Not Listening

By TheBucketWoman

Disclaimer: I do not own Life With Derek or anything else I may reference herein. No profit is being made nor is any infringement intended.

Chapter Fifty-Two.

Part One: Lizzie.

Lizzie, having fallen asleep face down in Casey's copy of Twilight, woke up in the middle of the night and got up to go to the bathroom. Before she went back to bed, she decided she wanted some fruit punch. On the way back up the stairs, she thought she heard two very distinctive stifled laughs coming from Derek's room. In the middle of the night! If her shock hadn't made her stop and stay right at the edge of the landing, her eavesdropper Spideysense would have. It was a good thing, too, because she was two steps away from the squeaky floorboard. While they were still giggling in there, Lizzie took one teeny step, then one huge one, the way Edwin taught her, then made her way toward her room, but not before she came face to face with Casey.

Her eyes bugged, but then she whispered, "Hi Liz," like she hadn't just been caught sneaking out of Derek's room at two o'clock in the morning.

"Oh my God!"

"Lizzie!" Casey whisper-screamed.

"Oh. My. Gawd!" Lizzie whisper-screamed back. Casey grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into her , Casey's, room, shutting the door.

"Shhhh!" Casey said, like Lizzie'd been shouting all of this through a megaphone.

"You're, like, so red," Lizzie remarked. "Is that a hickey?"Casey looked down at herself and found the little red mark, just below her collarbone and had what might have been the world's quietest freakout. Really, the only person likely to wake up was Marti, Lizzie mused. Then she imagined Marti at the breakfast table, mentioning the red splotch on Casey's chest and then Lizzie understood why they didn't want to wake Marti up.

Casey scurried to her dresser and covered the tank top she had on with a big t-shirt.

"This is not funny!"

Lizzie giggled.

"I'm serious!"

"Yep," Lizzie said. "You usually are. What's all over your cheek?" She moved Casey's hair out of the way. "And your neck! Looks like rugburn."

Casey checked herself in her mirror and rolled her eyes, running into the bathroom and coming back smelling of Noxzema.

"Is it rugburn?"

"Of course not!" Casey said. "On my face? What do you think—? Ugh! No!"

Lizzie, not quite twelve, had just assumed that Casey and Derek had done some wrestling, some playfighting in his bedroom before they'd done whatever else they'd done, and that would have explained any rugburn. She didn't know what Casey was flipping out about.

"Then—"

"Derek needs a shave," Casey said, cutting her off. "This is what stubble does if it rubs against you, okay?"

"Wow," Lizzie said, checking out the slight irritation again, fascinated. There were so many things that came with having a boyfriend, and most of them she hadn't even thought of.

"Quit it!" Casey said, frantically trying to cover the marks with her hair.

"Stop worrying," Lizzie said. "It's not as obvious as the hickey."

Casey groaned. Lizzie, at this point was dying of curiosity, but could not think of how to get her sister talking. Saying "so what'd you guys do all night" would probably get her thrown out of the room, so she really needed to tread lightly.

"How was the dance?" Lizzie asked. Casey, whose nose was practically touching the mirror as she fussed, turned around and cocked an eyebrow at her sister.

"Huh?"

Lizzie shrugged, innocently as she could and was relieved when Casey laughed and sat down beside her, bouncing on the bed a little.

"It was so amazing!"she said.

"Did he dance?"

"Yeah!"

"More than once?"

"More than once!" Casey said. "I couldn't believe it!"

"Oh," Casey said, remembering something. "You didn't tell him I knew about the dance lessons, did you?"

"No," Lizzie said.

"Do you think Marti would have?"

"Nah," Lizzie said. "And we both would've killed Edwin if he had, so..."

"He couldn't have seen me watching," Casey said.

"Maybe he just figured it out?" Lizzie said. Her sister was a lot of things. Subtle was not one of them.

Casey shrugged. "I saw a girl elbow her boyfriend, like 'See? He's dancing. Why don't you?' It was so cool. And he even led a little bit."

"Then what happened?"

"I dunno. We kept dancing."

"And then?"

