought.

"Madeline did not complete her homework this morning."

Jasper took his eyes off Edward and turned a penetrating look on Maddie.

"Why did you lie to me?"

She looked away. Edward could be such a butthead ... what was it to him anyways?

"I said: Why did you lie to me? You would do well to answer my question."

"I was winning this morning, but you pulled the plug, so I wanted to play again," she said and pushed her bottom lip out.

"That is reason enough for you to lie to me? Unbelievable," he replied and clenched his jaw.

Maddie shrugged her shoulders.

"You do realise that you shot yourself in the foot with that move?"

"Huh?"

"You are grounded for the rest of the week, have no game console to play with and Carlisle will be informed."

Her jaw dropped. "The rest of the week? No way! It's only today!"

Jasper was being mean again, and she didn't like it.

"You lied to me, so I am grounding you," he clarified for her.

"You can't!" Maddie wanted to call for Rose - but she would agree with Jasper, so that would be no good.

"Of course I can."

"But Carlisle said -"

"Carlisle said, I am allowed to ground you if you misbehave. And that is exactly what I am doing." Jasper did not budge, ugh.

"Neither the PS2 nor the Xbox belong to me, so you cannot take them away," Maddie tried to reason. They belonged to Emmett, after all.

"Emmett will understand."

"Argh!" Maddie walked out of the kitchen, but was stopped by Jasper, who said, "This conversation is not over yet."

So she turned around again, one eyebrow raised, and waited for him to go on.

"You did not serve detention today," he stated.

She just looked at him, knowing what his next question would be - and dreading it.

"Tell me why."

"My teacher did not notice," she said.

"Madeline, just tell the truth," Edward threw in.

Jasper narrowed his eyes at his youngest sister. "What did you do?"

Maddie shot a quick glance at Edward, but he did not look like he would be leaving anytime soon. And he looked determined to rat her out to Jasper. Jerk.

"I was just being myself," she tried.

"You used your ability on your teacher, I cannot believe it," Jasper concluded and turned to the side, holding his palm to his forehead and taking a deep breath to calm himself.

"Ha, I did not!" Now she was smug.

Jasper looked at Edward again, who suddenly let out an aggravated sigh.

"Fine, I tell you, since she obviously wants to beat around the bush. Madeline convinced one of her classmates to give her the homework."

"You took somebody else's homework and pretended it was yours? !"

Was he enraged? Yes he was, it seemed.

"Oh, come on! It isn't that bad," Maddie replied casually.

She was so offhand about this, that it actually shocked Jasper. "Yes, it is! It is lying and stealing! You may rest assured that Carlisle will not be impressed with your behaviour." He was fed up with her. And only being able to give her the ridiculous punishment of grounding her was making him angry. Hopefully Carlisle would tan her hide good when he'd come home.

"Hey, I don't bitch about you gift, so leave me the fuck alone." Why did everybody speak so badly of her ability? She found it to be quite useful actually.

"Do you really think this is the right time to mouth off to me?" Jasper was definitely mad now.

She just glared at him.

"Go to your room."

And so she did - not because Jasper told her to but because she wanted to get away from him.

So, what was there to do now? The whole week was practically ruined! She couldn't go out, she couldn't play the new games, she couldn't do anything fun!

Maddie was beyond furious. Why was Jasper in charge anyways? And since when was school so important? It wasn't like she would go to college - ever - so fuck education.

She had to lie, Jasper was being unreasonable! Okay, he had helped her with her homework which was nice but still! ... who was he to tell her what to do?

Lying ... he practically forced her to lie! She was finally winning for heaven's sake and he pulled the freakin' plug! She needed the time for a rematch.

But the worst thing was: Jasper would tell Carlisle, who had already warned her about screwing up during his absence. Now she had to wait for days in nervous anticipation of what was to come.

But the question was ... did Jasper already tell Carlisle, or would he be doing so some time later? She so badly wanted to alter his memory, ugh.

Carlisle would make good of his promise and wallop her ass as soon as he came through the door. She knew it.

