Worthwhile

Abby bounced in her seat and shook her head from side to side so her pigtails swung in a high arc. Like Tony, Abby's energy rarely flagged. She wrinkled her little nose and specified, "Like good for nothing bad, or good for nothing good, Kate?"

"Good for nothing is only bad and not ever good," Tim pointed out to his sister. He slid his milk glass closer to his plate lest his little sister knock it over in her exuberance.

It had been known to happen.

Abby stuck her tongue out at Tim to show her displeasure.

Jethro frowned at her as a reprimand and then addressed them all, "Let Katie tell us the story, how about it?" Worriedly he added, "Honey, did this happen to you?"

Kate flipped her chestnut brown hair off of one shoulder and pursed her lips as she pondered her initial words. "No, Daddy, not to me. So last year we had this new boy move to Washington from Miami." She turned to Jethro and wrinkled her forehead in bewilderment. "What state is that again, Daddy?"

"Florida," Jethro responded immediately. "And Miami rests at the bottom-way south. Remember last year when all of you watched that show on the Everglades? Miami is very near there."

"The swamp with all the gators," Tony reminded the group. "Remember Abby and Tim got scared watching 'em?"

"Did not!" Abby denied.

"Did, too," Tim contradicted her. "Remember we made Daddy sit between us. I admit they scared me."

Annoyed with the interruption Kate sighed dramatically. Abby smiled contritely as an apology to her sister.

"Well he moved from there- from Miami and the Everglades- and his name was Gabe," Kate elaborated. Having finally gained the undivided attention of her audience, she paused to take a sip of milk. "When he got to our class right away the kids started picking on him."

Tony stopped cutting his second helping of corned beef into pieces. "Why?"

"His clothes were different, like he came to school in shorts the first day and that's against the dress code. The principal said he could stay out of dress code for the day 'cause he had no one at home to pick him up but the next day Gabe would have to dress right."

"I would wear a really pretty skirt and not shorts the first day," Abby interjected.

Tim scowled. "Why would Gabe wear a skirt?"

"Not Gabe, I said I would wear a skirt!" Abby's voice rose in annoyance. "Did you hear me say Gabe?"

Tony clapped his hands together. "Silence, Siblings! Let Kate hurry up and finish 'cause I have something to add of importance." At twelve and the eldest of the four, he tended to redirect the others when he felt they had lost focus.

"Well, tell Timmy to stay quiet," Abby entreated Jethro.

Gibbs frowned at her before spooning another boiled red potato onto her plate. "Both of you need to let Kate have a turn without interrupting. Concentrate on eating and listening."

"No one interrupted, Daddy," Tim clarified seriously. "We segued."

Kate nodded regally and continued, "Back to my story- so the boys in the class started making fun of him for that and the way he talked. They were calling him 'Miami Gator' and 'Gator Boy' to be mean and doing rude things to him. If he missed the ball in sports they acted like he'd made everybody lose all by himself or if he got a question wrong in class they said he needed remedial classes and to go back to Florida." She paused thoughtfully and turned troubled eyes on her father. "I didn't do that, though. Some of us told the teachers any time it happened and the boys would get into trouble but then they'd do it again."

A concerned Abby declared, "That would hurt my feelings if I got treated that way."

"Bet it hurt his," Tony acknowledged.

Tim reached for the bowl of potatoes and selected one to add to his plate. "So do those kids still pick on him?"

"Nope," Kate pursed her lips and shook her head slowly. "Gabe's mom kept coming to the school and coming to the school but finally she just took him out."

Shocked, Abby questioned, "He doesn't have to go to school ever again?"

"Not ever again at our school," Kate confirmed.

Tony shoved several butterbeans to the edge of his plate. "Where did he go afterwards?"

"I don't know for a fact. Someone said his mom homeschooled him but another kid said he goes to another school now. The teachers wouldn't tell us but they got really mad about the whole thing. They said all of the mean things that happened to Gabe made him feel like he wasn't an important human being, like he didn't matter and nobody cared about him." Kate wrinkled her nose. "Even the mean kids felt bad after that, but the teachers said it was way too late for them to make it up to Gabe."

