Ryan and Marissa went into the house.
"Can we talk to you Skylar?" Marissa asked.
"Sure! Sandy, Kirsten, Summer and Seth were telling me funny stories about you and Marissa," Skylar said.
"Like what?" They said.
"Nothing," the five of them said.
"Come into the living room Skylar. We want to talk to you," Ryan said.
"Did I do something wrong?" Skylar asked.
"No! You didn't do anything wrong. We want to talk to you," Marissa said.
"Skylar, how would you feel about living with Marissa, Cody and I?" Ryan asked.
Skylar didn't answer for a few seconds. All of a sudden, his eyes lit up
"I would LOVE that! My mommy wouldn't be here, right?" he asked.
"No. Of course not. But, you might have to go to court. Do you know what that is?" Ryan asked.
"Am I in trouble? Isn't that where bad people go to decide how long they stay in jail?" Skylar asked.
"No, but we might have to fight your mommy because she might not want you living with us, but with her," Ryan said.
"OK!" Skylar said.
"Will you tell him what you told us about what your mommy does?" Marissa asked.
"Yeah. She's a bad person. But when I told her that she was being mean to me, she hit me. She broke my wrist and I was crying. I was seven at the time. She told the doctor that I fell off the monkey bars at the park, but I didn't," Skylar said.
"Tell the judge that too. He needs to know all the mean things your mommy did," Ryan said.
Theresa woke up from her nap. She noticed that it was quiet. She went into Skylar's room. He wasn't there. The phone began to ring.
"Hello?" Theresa said.
"Hi Theresa. It's Ryan."
"How did you get this number?"
"Skylar gave it to me."
"You have my son? Give him back!"
"No. I want custody of my Son. You want him? Let's take it to court!"
"You bastard! I will take you to court and you will be sorry that you ever wasted money on a lawyer!"
"Actually, you will be sorry you wasted money on a lawyer. Incase you didn't know, I am a lawyer at the Cohen Law Firm. Sandy is in charge and one of my best friends, Aiden Wolf, to represent us for free and don't even try coming to our law firm and getting one of our lawyers or I will have your ass in jail faster than you can say Skylar."
There was silence for a few seconds.
"Thanks Sandy," Ryan said.
"Guess what? We have a court date for the day after tomorrow, which is Monday, at 10:30am. The court is going to give you a lawyer from the Harper Law Firm. Have a nice fucking day!" Ryan hung up the phone.
Everyone was clapping. "Nice performance dude!" Seth said.
"Can all of you make it to court Monday? I know Sandy can't, but can anyone else not make it?" Ryan asked.
"What about Cody and Jamie?" Summer asked.
"They aren't allowed in the court room. But they have a play area that they can stay in if you don't want them to go to school," Ryan said.
"We'll put them in the play area. It might last long and no one will be able to pick them up, since we'll all be in court.
The doorbell rang.
"Let's put this behind us for now. The kids are starting to arrive and we are going to have eleven kids here! I can't believe Cody's birthday and Jamie's birthday are today," Ryan said.
"It's their birthdays? That's weird!" Skylar said.
"Why?" Ryan asked.
"Cause today's my birthday! But my mommy forgot. Again. She never remembers anymore," Skylar said.
"Wow. Happy birthday Skylar. Your ten today. Double digits!" Seth said.
Ryan pulled Marissa into a corner.
"We have to buy him a present," Ryan said. him
"I know. We bought Cody a bike. Why don't we buy Skylar one?" Marissa suggested.
"OK. I'll take him to the store tomorrow to shop. But first, let's get through tonight. Eleven kids!" Ryan said.
At about eleven, all the kids were asleep except for Skylar.
"I usually don't sleep a lot. So I stay up late. Sometimes, I don't get any sleep at all," Skylar said.
"Skylar, I'm gonna take you somewhere special tomorrow. We are gonna spend some time together. OK?" Ryan said.
"That sounds like fun!" Skylar said.
"Skylar, you can sleep on the couch if you want. I'll sleep on the floor. All of the guest bedrooms are taken cause of the rats upstairs," Seth said.
"OK. It'll be fun Seth! We could stay up late and read comic books and watch funny movies and eat popcorn!" Skylar said.
"Wow. He's a lot like Seth," Ryan said.
"My friend Tommy lets me read his comic books. I like them! They are fun to read," Skylar said.
Seth and Skylar were up until 3:30am, but Seth passed out, so Skylar decided to go to sleep as well.
They were woken up at 10:00am to the sound of boys and girls fighting upstairs. Seth and Skylar went up there. Ryan, Marissa, Sandy, Kirsten and Summer were trying to get the kids quiet.
"QUIET!" Summer screamed.
"She's gonna have a rage blackout," Seth said.
"What's that?" Skylar asked.
"That means she is gonna get angry and start throwing stuff without knowing it"
"LISTEN! Boys do not have cooties! Girls do not have cooties! The only person that actually has cooties is Seth over there," Summer said.
They all looked in Seth's direction. Skylar backed away from him.
"I do NOT have cooties! Summer picks her nose!" Seth said.
They all gasped at her.
"Seth eats bugs!"
"Summer has rage blackouts!"
"Seth talks to a plastic horse named Captain Oats!"
"So do you! Except your horse's name is Princess Sparkles!"
"THE ADVENTURES OF OATS AND SPARKLES?!" All eleven kids said.
"You write those?" The kid named Frank said.
"Yeah. Do you guys have any copies?"
"No, but Jamie showed us hers. Can you get us copies?" Todd asked.
All the kids started jumping on Seth.
"All right! You win! I can get you all copies now. I have them in the basement. Who wants a copy?" Seth asked.
Everyone wanted copies. In all, he gave about 30 copies out. Seth loves to see kids smile. He always has.
"Hey Skylar, ready to go to the store?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah! Let's go!" she said.
Ryan and Skylar went to Bicycle Heaven.
"What are we doing here?" Skylar asked.
"Skylar, for your birthday, I want to buy you a bike," Ryan said.
"Really? There is this bike I really want! I wanna see if they have it," Skylar said.
He ran into the store and instantly found the bike. It was a BMX Trick bike. It was a Hero Bike and cost $400. "This is it!" She said. He was so excited about the bike, he couldn't resist.
"Let's get it!" Ryan said.
"It's a lot of money," he said.
"Don't worry about it. There are some bikes here that cost a lot more than that," Ryan said.
They bought the bike and went to McDonalds.
"I have never been here before," Skylar said.
"That's OK. We'll order different things and see what you like," Ryan said.
He ended up falling in love with the Chicken Breast Strips and a Coke. He loved the fries and even bought some home.
"Now, we should go clothes shopping. I know of a great store that has a lot of cool clothes. It's called Pacific Sunwear. There clothes are big, but you are pretty tall. How tall are you?" Ryan asked.
"I'm 5 feet," he said.
"My father was tall. He was 6 feet 5 inches. That's probably why you are so tall. You are going into 4th grade, right?" Ryan asked.
"Yup. I missed the cutoff by three days. I was born on December 4th and the cutoff is December 1st," he said.
"I know. The same thing happened with Cody and Jamie. Let's go shopping!" Ryan said.
They bought a lot of shirts similar to the ones Kirsten bought for Ryan. They also bought underwear, socks, undershirts, shorts, jeans and more.
"What if you don't win the case and I have to live with mommy?" Skylar asked.
"We won't lose," Ryan said. "We won't."