Chapter 16: Between Families

3:15pm MONDAY AFTERNOON

After school, Alvin stormed around the school grounds looking for his brother Simon. He came walking around the corner and noticed his brother sitting in the audience stands by the football field, smoking with his friends. Alvin began to look very annoyed as he quickens his pace towards the trio on the stands. As he got closer he again noticed Simon, Tom and Renee sharing a bottle that was wrapped in a paper bag.

"Simon! What do you think your doing?" Alvin yells out as he was close enough to be heard.

"Having a smoke break! What does it look like?" Renee answered for Simon. She lied down on the fifth step belly side down and looked rather drunk. Although, not too drunk, she was able to push herself up to reach for the bottle that Tom was handing her. He sat on the fourth step on the stands and marveled at her beauty as she took the bottle from his hand. The two of them smiled at each other for a moment before Renee took a sip from the bottle.

Alvin shook his head and looked right at Simon. "You do realize that you've missed a whole afternoon of classes. And Dave is waiting for us in the car at the front of the school!"

Simon turned away to inhale another drag of his cigarette. "Tell Dave thanks, but I'll walk home." He replied while exhaling a puff of smoke.

Alvin was in shock and somehow he was convinced that Tom and Renee were trying to turn his brother against his family. Then he noticed Renee struggling to lean as far as she could down to the third step where Simon sat. She reached the bottle to Simon and he accepted it. But before he could drink from it, Alvin jumps up to second step and snatches it away from him.

"What's this?"

"It called 'non-of-your-business!'" Renee spat with a sarcastic grin then starts to giggle again.

Alvin took a whiff and pulled away in shock. "Your drinking boos? And on school property no less! How in the world did you get this?"

"The wonders of Photoshop. You can make the most amazing things in that program." Tom said proudly as he held up a picture ID that was obviously a fake and yet so well done that it looked real.

"Is that what you were doing all afternoon? Making fake ID's and buying boos from liquor stores?" Alvin screamed at Simon.

"And buying cigarettes…" Renee added in a dreamy tone.

"WHAT?!" Alvin shouted.

"Alvin calm down!" Simon said as he finishes the last bit of his cigarette and stands up to kill it. Then he snatches the bottle away from Alvin and sits back down to take drink of his prize.

"Calm down?" Alvin was just so furious with all of this; he didn't know where to begin. "Simon, what is wrong with you? You would never do anything like this."

"Well, things change." Simon said after swallowing a mouthful of liquid from the bottle.

Alvin's blood boiled with anger and frustration. He looks up at Tom, whom sat watching Simon taking another sip from the bottle, and Alvin glared heavily at him. "This is your fault! Look at what you turned my brother into."

"My fault? What I did?" Tom said in defiance. He got up and stumbled his way down to the second step of the stands and got up face to face with Alvin. "Let me tell you something, you little punk!" He said poking his index finger in a well-forced manner against Alvin's chest.

"Tom! Don't!" Simon pleaded.

"Simon, he can't talk to us like that. He couldn't feel the way we felt! Seen what we've seen! Survived the way we had to! He has no right to even be near us!" Tom finished by pushing Alvin off his feet and down to the first step.

Alvin got up as fast as he could and brought up his fists by his face. "Well, come on, then! I'll teach you a thing or two on how to respect the Seville name."

"You'll teach me?" Tom said raising an eyebrow. He took another step down and again pushed Alvin and this time he fell onto the ground in front of the stands. "You have no idea who your up against, little man." Tom said again as he stepped down to the ground and just close enough to Alvin so he can look down at him.

"Tom, stop it! Now!" Simon warns.

"I can handle this, Simon, don't worry!" Tom said in a confident tone.

With a growl, Alvin leaps up and attacks Tom, thinking he would take him off guard as his attention was temporarily directed to Simon. But to Alvin's surprise Tom was able to block his punch without even looking at him. Tom wasn't even trying at all to knock him down either. Before Alvin realized it he was, again, flat on his back. He looked over to where Simon and Renee sat and both had a worried look on their faces.

Give up, runt! I could break you in half in a split second!" Tom said with half a smirk.

"Oh yeah!" Alvin huffed, while getting up again to continue the fight.

"THAT'S IT!!" Simon screamed. He took the bottle in his hand and smashed it between Alvin and Tom. Both boys looked at a now very angry Simon.

"Tom, don't you ever threaten my brothers' life!" Simon said as he stumbled to the ground and got into Tom's face.

"He started it!" Tom said defensively. "As usual, I'm just protecting you!"

"I don't need your protection from my brother!" Simon growled heavily. "We are home now! We…"

"We are not home!" Tom interrupted. "Our home existed years ago when we were kids! As soon as we were taken away from that home, so was our freedom. I've got news for you, Simon; we are still trying to survive. We will never get to be at the home we knew. Our home now should be the Island, and that was taken from us too!!"

"How dare you!" Simon snapped. He then threw a few punches at Tom's face. Simon gets a right hook across Tom's face. Tom recovered quickly and threw a left upper-cut which made Simon fall back slightly.

Without realizing it the two boys went into a trance like state and started to growl under their breath. Slowly the two got in some kind of fighting stance and looked like they were about to attack each other, again, only in a more serious manner. Alvin was not sure what was going on and looked up at the red headed Chipette in the stands. Renee recognized this all to well and began to panic.

"Kalana-va-sal!" She blurted.

Tom and Simon instantly broke out of the trance. Confused they began to shake the cobwebs out of their head before glancing up at Renee. The two boys looked back at each other. Their memories are clear again. Renee ran down from the bleachers and to Tom's side. Again Simon and Tom look at each other sternly.

"I'm going home now, Tom," Simon said as he backed away slowly. He then grabbed Alvin's arm. "Come on, Alvin!"

Alvin and Simon made their way to the car where Theodore and Dave waited impatiently. Neither of them spoke a word of what just happened in the field to their dad or brother. They just crawled into the back seat of the car, while Theodore stayed sitting in the front seat.

"And where have you've been!" Dave asked Simon as he hoped in car quickly and sat in the back seat, as far as away from Dave as possible. He mainly didn't want Dave to smell the alcohol on his breathes.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Simon said putting on his seat belt.

"Oh we're going to talk about it, a long talk! Right as soon as we get home!" Dave said, before driving off.

As they drove they past Tom and Renee who appeared that they too were heading home, a huge guilty feeling fell over Simon. Part of him felt that Tom had a sense of truth with what's happening in their situation. Then again, he did feel like he was home, so how could he say those things? Simon felt separated between two families. The one he had been with on the Island, and the one he's known all his life.