Maybe she should call her parents herself ...

But if she cried, Esme would probably want to come back early and Maddie did not want to ruin their anniversary.

If she lied to them about what she had done and accused Jasper of being mean, they would want to talk to him and then he would tell them the truth and she would be screwed even more. Therefore - out of the question.

If she just told them the truth about what happened, they would be mad at her, too.

But maybe ... if she called them, explained to them what happened and be really remorseful ... maybe she would at least not be in trouble when they came home.

So she searched through her backpack for her phone then and called Carlisle.

He picked up on the second ring.

"Hello Madeline! How are you, sweetheart?"

"Not too good," she answered and made her voice sound sad.

"What happened?" He was worried; that much was clear in his voice.

"I was bad, Daddy. And now Jasper is mad at me."

"You were bad? What did you do, hm?"

"I didn't do all my homework, but told him I did because I wanted to play with Emmett," Maddie explained.

Carlisle sighed. "Madeline, you know how we feel about lying."

"I know, and that's why I called ... so you hear it from me. I'm really sorry, but I don't know what to do so Jasper won't be mad at me anymore."

"Have you tried telling him that you are sorry?" her father queried.

"No, not yet."

"Then I advise you to do that."

"Ok, Daddy."

"Did he punish you for lying?" Of course he would ask that.

"I'm not allowed to leave the house for the rest of the week and no video games." Maddie sighed.

"That is reasonable."

'Reasonable, my ass ...,' she thought but wisely kept it to herself.

"Are you mad at me, too, Daddy?" she asked in a little voice.

"No sweetheart, I am not. Jasper is handling the situation well and you are showing remorse by calling us."

Strike, plan is working.

"Can I talk to Mommy?"

"Of course, dear. Here she is."

"Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Tu me manques," Maddie said in a sickenly sweet voice.

"Oooh, I miss you too, Maddie! Are you being good for your siblings?"

"Nuh-uh," Maddie replied, sounding very, very sad once again.

"Oh, what happened?"

"Dad will tell you."

"All right. But you will behave for your siblings from now on?"

"Yes, I'll try. It's hard, Mom. No matter what I do, it is always considered wrong."

"Chin up, angel, I know you'll make the right choices. And we'll be back in only a few days and then everything can go back to normal," Esme said lovingly.

"Okay, Mommy. Oh, I need to apologise to Jasper now."

"You go do that. Goodbye, sweetie. We'll see you soon."

"Bye, Mommy!"

And with that said, they hung up.

Okay ... Maddie didn't come completely clean about what happened, but maybe they wouldn't find out. Well, as long as Edward would shut the hell up. When did he turn into such a tattletale?

She definitely wanted to learn how to block her mind from him.

"Emmett?" she called from her room and waited. She wanted to talk to somebody sane. Well, it was Emmett, so - more or less sane.

Emmett was with her in an instant.

"Yeah?" he asked and walked into her room with her.

"Do you happen to know how to block out Edward?"

"You wanna shield your thoughts?"

Maddie nodded her head.

"Haha, Tiny, I am not good at that. Maybe you should ask Pops," he suggested, then asked, "Why do you want to know?"

"Because Edward is always in my head, and then he gets me in trouble."

"Oooh, what did you do now?" he asked, completely excited that he was about to hear a good story and plunged himself down on Maddie's bed.

"Well ... ," she hesitated.

"Come on, you can tell me. I won't judge, promise," he encouraged her to just spill it.

"Okay ... remember this morning when we were playing and I was winning and you were not? And then Jasper ruined everything?"

Emmett just laughed.

"Well, I lied to him about my homework, so we could play again. And then he asked me why I wasn't held back after school for not doing my homework."

"... and?" Emmett prompted.

"And .. I made a girl from my class give me her essay, so I wouldn't get caught. Honestly, she deserved it for always being a bitch."

"Did she get caught?"

"Of course! I told her to come clean right away with our teacher, and to give her an excuse," Maddie smirked.

"What did she say?"

