10th Grade, High School
Age: 15-16
January 2008
…
TJ wakes up to sunlight streaming in through his windows. He reaches for the pillow under his head to cover his eyes. In the haze of his morning grogginess, he fumbles, taking two attempts before he successfully blocks the light coming in through the blinds he clearly forgot to pull. A soft giggle erupts next to him and he grumbles in response. Yeah, he must look really funny.
His eyes snap open and he lifts his head from under the pillow.
Spinelli sits on the other side of his bed, her legs tucked under her like they used to sit in elementary school. Criss-cross applesauce, Mrs. Klemperer used to instruct them. She gives her head a little shake, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, before she turns away from him and back to her phone, her thumbs flying across the keys.
"Is that how you always wake up?" she whispers, her eyes not moving from her screen. She pauses her fingers and glances over at him again. "Grumpy?"
He wonders if this is a dream. His brain is still a little hazy, like what happens when he realizes he's dreaming just moments before his alarm goes off for the first – or second, third, fifteenth – time. But, as his eyes rake over her body, seeing her dressed in one of his t-shirts, her hair down around her shoulders and crimped from her constant braids, everything floods back.
Last night was New Year's Eve. The six of them had been at TJ's as usual, but this time they had been alone. His parents, not usually party animals, had been dragged to his aunt's new house where she was holding her first ever New Year's party and Becky, home from college for her final winter break before graduation, had met all her high school friends at the bars downtown. Gus had brought sparkling cider and they drank it from TJ's mother's fancy stemware, Ryan Seacrest and the live New Year's celebration in New York on the television in the background.
Vince left early. He had a full day of tournament play for his travel basketball team on New Year's Day and he needed to be up at the crack of dawn. When the ball had dropped in Times Square, the rest of the television programming losing its appeal, the rest had started to gather their coats. They also had to be up semi-early, wanting to go watch at least a few of Vince's games to show their support.
Mikey, Gus, and Gretchen all stood to leave and Spinelli stayed on the couch, firmly nestled into his side. She and Gretchen shared a long look that TJ didn't understand, just that the girls were communicating in a code made from raised eyebrows and various expressions. But, ultimately, Gretchen left and Spinelli said she wanted to stay the extra hour for a midnight kiss and then she would go to Gretchen's, where she was supposed to be spending the night after that. Of course, they didn't wait until midnight to start kissing.
At some point between eleven and midnight, TJ remembers picking her up, still kissing her as he walked up the stairs toward his room, afraid that one of the three other Detweilers would walk in through the front door and see the two of them alone, making out on the couch, and brought her to his room. He locked the door behind him and they never noticed midnight strike in their local time.
"What time is it?" he asks.
Spinelli immediately shushes him. He frowns and she gives him a stern look.
"Your parents are awake," she whispers back. "I can hear them downstairs."
He winces.
This had not been the plan. He had thought that if his parents came home while Spinelli was still here, he'd help her out through the bathroom window and down the chimney's jagged bricks like he has done on occasion to sneak out to see her. He hadn't planned on falling asleep and having to maneuver her around in the daylight.
Spinelli turns back to her phone, her thumbs continuing to slam on the keys, typing furiously.
"Who are you texting?" he whispers.
She doesn't look up. "Gretch."
He wonders what she could possibly be typing. It's a long message, whatever it is.
"Is everything okay?" he asks.
Spinelli doesn't say anything and instead continues to type. After a moment, her fingers stop frantically dancing across the keys and she skims whatever she has written on the screen. Then she hits another key and sets her phone down, turning back toward him.
"I mean, she's not thrilled that I never texted her last night. I woke up to, like, forty texts wondering if I died on the walk to her house, so. Yeah. She's not thrilled," Spinelli says through her teeth. "So, I was telling her what happened."
He raises his eyebrows. "In detail?"
She smirks and pats his cheek. "Wouldn't you like to know," she teases.
Spinelli rolls out of the bed and stands, stretching her arms out above her head and TJ watches as the bottom of his shirt rises up her bare legs. His entire body tenses at the sight. Spinelli is in his room, dressed in his clothes, and every inch of his body pounds in unison with the beating of his heart.