Tim nodded conspiratorially at his father. "They made sure poor Gabe felt good for nothing, right, Daddy?"

Jethro pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. "What do you think, Tim?"

"They did. He felt bad at the school because they kept at him."

"His feelings must have stayed upset for a really long time," Abby sighed. "Do you think he felt better at the new school?"

"Good question, Honey," Jethro acknowledged ruefully. "My answer is no, unfortunately. I think that Gabe suffered some damage with that experience and it will make him question his self worth or how he feels about himself for a long, long time. Do you children realize how much damage someone can endure with words alone?"

All four nodded thoughtfully.

"We can pray for him," Abby offered. "I think that will help poor Gabe."

Kate shook her head affirmatively. "I already do pray for him."

"Good move," Tony contributed. "That story reminds me of first semester when my elective class was Spanish."

Kate sputtered, "You are not Gabe, Tony."

Tony awarded her a withering look before continuing, "As I was saying, through no plan of mine I ended up in Spanish class. My teacher would announce a term or phrase in Spanish, then go around the room and have each student repeat what she said. I kept messing up every time she got to me and everybody would laugh. So the teacher started thinking I kept messing up on purpose…" Tony turned to regard his father with a troubled expression. "I didn't mess up on purpose- honest."

"Finish the story, Tony," Tim prodded.

Tony licked his lips and steepled his fingers. "But when I goofed I would laugh too so that everyone would think messing up didn't bother me at all. It did, though, and when everybody else in class started catching on to Spanish after a week and I didn't I felt really dumb. I just knew in my heart I would keep failing at it. Besides, my friends kept telling me I would never figure out Spanish. After a while I decided I should go to the guidance counselor and ask her to put me in Band or another elective class instead."

Confused, Jethro contradicted, "Son, you did very well in Spanish if I recall."

"Right dear Padre," Tony confirmed, "but it took a while for me to learn it, until after I met with the counselor."

"Are you talking about Ms. Metcalf?" Kate inquired.

"Uhm hum, the one and only Ms. Metcalf. She listened to all of my reasons for letting me switch Spanish with another class and then she asked me a ton of questions about class and my friends and where I sat. Then Ms. Metcalf told me to write down all of the Spanish terms I had learned in class, even if I only wrote one. I ended up writing a whole page plus the back of that page and she had me tell her their definitions and then pronounce them. It turned out I actually knew how to say most of them correctly."

Tony stopped to take a bite of corned beef. He rubbed his tummy. "This is good."

"Glad you care for it," Jethro replied.

Tim probed, "Did you quit Spanish then?"

"How could he quit if Daddy said he made a good grade in it, Timmy?" Abby challenged.

Kate jumped to her brother's defense. "He just wanted to clarify, Abby. Stop being so mean."

Tony swallowed before concluding his story. "So in the end Ms. Metcalf walked me down to my Spanish teacher's classroom. She had her planning period so none of the other kids were there. Ms. Metcalf ordered me to tell her about my visit to the guidance office and I did. The teacher was really nice and she said she wanted me to stay in her class because she knew that I could learn Spanish better than anyone in my class. She said I was smart." At that revelation, Tony interrupted his story to preen.

Kate rolled her eyes at Jethro and he shook his head resignedly. "Son, just please continue."

"I will," Tony grinned, then sobered. "So my Spanish teacher decided she wanted to move me to a different seat closer to the front of the room and away from my friends in the back. Both the teacher and my counselor thought the problem was that I had gotten so self conscious about making a mistake that I just stopped trying to learn. They wanted to change my environment. My desk got moved and sure enough, I started doing better and better in class. By the end of the term I was the best student and had the highest grade of any other student in the class."

Jethro regarded Tony thoughtfully. "Son, you gave us another appropriate example. Now I would like for you to find the moral of that story."

Tony drummed his fingers on the table before leaning back in his chair and throwing out his arms expansively. "This- I don't ever want to feel good for nothing, but for a while I let my friends make me feel that way. And to be honest, I made me feel that way, too."