"Exactly what I told her to say." Maddie smiled devilishly, then said in a high-pitched voice, "My dog ate my homework."

"Haha, the lamest excuse ever! Did she get in trouble?" Emmett was clearly enjoying himself.

"Yeah." Maddie giggled like a little girl. "The teacher will call her parents for being rude and for lying. I really hope she gets smacked."

"Phew. And now Jasper knows because of Edward."

"Yup, and he grounded me. Edward sucks."

"Oh, come on, don't be mad at him. It isn't his fault, he's just 'living in a world where nobody gets him'."

They laughed so hard, and at that precise moment they heard Edward's door being forcefully slammed shut and the stereo being turned up.

"Oops, somebody's mad." Emmett was having a blast.

But then Jasper stood in the door.

"Did you start your homework, Madeline?"

"No, you did not tell me to," she defended herself.

"I advise you to do it know. I will have a look at in in two hours, so be done until then."

"Edward's music is too loud, I couldn't concentrate even if I wanted to," Maddie whined.

"I'll tell him to turn it down. And Emmett - out."

Emmett just looked at his brother with a raised eyebrow.

Right then, Maddie remembered what Carlisle told her to do. "Jasper?"

"Yes?" Jasper came back into the room; he had already been on his way to tell Edward off.

"I am sorry for lying to you. It won't happen again."

"It is very considerate of you to apologise, even if you don't mean it."

Shit, he felt her emotions and she was not sorry, at all.

"Now get started," he said and left the room.

What a dick.

"You started five minutes ago, didn't you?" Jasper asked when he looked over Maddie's homework - he could barely make out her handwriting.

"So? I am finished with that one." She smiled.

"I'm sorry, but you have to write it again. There is no way I'll let you present this chicken scratch to your teacher."

"Are you being mean on purpose or does that come with your charming personality?" she asked.

He clenched his teeth and looked away - she was really trying his patience today.

"Write it again and try harder this time."

"But this is good enough," she stated petulantly, pushed the exercise book away from herself and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Excuse me?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"I don't wanna write it again, where's the point?" she asked.

"The point is: Carlisle is paying a lot of money to send you to this school, so you should at least try to be a good student."

"He picked that the school - I didn't. Heck, he didn't even ask me!"

"It is clearly his fault, yes," he said without humor. "Now write it again. It'll only take you a couple of minutes until you're done."

Then he left her room once more.

Maddie knew that she should not defy him as much, but she was already grounded - there was nothing else that he could do!

Normally they got along more or less ok ... but when he was all bossy like that - ugh, no way.

"Why are you mad at Jasper?" Rose asked, clearly not knowing what was going on. She had been to the mall with Alice and they just came back home.

She had joined her sister on the couch as soon as she saw her glare at Jasper when he walked by to help Alice with her purchases.

"Because he's a d-" "Don't you dare say that word!"

Maddie sighed. "I didn't want to say that word! I just wanted to say: Because he is a downright mean person." There, no swearword.

"Maddie," Rose said in a warning tone. Her sister had obviously done something she shouldn't have ...

"He grounded me the second I set a foot into the house, and he won't let me play any video games." Maddie sulked.

"What reason did he have?" Rosalie asked with narrowed eyes. She did not think that her sister was completely innocent in all this.

"He started it," Maddie defended herself.

"Can you just answer my question?"

"Fine, I lied to him this morning, so I and Emmett could finish the game."

Rose thought about it. "That seems fair."

"I know! We played the whole night and the moment I am in the lead, Jasper makes-!"

"I mean: It seems fair that he grounded you."

Maddie was taken aback. "Are you high?"

"Don't be rude," Rose said and slapped her sister lightly on the upper arm.

"Ugh."

"You know Carlisle will spank you for this," Rosalie reminded her.

"Nope, I've called him, we're cool." Maddie grinned.

"Lucky." was all she said, then stood and brought the million bags from various shops to her and Emmett's room.

And Maddie ... well Maddie did the only thing she could do for the rest of the week - lying on the couch and watch TV.

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