In the darkness of the night and behind his locked bedroom door, they had explored parts of each other they never had before – not only physically, but emotionally too. They had talked about their comfort levels, how far they would go, what made them nervous. Spinelli didn't want to go all the way and he was perfectly okay with that. Honestly, last night he probably would have followed her right off a cliff if she asked him to do so. Whatever she said would have been what he had done.
He vaguely remembers hearing his parents come home, sometime long after midnight, and looking down at Spinelli who was cuddled into his side and deciding that they would have to sneak out to get her to Gretchen's. He apparently fell asleep some time after that.
"Do you have an extra toothbrush?" Spinelli whispers.
He shakes himself out of his memory and nods toward the door to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom he shares with Becky. "Uh, middle drawer."
His body is still tense and he takes a few breaths, trying to think of anything and everything that will calm him down – Ms. Finster's bright yellow dress, the whistle around her neck, the wall she used to send him to when he was in trouble. However, his eyes still follow Spinelli as she heads to the bathroom, thwarting most of his efforts.
She opens the door and lets out a small gasp and TJ's eyes widen as he sees Becky standing at the sink, brushing her hair in the mirror. He groans. Now his heart is racing for an entirely different reason.
He quickly leaps out of the bed and rushes toward them, shoving Becky out of the bathroom and through the door to her room, Spinelli still standing stone still in his bathroom doorway. He had thought about how to hide Spinelli away from his parents when he really should have been planning to keep her away from Becky.
"Well, fancy seeing you two up here," Becky says, smiling a wicked grin.
There aren't many rules in the Detweiler house. Their parents have always taken a more hands-off approach to parenting, allowing him and Becky freedom to make their own choices and learn to deal with the consequences. As a result, both Detweiler kids have done their fair share of testing the boundary lines their parents had, but neither had ever done anything to warrant any extreme punishments. Being told their parents were disappointed in them was the worst either kid had ever really endured.
But one of the few rules his parents had instituted when he started dating Spinelli was that she was under no circumstances allowed upstairs. TJ isn't a rule-follower, but this one was fairly easy to abide by. His mother is always home so there wasn't even an opportunity for them to test it, until last night, when he thought about it very briefly before conveniently pushing it out of his brain.
"Mom and Dad don't find out about this," he hisses at her.
Becky smirks and crosses her arms. "Not so fast. What are you going to do for me in return?"
He groans. He should have expected this. Growing up, he always had blackmail on Becky. At one point he and Spinelli even made copies of her diary to stash away in the event they had it confiscated. Becky never really had that type of leverage on him.
"Come on, Becky," he hears Spinelli say quietly from behind him. "Help us out this one time."
"Help you out," his sister sneers. "You little heathens made my life miserable. Always getting into my stuff, pranking me, bothering me! Give me one good reason why I should help."
TJ sighs and tries to think quickly about what he can offer in trade before her voice alerts their parents. He does still have Becky's old diaries in the treehouse, but he doubts they hold much value to her anymore. His sister is a few days shy of twenty-two and before long she'll graduate college, start a job, and be a full-fledged adult. What could she possibly want from him?
"I'll do whatever you want," he says.
Becky raises her eyebrows in surprise and looks at him skeptically. "Anything?"
He shrugs. "Parade me downtown wearing a chicken suit, I don't care. Just don't tell Mom and Dad or else I'll never get to see Spin again."
She stares at him for such a long time that he gets uncomfortable under her gaze. She watches him, probably for any sort of twitch that could signal that he is somehow manipulating her like he always did. But this time, TJ is on the other end of the blackmail and he hopes that she trusts his honesty, even though he hasn't given her much reason to in the past.
"How are you planning on getting her out? Through the bathroom window?"
TJ nods and wonders briefly if Becky has experience in this escape route as well.
She clicks her tongue in approval and glances between the two younger teenagers. Then she sighs and mutters something he can't catch under her breath before addressing him once more.
"You owe me," she says to him. "Let me know when you're ready and I'll distract Mom and Dad."