"We came home?" Casey said. She yawned theatrically. That was Lizzie's hint that storytime was over. She wondered what she'd have to do to get the rest of the story (because there was way more to the story, obviously). Maybe she could listen in on Casey's next phone call to Emily.

"We both have to be up early," Casey said, yawning again, because once she got started yawning, it was impossible to stop.

"Yeah," Lizzie agreed reluctantly, sliding off Casey's bed. They said their goodnights and love yous and that was that.

Part Two: Casey.

By some miracle, she kept her breathing steady and even as she talked to her Mom. Derek stood right next to her, looking pretty calm, but he excused himself pretty quickly.

Casey went into the kitchen, gulped a lot of cold water, then forced herself to make some chamomile tea. She sat at the table and ate a few cookies, watching the tail end of Arsenic and Old Lace with her mother while George snored in the background. Then, she went upstairs, changed, washed her face and went over to Derek's room.

Betcha he's asleep you idiot, Casey thought. Waited too long.

But he was awake, sprawled out on his bed. Seeing the movement from the corner of his eye, he turned to look at her before she could even flick his light switch. He waved. She waved back. Then, he waved again and she waved back.

"Can I come in?" she signed. Derek nodded and got off his bed so fast that he took half his comforter with him. He met her halfway, taking her face in his hands and kissing first her mouth, then her jaw, then working his way down her neck. Casey, for her part, didn't realize what her own hands were doing until she realized that she was hiking his t-shirt up a little bit and that he was really ticklish. He grabbed at her hands, trying to stop her, but she refused to quit until they ended up trying to pin each other on the bed. His hands accidentally (yeah right, she thought) brushed her breasts a few times. Then he rested one hand on one breast, looking at her questioningly until she nodded an okay. It didn't take long for both shirts to come off. Then, again waiting for permission, he fiddled with her bra until she helped him unhook it.

He stared at her for a while, until she worried that he'd noticed that one breast was the tiniest bit bigger than the other.

He thinks I'm some kind of freak, she thought, reaching for something to cover herself up. He grabbed her hand, then let go long enough to sign "I can die now."

"Idiot!" she signed. He pretended to keel over in bed. She leaned over and started the kissing again. Up close, she could actually see a little bit of hair on his chest. It, like his eyelashes and the little bit of beard stubble that would mark her up and later catch Lizzie's interest so thoroughly, was almost blond and only showed up when the light hit it a certain way.

It was really difficult to stop doing what they were doing, probably the hardest thing she could remember doing in years, but they eventually did have to stop. She was fifteen, and pretty sure that she wasn't ready. She thought "pretty sure" because her resolve had been weakening quite a bit. She could picture it happening. With him. Soon.

But even before she heard the toilet flushing and floorboards creaking she sensed that somebody was awake, reminding her that they weren't alone in the house.

She pulled back from him and signed as much to Derek and that had the effect of a bucket of cold water on both of them. Derek nodded, sitting up a little, breathing hard.

"I'm gonna go to bed," she mouthed, dressing quickly. He nodded.

He signed something that she didn't understand at first, something that looked like "HUNGRY YOU CAN STAY."

He caught the confusion on her face even before she signed that she didn't understand. "Wish," he said, signing again. It was pretty much the same sign as "hungry", the cupped hand going down from throat to stomach. The worst part was that she totally knew that sign. Of course she did. She smacked her forehead. Her next ASL final was coming up, too. What would she do if she still got mixed up so easily?

"I love you."

"I love you too," she signed, then shut the door behind herself, running almost smack into Lizzie. Having Lizzie look at her with such interest managed to cool her off the rest of the way. It was hard to think about sex while her eleven year old sister was giving her the "So? Whatcha been upto?" look.

After Lizzie went to bed, Casey went to her window, opening it and stared out at the nothing that was going on this time of night. She needed the cold air for a minute or two because her room felt almost unbearably hot since she'd gotten back from Derek's room. If she poked her head out the window and craned it to the left, she could see the street, but straight ahead, the only thing to look at was the Davis house. The street was deserted of course, street lights glowing through some trees that were finally budding. She made a mental note to remind George that there was still a string of lights in the tree nearest this window.

She looked at her alarm clock. It was 3:00 already. Her chances of making it to dance class in the morning didn't look good, but she would have to drag her butt out of bed to go to ASL because, again, the final was looming.