"Daddy, maybe you can feel good for nothing when you don't look like the other kids," Abby supplied.

Tim added, "or act like them."

"What do you mean?" Jethro pushed back his chair just far enough to reach his battered coffee pot. He felt for the appliance's power button and flipped it, relying on hundreds of previous brews to guide his fingers.

"Sometimes I feel sad when we line up or take pictures and I always have to go to the back 'cause I'm tall," Abby explained. "All the other girls stay in the front, and sometimes I want to just sit with the girls."

"That happens to me in sports," Tim contributed. "I can't play as well as some of the other boys in my class sometimes and it makes me upset every time that happens."

"That doesn't make either or you good for nothing!" Kate declared.

"She's absolutely right," Jethro confirmed, closing his eyes to gather his thoughts. "You are humans, and all humans have qualities about themselves that they love, and then some that they wish they could change." The coffee pot's sputtering-the signal that an entire pot beckoned- made him open his blue eyes.

…

Jethro regarded the living room around him with genuine confusion. His leg lay propped on the coffee table.

Why?

Licking his lips, he strained to identify a sound- he could hear a peripheral noise drifting from the kitchen.

Jethro sniffed appreciatively at the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, transferring his attention from sight, to sound, and then to smell. Still, he couldn't recall powering on his favorite appliance.

This called for an investigation.

The Gunny grasped his leg and accepted the resultant throbbing pain with a hissed groan. It would take some doing to unkink his knee, and even more effort to hobble to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

Using his left arm, he braced his body to stand.

Before he could push himself to an upright position, however, Tony barreled through the front door, followed by Kate. Both carried bags of groceries so overflowing with groceries that Kate had to shoulder the heavy door shut behind her.

Gibbs spied bread and sandwich meat as well as chips peeping from two of their bags. He licked his lips and regarded the agents with narrowed blue eyes before offering his greeting, "Did I invite you here? Either of you?"

"Course not," Tony grinned.

Kate shook her head and added sweetly, "Yet here we are, Gibbs!"

Abby emerged from the kitchen ferrying a steaming cup of coffee. She handed it to Gibbs with a smile and directed, "Drink, Gibbs. I know your knee hurts but coffee and a good supper will take your mind off of the pain-we hope it will, anyway." Planting a kiss on the top of his head she slid onto the arm of the sofa beside him.

Tim emerged from the kitchen and Kate handed one of her grocery bags to him. He balanced it against one hip and greeted, "Hey Boss, I'll fix you a plate so you don't have to move and damage your knee further. Stay still right there 'cause we have supper covered."

Gibbs eased back against the cushions and regarded the four sincere faces which he knew so well. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "You put all this together?"

"We did," Kate confirmed.

"During work?"

Sensing a trap, Tony stammered a denial. "Certainly not! We prioritized our duties with our extra curriculars." He raised his eyebrows at Tim, Kate, and Abby. "Right, team? We came up with this plan after work?"

"Correct, oh Gibbs," Abby beamed.

Tim rubbed his hands together and added his support. "Yes, indeed, we came up with this plan right after we finished work, Boss."

The corners of Jethro's mouth twitched. He always enjoyed witnessing the four of them concoct an explanation on the fly.

Tony tilted his chin toward the kitchen and elaborated, "Just making ourselves useful this evening, Boss."

"Useful," Jethro repeated.

Kate pulled the loaf of Italian bread from the bag and studied him. "You find us beneficial, Gibbs, whether you want to admit it or not. It won't kill you to tell us you consider us useful and necessary to you."

"Did I say you weren't?" Jethro challenged in mock outrage. "Did I, Kate? Despite today's earlier dirtbag assessment of my team, you do have your moments. In fact, I have spent the entire afternoon considering just how valuable all of you are."

"Really?" Tim queried, surprise evident in his voice. "You've really spent the afternoon thinking about us?"

"Absolutely," his Boss assured him with a satisfied smirk. "In fact, though it has required hours of intense concentration, I have finally come to the startling conclusion that not a single one of you is good for nothing!"