"Really?"
"I would take this offer before I change my mind," she says. She looks between the two of them and shakes her head, flopping down on her bed and pulling out her phone.
He turns to Spinelli and shrugs, nodding toward the door. Once they're back in the bathroom, he gets her a new toothbrush from the middle drawer, where he and his sister have been storing the toothbrushes given to them by the dentist's office during their cleanings for years and have a small stockpile.
They don't speak as they brush their teeth, instead just stand beside each other looking at the mirror. It feels oddly intimate, maybe even more so than last night, to be doing something so basic and domestic with her. Once they're finished, he watches as she throws her hair into a bun on the top of her head.
"You never wear your hair down," he says. It's just an observation and doesn't mean anything by it, but when he thinks back he can't recall ever really seeing her do so.
"It's annoying," she tells him.
"I'm sure," he says, chuckling quietly. Her hair is thick and, when it was down, hovered around her shoulders. "It's pretty though."
Spinelli doesn't take compliments well, especially about her appearance. She rolls her eyes and turns away. When she turns back to him, it's almost as if the previous conversation didn't happen.
"I, uh, think my boots and jacket are still downstairs."
He debates on whether or not he can race down the stairs to grab them without one of his parents noticing, but it seems too risky. He glances down at her feet, which, like the rest of her, are tiny. She'll never fit into any of the shoes he has in his room. He moves by her and pokes his head into Becky's room once more.
"Do you have any shoes Spin could borrow?"
Becky glances up from her phone and gives him a death glare, but regardless she stands and walks to her shoe rack. He has no idea what size shoe Becky wears, but she has to have something that could work. She ultimately reaches for a pair and hands them to him.
"These are snug on me," she says. "Have her wear a couple pairs of socks if they're big."
"Thanks."
"Like I said, you owe me. Big time," she says, heading toward the door to distract their parents.
By the time he makes it back to his room, Spinelli is in the clothes she was wearing last night. The shoes are big, but manageable for her walk to Gretchen's. He climbs up onto the counter and opens the window above the toilet, looking out. This window faces the Wilsons' house, but she'll still be visible from the street and he wants to make sure no one is outside to see. The coast looks clear with the across-the-street neighbor's car gone from their driveway. He climbs back down to face her.
"So, it's a couple shimmies and then you'll reach the chimney. It sounds harder than it is."
"I mean, you did it as a fifth grader," she says. "How hard can it be?"
He didn't exactly do it as a fifth grader. He had tried to do it during his school boycotting fiasco and would have fallen off the roof had Principal Prickly not been there to save him. But, he has done it a few times since and now that he's stronger than he was at ten, it's easier than he remembers it being then. He has no doubt that Spinelli will be able to accomplish it.
"You've got this," he says. "I'll bring your jacket and boots to Gretchen's when I come."
Now they aren't that far off from the original plan. He was always planning on meeting Gretchen and Spinelli at the Grundlers' house to ride over with them to Vince's tournament anyway.
Spinelli leans up and gives him a quick kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too. Text me when you get to Gretch's."
"I will," she says.
She climbs up onto the counter just as he had done and once she's outside, he watches as she does just as she's supposed to do. She makes it look easy as she makes her way to the chimney and down, hopping off onto the ground. She gives him a little wave and then rushes out, ducking under the kitchen window as she sprints to the sidewalk, and jogging down the road to avoid curious eyes.
…
Gretchen knows.
He knew that Gretchen knew – maybe not all the sordid details, but at least the gist – on New Year's Day, when he saw Spinelli texting her when he woke up. Then, when he met the two girls at her house, he couldn't help but notice Gretchen staring at him like she does with her experiments. Her stares were ones of curiosity, judgment, and inspection. That coupled with knowing that she knew what he had done with Spinelli was enough to make him want to curl up under a rock and never resurface.
So, he started avoiding Gretchen, even going so far as to not go to the movies with Vince when Vince had mentioned that he had invited her to come along with them. TJ turned around instantaneously and yelled over his shoulder about forgetting to turn off the oven at his house – which was a lie and Vince knew it was a lie and called him out on it, but he still didn't turn around.