She shut the window and climbed into bed, closing her eyes, thinking she'd never sleep again. She opened them again around 11:00.

Part Three: Derek.

Derek also slept late, and had the distinct feeling that the house was empty when he got up. When he saw Casey's door open, he peeked and saw her still in bed, her back to him.

"Case," he said. She didn't stir. Deciding to let her sleep, he went downstairs to see if there were any frozen waffles left. When he came downstairs, he saw Edwin, who sprawled across the couch in his pajamas, remote in hand. Ed looked up as he heard Derek come down.

"Everybody gone?" he signed.

"Yes," Edwin signed. "Shopping. Classes. Playdate." Derek nodded.

Then Edwin wanted to know why Derek's mouth was all swollen. He was just being an ass. It wasn't that swollen. He'd checked.

"Shut up," Derek signed. Edwin grinned.

"You step all over Casey's feet?" Edwin signed. "That why she skipped dance class?"

Derek took a pillow out from under his brother and hit him with it. This, of course, led to a pillow fight, which led to the both of them cleaning up broken light bulb, because they knocked over a lamp. Thankfully, the lamp itself didn't bust, just the bulb. Derek was just washing his hands, after sweeping and mopping up all the broken bulb bits, when he noticed Edwin looking up and talking to someone in the doorway. He turned to see Casey standing there.

"I was awake," she signed. "You didn't wake me up. But you were loud."

"Oops," Derek said. "Sorry."

"You're not sorry," Casey said. Because he really wasn't.

"Least I'm not playing hooky," Derek said. "Hooky player." Casey blushed. Then she turned to Edwin and told him to shut up. Derek looked at her to find out what Edwin had just said behind his back.

"He's laughing at me," she signed.

"Only I get to laugh at her," Derek said.

"Since when?" Edwin asked.

Before Derek could answer, Casey whacked Edwin over the head with the box of frozen waffles. Edwin protested and Casey said something wiseass back to him. Derek stared at her, wide-eyed.

"What?" she asked.

"Marry me?" he asked. She rolled her eyes. He got down on his knees and looked up at her.

"I have never been more in love with you," he signed. She crouched down with him, gave him a little peck on the mouth, then wrinkled her nose.

"Brush your teeth and ask again," she signed. Derek, groaned, collapsing on the floor and playing dead for a second. He toyed with grabbing her ankle as she stepped over him, but thought better of it. She was clumsy enough as it was.

After they ate the waffles (and some eggs, sausage and a couple of cupcakes), Casey had to excuse herself to get ready to go to her other class.

"You disgust me," Derek signed. "You...student."

"ASL," she reminded him.

He reminded her that she was pretty fluent at this point. Sure she made a few mistakes here and there, but she signed every day and because of that, he was pretty sure she was at a higher level than the rest of the class she was in.

"It takes years to be fluent," Casey signed.

"You've already blown off one class," he said. "What's one more?"

"I have to go," she signed.

"No you don't," Derek signed, moving a little closer to her. "Live a little. Break a rule."

"The test is coming," she signed. "I need to practice."

"What are you doing right now?"Derek signed. "Ed and Smarti never took classes. Look how good they are."

"De-rek!"

He rolled his eyes. "You need a ride?" Edwin made whipcracking gestures. The boy really should know better than to do things like that within Derek's field of vision.

"Just for that, you're doing the dishes," Derek said, draping a dishtowel over the kid's head on the way out of the kitchen.

Derek followed her upstairs. When they got to the top, he tried to get her to kiss him, even though he had still not brushed his teeth.

"I need to shower," she said.

"Me too," he said, grinning.

"Dream on," she signed.

"But, we'd be saving water!" he teased. "It's green! You don't want to help the environment? Wait'll I tell Lizzie you're a water waster!"

Casey laughed and gave him a little shove toward his door. "I could tell George what a horndog you are."

"Like it's a secret?"

"He might start sleeping in the hallway," she said. "Or make you sleep in Edwin's room."

She had a point, he had to admit.

So that's how Derek ended up chauffeuring her to and from class and then to rent movies, the image of Edwin cracking the whip still running through his mind.

