The next day, Wilson decided to take the day off from work so that he could go with Mary and Ruthie to the meeting with Mrs. Tatum, Ruthie's guidance counselor. After an entire night of Mary and Ruthie screaming at each other, he was too exhausted to go into the office anyway. No one had gotten any sleep that night. The only thing Wilson had any energy for the next morning was to call someone to watch Billy when the rest of them went to Ruthie's school.

At 3:45 sharp, Mary, Wilson, and Ruthie walked into Mrs. Tatum's office. Each of them sat down in a chair as their anxiety began to build. What had Ruthie done? What was this about?

Mrs. Tatum pulled Ruthie's file out of a rather large filing cabinet to her left and sat it down on the desk in front of her. She pulled out a couple of sheets and then closed the manila folder.

"Well, let's get right down to it, shall we?" Mrs. Tatum said. Mary nodded thankfully. "Well the reason I asked you here was because Ruthie, as of right now, is failing her Cooking and Math classes."

Both Mary and Wilson looked disapprovingly down at Ruthie.

"What?" Ruthie said rudely. "My cooking teacher hates me. The only thing I did was burn a stupid grilled cheese sandwich, and after that she was giving me the evil eye."

"And what about math?" Wilson said. "You never told us you were having a problem with your math."

"Yeah," Mary said, "We could have helped you." Wilson smirked at Mary. "Well, Wilson could have helped you," Mary corrected herself.

Wilson turned to Mrs. Tatum. "Does she have time to pull up her grades?"

She nodded. "The semester does not end for another two and a half weeks. Ruthie has a math test on Thursday, and if she gets a B or higher on that her grade will greatly improve. And in Cooking, Mrs. Beecher said that Ruthie has a simple test coming up that includes setting the table, using the correct utensils, that sort of thing. I'm sure your sister can help you with that. It doesn't sound too hard."

Ruthie nodded, and then an awkward silence filled the air. No one wanted to say what they were really thinking, but someone was bound to crack.

"So…" Mary said.

"How far along are you Ruthie?"

"Nearly six months."

"Do you know what you are having?"

"No, I want to be surprised," Ruthie told Mrs. Tatum unenthusiastically.

Mary decided to take the initiative and just tell Ruthie's guidance counselor what she ultimately wanted to know. "Well, Ruthie and I were talking last night, and we decided that she was only going to stay in school for about 4 or 6 weeks longer. Would that be all right with the school?"

"Oh, I am sure that that would be fine as long as she had a doctor's note. And, if you don't mind me prying, what are you all going to do after the baby is born?"

Ruthie spoke up. "I'm going to stay in Florida and live with Mary and Wilson, and they're going to help me raise the baby."

"That's nice of them," Mrs. Tatum said smiling at Wilson who appeared kind of bored. He smiled back at the middle–aged woman. "Well, I guess we are done here. You're free to go." All four of them stood up. "And Ruthie, I hope to see an improvement in your grades."

"Yes, Ma'am," Ruthie responded as she headed out the door.

Mary and Wilson gracefully said their good-byes to Ruthie's guidance counselor and left the school hand in hand as Ruthie rushed off to the car five feet in front of them. Wilson smiled at Mary, but she shook her head.

"What are we going to do with her?" she asked.

"We're going to watch out for her so that she doesn't mess up her life any worse than she already has," Wilson responded frankly.

"I'm sorry," Mary said sullenly.

"For what?"

"For putting you, us, in the middle of this mess. It's not our problem and feel bad that it has become our problem."

"You feel bad for being a good sister?" Wilson asked her.

"I guess so."

Wilson smiled at Mary again and kissed the top of her head. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short and boring. I just had to get that stuff out of the way. The next chapter will be ahead a little bit and will be much more eventful, I promise. Well, thanks for reading and please review.