Of course, Vince knows too. But Vince doesn't look at Spinelli any differently. Vince barely looks like he cares at all.
So, when Gretchen invites them all to her house that Friday before they go back to school for the spring semester, he really doesn't want to go. Spinelli has a track meet and won't be there, so it will just be the boys and Gretchen…and her unrelenting stares.
Vince nearly drags him down the street.
"Stop being so freaking embarrassed," Vince tells him as they wave to Mikey and Gus who are just approaching Gretchen's door. The two other boys stop to wait for them. "You're just imagining things. I highly doubt Gretch cares as much as you think she does."
"I mean, she was mad at us," he responds.
Gretchen doesn't typically hold grudges or hold onto her anger, but she made sure Gus and Mikey sat between her and TJ and Spinelli during Vince's tournament on New Year's Day.
"Because you idiots didn't tell her Spinelli wasn't coming. It was New Year's Eve – she was up all night thinking Spinelli got hit by a drunk driver or something," Vince says. "So, stop being weird. You're making everything worse."
Mikey knocks on the door and Mr. Grundler opens it, telling them that Gretchen is in her room conducting an experiment. They're instructed not to knock – they've installed what looks like a doorbell to her door frame and it will cause a light to illuminate in her room, informing her of her visitors without startling her. Once she accidentally spilled corrosive chemicals all over her floor when her mother knocked on the door, so this is their alternative.
"This is the most Gretchen thing I've ever seen," Gus says as he presses the doorbell.
From inside, they hear Gretchen call for them to come in and when they open her door, she doesn't look like she's doing an experiment at all. None of her beakers are full and her machines are all turned off. The only thing on is her computer behind her, which she quickly shuts down as she spins around in her chair.
"Take a seat," she says, gesturing to her bed.
The boys share a look but take their seats regardless. Between the four of them, they take up a majority of Gretchen's bed lengthwise.
"What's on the agenda, Gretch?" Vince asks.
Gretchen stands from her chair and pushes it back into the desk. As she stands in front of them, she claps her hands together, as if she is readying herself to teach a class.
"I've been doing some research," Gretchen starts.
The boys share a look. That in and of itself is not unusual. Gretchen spends her free time conducting science experiments in her bedroom and taking the largest textbooks out of the University of Arkansas library with her parents' accounts. But, sometimes this leads to Gretchen creating a hypothesis for which she needs test subjects. They've all been utilized in at least one of her experiments at some point.
"So, it has come to my attention that the state of Arkansas does not require sex education to be taught in schools and, what's worse, is that when it is taught, it is required to be abstinence-based."
TJ winces and glances between the other boys. Gus' face glows red, just as it did during their fifth grade puberty lecture that had been taught to them by Principal Prickly when the real teacher had to cancel unexpectedly. Mikey is nodding thoughtfully, as if he hasn't caught on to where Gretchen is going yet. Vince just has his arms crossed and his eyebrow raised. TJ can't see himself, but if he had to guess, he looks much more like Gus than the other two.
Gretchen continues. "Over the last few days, I've taken the liberty of exploring the school's curriculum that I found on their network."
"You hacked into the school computers?" Vince clarifies.
She sighs once and gives him a short shake of her head.
"The school district does not have a very impressive firewall. It was actually a lot simpler than I imagined."
"But you still hacked the school computers."
Gretchen gives Vince an exasperated look. "That's not the point."
"Is that even legal?" Gus asks in a quiet voice.
"Okay, yes, I hacked into the school computers to find the curriculum, but the point is what I found, not how I found it," she states. "And what I found was unbelievably disturbing. There is only five minutes of instruction planned to take place during our health class this coming spring and, in my opinion, it left a lot to be desired."
She turns around and grabs a few stapled packets from her computer desk and begins handing them to each of the boys like she's a school instructor.
"It's well known that Arkansas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country," she says as she hands the packets out. "I've spent the last few days doing research to create my own curriculum to ensure that our group of friends does not add to this statistic."