As she climbed back into the passenger seat, he grabbed her bag of DVDs and looked through them, groaning in advance of what had to be a night of rom-com hell.

"The Client?" Derek asked. "Saving Private Ryan?"

"And Secret Window," she said. "You wanted to see that, right?"

"Yeah," Derek said. "Why are you getting movies that I wanna see?"

"I wanna see it, too," she said. "Johnny Depp is hot." Derek frowned, and forgot, for a second that he wanted to know what was up with the other movies. Then he remembered.

"What about these?" he said, holding up the other two.

"Your Dad likes them," she said.

"Trying to butter him up for some reason?" he asked. Casey blushed.

"Maybe."

"Wow," he said. "I really am a bad influence."

"I just wanna talk to him," she said. "And it's important."

"Why not just say, 'I wanna talk to you,'"

"I wanna ask him something and he might not go for it," she said.

"Bribery," Derek said. "I like it."

"Then you'll help?"

"No."

"De-rek!"

"There's only so much I can get away with per year," Derek said. "I'm getting pretty near my quota."

"It's only April," Casey said.

"So you see why I need to be conservative," Derek said.

"It's important," she signed. She left it at that, didn't even try to manipulate him with her big, sad eyes.

"What is it?"

She told him about that girl, Cindy, who was getting kicked out for the locker prank. Casey didn't want anyone kicked out of school on her account. It was bad karma, she told him.

"Do you even remember what she did?" Derek asked. "Do you remember that day at all?" Somehow, he didn't think she did. He, for one, would probably not be forgetting how she bounced around the breakfast table in a really good mood, and then, not half an hour later, the look of devastation on her face when she saw the doll attached to her locker. If it had been done to him, he would have laughed and found a way to make a mascot out of the thing, but it had been done to Casey, who cried over absolutely everything. This was not something easily forgiven.

"Believe me," she said. "I remember."

"Then what are you thinking?"

She was trying to be the bigger person, she said. When he scoffed, she brought up some of the stuff that he'd pulled and asked him if he'd always thought of other people's feelings when he'd pranked them. She wanted to know if he'd ever pulled a prank that could possibly have gotten out of hand if his luck had gone another way. Of course, he had, so next thing he knew, he was agreeing to back her up.

"What's the plan?"

"First," she signed. "Ask George if he can do anything." Maybe he'd had cases like this before, she said. She didn't know what the process was for expelling someone. "I'll check Google before I ask G. though..."

Derek fought the mental image of Hermione Granger going into the restricted section of the library.

"What's funny?" she signed.

"Nothing."

She looked at him suspiciously, but started to brainstorm. Out loud. After a while, Derek started to drift, more interested in her actual mouth than what was coming out of it.

She nudged him. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, making her roll her eyes.

"You're not paying attention at all, are you?"

"Sure I am," he said. He was paying really close attention to the couple of hairs that had gotten caught in her lipgloss earlier and that were, at that moment, stuck to her neck. He was paying attention to her mouth and the way her throat worked and thinking about how he wanted to touch it, maybe even give her another hickey.

She flapped a hand at him, signing "Hey!"

"Up here," she said, when he looked up. Then, she sighed, puffing air out of her cheeks. "I guess we can talk about this later."

Derek nodded, taking the opportunity to go in for the kiss. Casey obliged, giggling a little, the vibration hitting his own mouth,along with the little puffs of air from her nose, both of which only served to make him hot. He felt her try to say something else and when she was finally able to pull away and move her hands up.

She asked about his PDA rule. He looked around and remembered that they were in the parking lot of a strip mall and not only that, but there was some little girl watching them. He smiled at her; she waved. He started the car before he could embarrass himself further.

Part Four: Nora.

"Are you kidding me?" Nora squeaked, overhearing what her oldest daughter had just asked George.

"Mom."

"No!" Nora said. "This...this..."

"It's admirable," George began.

"Yeah," Nora agreed. "Admirable. Sure. But this is the real world, Casey, honey. This is not like that story about the mouse taking the thorn out of the lion's paw. Chances are, this kid is not going to appreciate you trying to help her."

"I'm not doing it for her," Casey said.