Gus makes a squeaking sound as he flips through the packet. He quickly slams the papers back together and looks at the rest of the boys with wide eyes before turning back to Gretchen.
"Shouldn't this be for girls? Why do we have to learn all of this?"
"There are two willing partners in the equation, Gus," Gretchen says, with a little bit of heat in her voice. "The male has an arguably simple role in prevention and yet we clearly don't see that happening."
Mikey pats Gus' shoulder. "Let us admire Gretchen's hard work, shall we?"
"This is all your fault," Vince says, leaning over to mutter in TJ's ear.
TJ turns to him exasperatedly. "Oh, so now do you believe me? That I wasn't overreacting?"
Gretchen claps her hands together to get their attention again.
"All of you, listen. The more attentive you are, the faster this will be," she says.
She holds her own packet in her hands and flips to the first page, a table of contents and holds it up to show them.
"If you open your packets, I've included instruction on the male anatomy, the female anatomy, common myths that we'll debunk, the importance of consent, contraception practices and we will do a return demonstration on that, and then there will be a short quiz at the end."
"What's a return demonstration?" Gus asks, his face turning redder with each word Gretchen says.
Gretchen gestures to her desk, where she has four bananas. The tips of Gus' ears turn as red as his cheeks. TJ thinks he might actually be as red as Gus at this point.
"Ready?"
"Are you sure we have to do this?" Gus whines, trying one last time to get out of it. "It's not like any of us need this right now."
"Speak for yourself," Vince says quietly, for only TJ to hear. TJ's elbow immediately meets Vince's ribcage and he can hear his friend grunt in surprise.
Vince recovers quickly and turns back to Gretchen. "Where did you learn all of this anyway if our school district is so inept? It's not like you've done any of this either."
She crosses her arms.
"My parents are college professors," she says as if that's all that she needs to say.
When the boys stare at her blankly, she continues.
"They have given me adequate instruction since the scientifically-lacking puberty lecture we had in fifth grade." Gus moans at the memory but Gretchen continues as if he hasn't made a sound. "And, on top of that, I have access to all the materials on campus, including the student health center's guides and practices. Trust me, this will be much more informative than any fear mongering scare tactics our district will provide to try to discourage premarital relations."
She nods at her own explanation.
"And, to answer Gus' question, it is extremely important that you learn all of this before you are in any of these situations," she adds. "Unlike popular myth, things can happen the first time, which perfectly flows into the section on popular myths and why we need to debunk them. So, if you'll all turn to page five."
It feels like many sunlit days before they finish what Gretchen had planned and TJ is worried more than a few times that Gus may faint from actual embarrassment. For as awkward as the content is, Gretchen is in typical form. She presents the information in a factual manner using scientific language. When the boys chuckle, she just keeps talking. Gretchen would probably make a great college professor, he thinks.
But, by the time TJ gets home, he feels exhausted from being so tense the whole time. His muscles actually hurt from embarrassment.
He kicks off his shoes and stumbles into the living room, which is empty with the television off. He'll take this chance before Becky comes back from wherever she has traipsed off to, demanding the television for herself. HIs knees have barely bent to sit down when his father comes into the room.
"Don't you dare sit down."
His father's curt tone catches him off guard and he locks his knees, standing at attention. What could his father possibly be mad at him about today? He has barely been home. Unless Becky told his parents about the other morning? But she wouldn't use that bit of blackmail unless he egged her on first and he doesn't remember doing anything that would cause her to utilize it. Heck, he has been extra nice to her for the last few days to make sure she stays quiet.
"Dad–"
"I don't want to hear a word come out of your mouth," he says. He makes a dissatisfied sound in the back of his throat. "You realize this is your future that you're messing up?"
TJ groans. Of course. He had hoped that he was just on high alert because of Gretchen's impromptu educational session, but this has to be about him having Spinelli in his room. His parents probably jumped to conclusions. They may not have very many rules and may have let him run around town doing whatever he wanted as a child, but they're both still conservative. They definitely aren't Gretchen's parents with their open channels of communication. Literally the one time he brought her up there and this is what happens.
He is going to murder Becky.
"We're not even doing anything!" he exclaims. "How am I ruining my life–"
"I know you're not doing anything. That's pretty obvious by the D you got on your report card!" his father shouts.
TJ bites his tongue. So Becky didn't say anything after all. This is about something else completely.
He sort of tunes his dad out as he rants on and on about the grade. Fall semester report cards must have come in the mail today and, while he hasn't seen it, he knows what class the D is in. It has to be math. Math is hard. The other subjects aren't a walk in the park either but math is by far where TJ struggles the most. The rest of his report card probably shows a range of Bs and Cs. His sister, of course, graduated high school with high honors and though she is no Gretchen she managed to secure herself in the top fifteen percent through her hard work. She and his father are both in business, both with strong math backgrounds, and both seem to think that TJ is just lazy.
To be honest, the D is more than TJ deserves. He left half the midterm blank.
"You're not even listening!" his father shouts.
No. He isn't.
"Honey, if you had told us, we could have gotten you a tutor," his mother says.
He shakes his head. He doesn't want a tutor. He just wants to graduate and be done with it.
The door opens behind him and Becky walks in.
"Whoa, who died?"
"Not now, Becky," his father grunts.
His mother motions for Becky to follow her into the kitchen. The two disappear into the other room, leaving TJ and his father alone.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" his father asks.
He has one chance to get this right, but the likelihood that his father will let him off easy regardless of what he says is slim to none. He decides to go with the truth. If he owns his bad grade, his father at least can't fault him for his integrity.
"Nothing, I guess," he mutters.
"Enunciate, TJ."
He sighs and crosses his arms before speaking again, this time loud and clear. "I didn't do well. That's all there is to say."
"Well, at least you're not giving me a lame excuse."
It is no secret that his father has grown tired of TJ's antics. When TJ was younger, the whoopie cushion in the chair was hilarious. His parents wouldn't necessarily praise him when they got a call from Principal Prickly about him ordering a boat for the kindergarteners with the school account or trying to convince the FBI that the principal was a foreign spy, but they valued his individuality. But his spunky pranks and challenging authority figures became less and less cute the further he got into double digits of age.
And it certainly got much worse once Becky left for college. It is also no secret that his father is exceptionally proud of Becky. She is set to graduate in May from their father's alma mater with Latin honors. Once Becky was out of the house and he was in middle school, his parents became more concerned with his grades and how he was doing in school.
TJ hates school. He likes his friends. He likes his sports. He even likes learning. But sitting in a classroom all day is just not for him. His mother understands that. His father…not as much.
"The D isn't going to keep me from graduating," he says.
His father throws his hands in the air.
"Doing the bare minimum will get you nowhere," his father shouts. "One day, you'll have a family and how do you expect to support them on your little schemes? What is your plan?"
The problem is that TJ thinks of one day as a distant future, when he is beginning to wrinkle in the same way that his parents have, and not one day as in two years from now when he graduates high school. He supposes the two of them are connected, but he always just assumed that things would work out. Things always have a way of working out for him.
But what really gets him is the final question. He can come up with plans on the fly for so many things, but he doesn't have a plan for how to be an adult yet.
His father ultimately sends him upstairs to think while he and his mother decide what to do with him. TJ doesn't even argue, just walks up the stairs and collapses on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He has never really gotten in trouble before. He has always flirted with the boundary line of his parents' disapproval, but never crossed it. Now, he's crossed it with his failing grade and he can only imagine what would happen if Becky spills the beans about Spinelli.
"He's just worried about you."
TJ lifts his head to see Becky in his doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and looking at him with unusual concern.
"He just wants to make sure that when the time comes, you can do what you want to do. That you're not limited."
"Not limited? You mean he wants me to go work in an office like him," TJ grumbles.
"Have you thought of something different?"
TJ shrugs. He hasn't thought of what life would look like after high school. He didn't think he had to yet. Sure, Gretchen has already talked to the guidance counselor about schools and lists and application timelines, but that's Gretchen. The rest of his friends have only thought about college in the vague sense of it being in the future. Vince talks about college and basketball as if they're one and the same. Spinelli has made a few mentions here or there, but never anything serious.