"Good, because she won't do anything for you, believe you me," Nora said.

"Maybe it might be something to look into, though," George said.

"Come again?" Nora asked.

"Hear me out," George said. For Derek's benefit, he held up a hand, pointing to the index finger, indicating he was going to make a few points. She felt horrible about this, but she'd just about forgotten that Derek was in the room with them; he'd been so quiet standing there up against the dresser, doing little besides turning to look at whoever was talking. Nora, in what she thought had to be an ongoing effort to be the worst stepmother ever, had even been pacing the room. She caught his eye, staring at him apologetically and sat down on her bed. He shrugged.

"One," George began, clumsily sim-comming. "People get suspended for vandalism, not expelled."

"No," Nora said. "You get expelled for bullying. Zero tolerance." Finding herself at a total loss for signs, she had to fingerspell "bullying" and "tolerance."

"Mom," Casey said.

"You can't let people bully you, Casey," Nora said. "This girl can't get away with it."

"So they should suspend her," Casey said. Derek nudged her. He was missing things. Casey filled him in. Nora already felt guilty for not being a better signer. If she were, they probably wouldn't be having this conversation in English. Not at this point. It was amazing how both Casey and Lizzie's skills had surpassed her own so quickly.

"Sorry Derek," Nora signed. Derek shrugged like it was no big deal.

"It's okay."

"No it's not," Nora said.

"This sets a precedent," George said, spelling out "precedent."

"It should," Nora signed.

"The wrong kind," George continued. "Lassiter's coming down too hard on her for the wrong reasons." George guessed that the man just didn't want to look like a wuss in front of the school board.

Derek snorted.

"But I didn't say that," George said, pointedly.

"Say what?" Derek said. "I didn't hear anything."

George rolled his eyes.

"What else?" Casey signed, trying to steer them back on track.

"Don't know," George signed. "Except that you would have the power now."

Casey nodded.

"You could let this girl hang," George signed.

Casey nodded again. Derek looked fatalistic.

"It might all be for nothing," George warned her.

"I know," Casey said. "I still wanna do it."

Everybody looked at Derek expectantly.

"What?" he asked.

"What do you think of all this?"George wanted to know.

"I think that anything I say can and will be used against me, ow!"he said, rubbing his arm after Casey whacked him.

"Be serious!" Casey said.

"You know what I think," he told her. "I think you're nuts."

Well, finally, Nora thought. Someone agrees with me.

"But I'm in," he said. "I said I had your back."

Oh great, Nora thought.

After the kids went back upstairs, George turned to Nora and shook his head.

"You have a helluva kid there, Nora," he said.

"I could say the same thing about yours," she said.

"Guess I have a little work to do," he said. "Not that I think it'll get far. Even if Casey can round up the girl's contact info, her parents will most likely tell me to go to hell before I can get a full sentence out."

"Yeah," Nora said. Truth be told, she hoped that was what would happen. Then it would be over and they'd all be able to move on to the next bit of drama.

"Ed-win!" Nora heard Lizzie yelp, right on cue, from the kitchen.

"Should we go check on that?" George asked, looking up at the ceiling.

Something crashed.

"Nah," Nora said.

Part Five: Edwin.

A popsicle from the back of the fridge tumbled into view when Edwin pulled out an ice tray. There was no question about whether it was edible. Edwin couldn't even tell what color it had been; it was now a shade of purplish blue-gray with a crunchy/sparkly coat of ice over the top of it. So there would be no eating it, but maybe, he thought, just maybe, some fun could still be had with it.

Touching it to the back of Lizzie's neck had seemed like the best idea ever. Her hair was in two perfect, neat little braids and she had one of those zig-zaggy parts going down the back of her head. And there was her neck, all unprotected. Edwin could not be expected to pass up such an opportunity.

"Ed-win!"

Then, next thing he knew, they were wrestling, the ice pop between them. Then Lizzie knocked into the chair and they both went down with it.

"Oh my God," Edwin said. "Are you okay?"

Lizzie took a couple of breaths, checked herself and said that she was. Then pinned him to the floor sitting on him. He looked up and saw an upside down Marti, who had barely looked up from her cupcake to see what they were doing, but now she seemed pretty interested.

"Are you two gonna kiss?" she asked. The two of them separated so fast that they knocked the other chair down.

"What are you guys doing?" Casey asked.

"Nothing!" both Ed and Lizzie said, his voice going up high enough to match hers.

Casey shook her head at them, but then noticed Marti. "How do you like that cupcake, Marti?"

"It's awesome!" Marti said. Awesome was her new word. Things were generally awesome in Martiville.

"So that means you've gotten some of it into your actual mouth, then, huh?" Casey said. Marti stuck her tongue out. There was a good amount of vanilla frosting all over her face, less than usual, but still a lot.

"Ew," Casey said. "Looks like you have." She righted one of the chairs and Edwin picked up the other.

"So, Liz," Casey asked. She nodded toward Edwin. "What'd he do?"

"Put a popsicle to the back of my neck," Lizzie said.

Casey nodded. She looked around and found the now slightly lopsided and melting pop on the floor under the table. She picked it up and handed it to Lizzie, who nodded and went after Edwin with it. Edwin ran, but Lizzie catching him was an inevitability. She caught him by the belt and smooshed the rapidly melting mystery goo down the back of his pants.

So that meant that he had no choice but to switch her lip balm with glue stick. Not the super glue, but the plain old arts and crafts kind that wouldn't cause any actual harm, but would probably taste horrible.

The next morning, he found a toy mouse in his underwear drawer. The thing was furry and just realistic enough to make him yelp until he realized that it wasn't moving.

He poked it a couple of times, just to make sure it wasn't real, wondering if Lizzie would have put a dead mouse in his dresser or maybe even a live one that died in the night. But one more poke revealed a little tag that said Made in China and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, this meant war. He went to see his top military advisor.

"I'm not involved," Derek signed.

"I need your help," Edwin signed, giving him his best puppy face. Hell, it worked when Marti did it.

"Not my problem."

"But Lizzie put a mouse in my drawers," Edwin signed.

"Yeah," Derek signed. "Full of catnip, you loser. And you fell for it."

"It looked real," Edwin signed. "You would have fallen for it, too." Derek was just as skeeved by mice as Edwin was. He really should have understood.

Derek rolled his eyes. "Plastic spiders?"

"She's not afraid of spiders," Edwin signed. "Roaches either."

"Evil clown?" Derek signed.

Edwin grinned.

"That's why you're my favorite brother," Edwin signed, then held his arms out for a hug, which Derek mostly passed up, opting to mess up his little brother's hair instead.

Part Six: Lizzie.

"I'm not helping," Derek signed.

"But you're my brother," she signed, giving him the biggest eyes she could manage without them actually popping out of her head.

"You think that's gonna work with me?"

"It works when Marti does it."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Please, why should I help you? You have no talent for this. If you had, you would have pretended that glue stick really glued your lips together and that you had to go to the hospital to get your mouth open again."

"Dangit," she muttered. That was really good. Why hadn't she thought of it?

"That's why I need your help," Lizzie signed. "Casey's no good at this. It's an important skill and you can't let me grow up without knowing all I need to know, can you?"

"What kind of teacher would I be if I didn't let you figure it out for yourself?" Derek signed.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Lizzie said to his back as he went downstairs.

So she went to Casey, who suggested she let it go.

Well, that just wasn't going to happen. Still, she remained at a loss and ended up spending the next few days shaking out her shoes and checking the toilet for booby traps.

The longer nothing happened, the more she was on her guard, which was probably what Edwin wanted. But she was sure that the second she let her guard down he would get her. That said, after a week, Lizzie inevitably started to relax. She didn't forget about the possibility of a prank, she just began to forget how good Edwin was at it, to underestimate his powers.

He got her on a Saturday night. Mom and George were out to dinner and Casey was with Emily. Derek, Sam, and Ralph watched the movie IT in the living room. Lizzie asked what it was about and Sam gave her the breakdown: "There's this monster in this little town in Maine and it eats little kids," he said, taking a mouthful of popcorn. "Hides in sewers. Comes out of drains and stuff. And sometimes it looks like a big ole clown."

"And you wanna watch this?"Lizzie asked.