On top of that, he is starting to wonder if maybe he isn't cut out for college. Spinelli's older brother Joey didn't go to college. He works at the auto shop downtown and her parents don't have anything negative to say about him. But the Spinellis have always thought both of their children hung the moon in the sky. It's part of the reason why they embarrass the two so much.
If he told his father he was going to do that, the vein in Sam Detweiler's forehead would probably explode.
He feels the mattress sink and he looks over at Becky, who has sat down beside him. She looks around the room with her nose wrinkled.
"Your room is a pit," she says. She points to a pile of clothes next to his hamper. "This is evidence that you're Mom's favorite, you know."
Becky has always made the claim that he is their mother's favorite, but TJ would have to disagree with that assessment. The summer after fourth grade, he and his friends had helped stop Phillium Benedict from ruining summer vacation and his mother held that to the same standard as Becky making assistant fry-chef at Floppy Burger.
"Mom doesn't have a favorite," he says. "Dad on the other hand…"
"Like I said," Becky tells him. "Dad just doesn't want you to be stuck."
"I don't know what I want to do."
She stands and shrugs. "You're fifteen, you don't have to, but you do have to have a little bit of a plan."
His sister heads toward the bathroom door, using it as a cut through to her room. When she reaches the doorframe, she turns around and looks at him for a long moment. She fidgets a little and TJ raises an eyebrow.
"Look, speaking of being stuck here," she says. "I'm going to say this once and I don't want to know any details or anything like that, but Mom and Dad will definitely not say anything so..."
"Beck, spit it out."
"First drawer on my side of the vanity, if you pull it out there's a hidden drawer in there. I made it myself. You can hide anything you want in there. Mom doesn't know and I don't think Dad has ever been in our bathroom," she says. "I left you some things in there. For you and Spinelli."
He grinds his teeth. "Becky."
"Look, all I'm saying is that if she gets pregnant, you two are stuck here and believe me, Dad will be even more pissed than he is now," she says. "I'm trying to help you. Sister to brother. That's it."
She turns around and then pauses, before turning back to him. "And I never want to talk about this again. Capeesh?"
"Capeesh."
She nods and walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
…
Notes
We now have TJ's individual storyline beginning to take form. I know that in my other fics, I have him being a lawyer but we're going in a different direction here. I hope you enjoy the journey he takes on finding out what he is going to be when he grows up! I think it fits him well.
Also, as they get older and more adult themes start to emerge, this is about as explicit as I plan to get. This fic will remain a T rated fic, in case anyone is wondering.
Episode/Movie references: Recess: School's Out, Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
In Recess: School's Out, Becky uses the line "Give me one good reason why I should help" when the kids ask her to help TJ out. I used that line in this chapter to parallel that.
In Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade, TJ escapes his bedroom through the bathroom window and when a shingle falls off, he dangles by one arm until Prickly is able to grab a ladder and help him back onto the roof.
The State of Arkansas does not require sex education in school and, when it is taught, it is supposed to be abstinence-based, per state law. I actually found some interesting articles about students pushing for further education, which somewhat inspired Gretchen's little lesson.
"What an exciting summer! TJ saved the world and Becky made assistant fry-chef at Floppy Burger" is what Mrs. Detweiler says at the end of School's Out that TJ references at the end of this chapter.
I rewatched School's Out and Taking the Fifth Grade to get a little bit of a better handle on TJ's parents. They strike me as being a little on the older side (just judging from their appearances alone, the Detweilers dress much more conservatively than, say, the Spinellis – Flo, I'm looking at you in that crop top), but they also let TJ roam and do all sorts of crazy stunts so they definitely aren't helicopter parents. It seems like TJ's mother is a stay-at-home mom/homemaker and his father is more of the 'doesn't really care until things go haywire' type of parent – judging from when TJ decides to boycott school and his father, who sort of brushes TJ off on his mother until he comes up to stick his foot down and get TJ out of the room. Just my observations and how I came up with their characterizations here.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you think!