"Yeah," Ralph piped up. "It's awesome!"

"Oookay," Lizzie said, making Sam laugh.

"Yeah," Sam said. "We were gonna watch it at my house, but my sisters took one look at the box—" He held it up, showing Lizzie the single creepiest clown in the history of the world. "They threw us out."

"Smart girls," Lizzie said.

"Good night," she signed. Derek waved.

"Later," Ralph said.

"Night," Sam said.

So Lizzie went upstairs to do the usual before bed stuff: washing her face, brushing her teeth and such, but this time she stopped and looked at the drain in the sink. She'd seen the odd centipede come up out of there, and those freaked Casey out like nobody's business, but otherwise, it didn't freak her out. She shrugged and headed back to her room so she could finish her book.

As she turned down her bed, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Thinking it was Marti, she turned and started to ask what she was still doing up, but screamed instead, startled because there was a clown sitting on her windowsill. It grinned at her, showing a set of fangs.,

"That wath awesthome!" it said, laughing and clapping its hands. Then she realized that it was about her height and had a zit coming up on its forehead, a little bit of black curly hair coming out from under it's skullcap.

She'd backed into the corner of her nightstand and her eyes watered a little from the shock and the pain. Suddenly she found herself breathing fast, with her eyes wide so they'd water more. There was no time to really plan this, but she committed with everything she had.

"Lizzie," Edwin said, taking the baldcap with the little orange sprigs of hair off of his head. She did her best to whimper and back into the corner, curling into a little ball.

"Lizzie," Edwin repeated, looking concerned.

"What's going on?" Sam wanted to know as he popped his head in. He took one look at Edwin and said "You've gotta be kidding me."

"I think something's happening here," Edwin said as Lizzie shook. "Liz."

"GET AWAY!" she bellowed.

Ralph and Derek were close behind Sam. She peeked at them from behind her fingers and it was something in Ralph's face that gave the game away. They were all in on it. So she'd get them all.

She crawled under her bed, still screaming, really laying it on thick and they seemed to be buying it. Then, Derek peeked his head under there and cocked an eyebrow at her. She winked. He winked back, and pulled her out from under there, pretending to hold her close and soothe her as she struggled in his arms.

"Ed," Derek said. "Put your coat on. We're going to the Emergency room."

"Are you serious?" Edwin asked.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he asked. "You are so gonna need a doctor."

"But it was just a..." Edwin began. "Wait...what?"

Lizzie took the opportunity to stop kicking and writhing and look him in the eye.

"She's gonna beat the hell outta you," Derek said. "If I were you I'd run."

Lizzie got up and lunged at Edwin, who ran. Sam started doing the "I'm not worthy" move

"What just happened?" Ralph asked.

Part Seven: George.

George told himself that it would not do to laugh at Casey while she lectured Lizzie and Edwin in a disturbingly Nora-esque way. Derek sat down at the kitchen table next to him as they both watched Casey pace back and forth and yell.

"What did they do?" George signed. Derek immediately grinned and started signing about pranks involving clowns with fangs and that Lizzie was officially one of them now.

"You should have seen it," Derek signed.

"Casey's not happy," George signed.

"She'll cool off," Derek signed.

"She says she's tired of pranks," George signed.

Derek nodded.

"They do more harm than good, she says," George signed. It broke his heart a little to think so, but George thought that maybe there should be a moratorium on pranks in their house, at least for a while. Casey did have a point about how they had a way of escalating and how the pranker never knew how the prankee would react.

And, really, if anyone had reason to be sick of practical jokes, it was Casey. George had to agree with her a little even if he really did want to crown Lizzie the new Princess of Prankiosity.

Casey gave Liz and Ed chapter and verse about the expulsion she still wanted George to try to stop. As yet, he hadn't gotten anywhere. Deborah Connors, the girl's mother, had hung up on him and Lassiter still hadn't answered his emails.

Casey, who got antsier as time passed, was thinking of planning a protest, which meant that he and Nora would have to find a way to talk her out of it before Monday. He'd already asked Derek to make sure Casey didn't send out any mass emails.

"What's she saying now?" Derek asked.

"She's trying to make Ed feel guilty," George signed. "Asking why he's being so mean to Liz."

Derek rolled his eyes. "You're kidding."

George shook his head.

"Oh come on, Case," Edwin said, George translated for Derek. "I'm not being mean, Jeez! I don't prank anyone I don't like! That's, like, rule number two of pranking!"

"What's rule number one?" Casey wanted to know.

"Don't dish it out if you can't take it," Lizzie filled in. "Duh!"

Derek had a photographable look of pride on his face. Too bad George didn't know where he'd left the camera.

In the living room, Casey rubbed her forehead. "Listen," she said. "I get that you guys don't mean any harm, but this pranking stuff really stresses me out, okay? So can you please stop? For me? Okay?"

It seemed to George that the two of them had had their fill of pranks anyway, but at being told to quit it, Edwin looked the teeniest bit irritated (the Venturi genes were acting up) but, since it was Casey, the Russo genes from Abby's side won out and he promised to stop. Lizzie, of course, promised,too.

"She can be pretty persuasive, huh?" George signed.

"You have no idea," Derek signed.

"Think she'll give up on this expulsion thing?"

Derek sighed. "No."

George nodded. Later that night, he had a brainwave (Okay, it was Nora's idea) and tried to get a message to Mrs. Connors on Facebook. On there, the woman was able to see that he was on the up and up.

Mrs. Connors, he wrote. I'm George Venturi, father to Derek and stepfather to Casey McDonald. Upon hearing of your daughter's expulsion, Casey's implored me to speak to you about your options. As you can see, I'm a lawyer, and active in the community. As such, I want to make sure that your daughter, as well as all students at Sparrow High, get the fairest possible treatment. If you're interested, I can talk to you about possibly appealing the expulsion to get Cindy back to class with her friends as soon as we can...

It took a couple of days, but she got back to him:

Mr. Venturi, she wrote. While I have no idea why you would want to take on our case, I do want to thank you. You have some remarkable kids; I hope you're aware. However, my husband and I have no plans to appeal the expulsion. We feel that Cindy needs to understand that her actions have consequences. We feel that she also could use a fresh start, and, as such, have found a new environment for her...

"That's it?" Casey asked when George showed her the message.

"I guess so," he said.

"But...but..." she said. "Arrrrggghhh!" She threw up her hands in frustration. George caught Derek's eye. Derek shrugged.

"I just can't believe it," Casey ranted. "Doesn't she know what's best..."

"Sweetie," Nora broke in. "Do you really want this girl back in class with you?"She was doing her best to sign this time, having beaten herself up for the umpteenth time for forgetting her manners last time they'd had a family meeting.

Casey glared. "That's beside the point."

"Yeah, okay," Nora signed. "Could it be that you got a little carried away—um..."

"Fighting the power?" George supplied, sim-comming again. Derek snickered and Casey glared at him.

"Later, you'll think it's funny," Derek promised her. "Trust me."

"Thank you," Nora signed. "Fight the power. Yes. Perfect."

"Stick it to the Man," Derek said. Casey narrowed her eyes, but they could all see her mouth twitching.

"Power to the People," Derek went back to signing. Casey pressed her lips together.

"I am the Walrus," Derek signed, finally cracking her up.

"Derek," George signed. "Do you think Casey shouldn't...be the walrus?" He couldn't resist.

"No," Derek signed, mock seriously. "It's her job to obey!" She rolled her eyes and gave him a little shove. George secretly thought that she should be grateful that Derek didn't make any jokes about her having a walrus mustache or something. It's what Derek would've said even a couple of months before.

"Obey who?" Casey asked. Derek pointed to himself, grinning. She laughed harder.

"Case," George said when she'd calmed down a little. She turned, then Derek followed suit. George signed, "It's good to want to protest something that you think is wrong. You know me; I'm the first to take a stand. It's something I tried to teach all of my kids."

"And now me and Liz," Casey signed.

"I meant you, too," George signed. Derek blew air out of his cheeks, probably afraid that things were about to get gooey. And he was right to be afraid, because Casey did get gooey, as did Nora, and gooey McDonald women were group-huggy McDonald women.

"Get used to it," George signed to Derek when the hug broke up.