Disclaimer: I own nothing, my writing is for amusement and sanity.
Here's my Take Three! Or is it Four? I've messed with my other story "Reindeer to the Rescue", from edits to deletes and redo tries...I'm not satisfied with it, and can't make myself fix it at this point so let's try this!
Read and Review please!
Two Chapters!
Chapter Thirteen
Xxx
May 19th
Lakeside, Illinois
Community Recreation Center
Xxx
It took the Miller family's doctor two weeks after Charlie's release from the hospital to completely clear the teenager for anything more than attending school, minus PE class, and going home. The lingering effects of the concussion had faded off within the first week, but Charlie had gotten so tired from lack of sleep and then long school days, the family physician had agreed to hold off on full clearance.
Once free, Charlie had three days of PE classes, and then a day off before starting at the Rec Center to start his community service hours. Wayne Eisen and Mike Hanes had already started in on theirs, they'd been assigned to the Rec Center parking lot and medians, cleaning up the old landscaping, replacing the mulch, and repainting the outdoor trash/recycle cans. Emily Louis had finished the month of April in the school, before being shipped out to the boarding school her parents had been threatening for a year. That had made Charlie's Social Studies class so much easier as the in-class chatter had died down by like half. Throw in Danielle was assigned to the other side of the Center compared to Charlie, the last couple weeks hadn't been that bad.
At least until this weekend, there was an event scheduled for little kids in the auditorium and main playground, meaning Charlie's usual tasks of scraping, prepping, and repainting the outer walls had been changed for the day into "volunteering" at the concessions stands and running boxes between the supplies room and the two stands set up. The main cafeteria was occupied with a soccer tournament out on the fields.
Inside the Center there was an open call for one of the states top music and arts schools; example performances and classes were going on indoors, while a couple of the class leaders were supervising the playground and had small groups of kids enthralled with the instruments one of them had out to entertain.
It was all pretty cool, if Charlie would actually admit it. Somewhere in the building, his mom and Lucy were watching the performances and talking with the head teachers about enrolling Lucy in her level class. Swimming was great and all, according to Lucy, but she preferred the outside swim meets in the summer to the indoor competitions that most of Illinois was stuck with the majority of the season.
Dance was all school year, and the higher the class, the closer to year round they went. The upper high school levels, a couple groups were year round to line up with the amateur and professional competitions like ballroom and hip-hop. Charlie only knew this, because the volunteer parent that was giving him directions all day was more than happy to share any and all information about the dance school.
The dance mom waved at Charlie absently when he approached again, "Oh, just set it there honey-now, there's also a tap dancing group that starts at age six and seven, mostly because the little kids go through shoes so fast and taps can get pricey. There are group fundraisers the older classes do, to help new families, no one should have to choose classes because of costs-"
Heading back to the supply room, Charlie glanced down the snack table, noting that they needed more chip bags but were set on everything else. Those were light, so he swung down to the main concession stand in case they needed anything while he was trekking across the building. That volunteer waved him off completely, but did take his order for lunch, one of the dance school administrators was ordering separate food for the volunteers and had dragged Charlie into their numbers.
Once the chips were delivered, and then a round of water bottles to all the outside supervisors, and then a refill of ice to both concessions stans, Charlie was directed to a back conference room in the Rec Center where the lunch had arrived.
He wasn't exactly expecting to find Sarah Vaughn and Kate Anderson lounging at one of the tables with their food.
"Uh…hi?"
Kate nodded, mouth full and otherwise not caring.
Sarah grinned and slid Charlie a paper plate to fill with pizza.
"This where Newman and Reynolds stuck you for community service?"
Charlie nodded, smirking when he found the meat lovers pizza, "The Rec Center director put me as a runner for the Dance thing, mostly because I showed up in clean clothes compared to the other two guys. I'll take this over the parking lot though, it's starting to rain."
Blowing a raspberry, Kate swung off the table she was perching on, digging in a cooler and tossing Charlie a soda can and grabbing one for herself, "Which means all the kids outside will be indoors and hyper in about twenty minutes."
"Which means," Sarah grabbed the soda from her, cracking it and taking a sip, "You will be on stage in about fifteen and do not need carbonation."
Kate grumbled and flopped into a chair.
Smirking, Charlie took a seat next to Sarah, digging into the pizza slices and homemade cookies someone had brought in, "What do you do through the school Kate?"
She, instead of answering, shoved her plate away and banged her head on the table.
"That bad?"
Sarah snorted into her drink, chuckling as Kate tipped her head enough to glare at Charlie, "Go on, tell him!"
"I don't like you-"
"You're still stuck with me-"
Charlie choked on his pizza, trying not to laugh as the two griped, the familiarity of tight friends was a welcome boon. After introducing Sarah on her first day at the high school, Charlie had discovered Sarah and Kate already knew one another and had proceeded to dominate the art class all three teens shared.
Finally, with another look from Sarah, Kate surrendered, and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from her jeans pocket, a written schedule of the day and lists of locations within the Rec Center.
"Oh wow…"
"Mhm," Kate shrugged, "I'm 'available' for discussion for all ages under twelve classes, and part of the demos for how actual classes work for everything but tap and acrobatic, plus I did performances this morning for ballroom and one of the seasonal numbers. Mind you, it's effing-May, I still got asked to do some of our Christmas songs…like c'mon…there is literally nothing wrong with the Halloween show."
"Not a Christmas person huh?" Charlie teased, getting a giggle from Sarah and Kate sticking her tongue out.
"Nah…not in this…the Christmas show is huge and all, and really cool if I do say so myself," Kate huffed, "But I get tired of doing these all-call demos, or side events for fundraising where we do request performances…and I end up doing the Jingle Bell Rock dance eight times in freaking March…"
"That I can understand," Charlie glanced down the list, "Guitar?"
"It's Creekwood Music and Arts School, not just dance." Kate pulled another list from her pocket, a brochure of the school, "There's instrument lessons and group participation, the upper levels help out with the dance recitals and practices with live music. I'm part of the strings classes, and bit of piano work. But there's also drum class, and a sound/tech class. Some kids want to be a part of the fun, but have such stage fright or just don't like crowds, we have them help the back stage crew and learn that side. Got a retired Broadway stage manager helping us."
Charlie read over the info, rather impressed, he had no idea this was even in the area, let alone so expansive.
Probably because it wasn't directly in Lakeside, closer to Peoria technically, but had kids from multiple school areas.
"Does the high school do anything with this?"
"You mean ours?" Kate shrugged, "Somewhat, the budget cuts killed the dance troupe at the school itself, but the coach moved to Creekwood and took some of her troupe with her. Everyone else joined the cheer squad."
"The cheer squad that lost two of their juniors after the car accident that took out an entire door." Sarah joked.
Wincing, Charlie nodded, "And took the MVP off the wrestling team."
"You okay though?" Kate nudged him, "All of us heard rumors from Ms. Sloan in art class, but you were the last one to come back afterwards besides Emily getting pulled out."
"Yeah, a minor concussion and whiplash, didn't come back until I could stay awake without pain meds."
"Ouch!" Sarah hissed, before grumbling at her watch going off, "Welp…break's over for me, I'm gonna go round up any straggler tiny humans for the last demo class Kate, I'll make Devon help me. Cheryl will probably have you finish up with something for the elementary group, I know Khaj was going to take the middle schoolers over to the basketball court for the stomp thing."
"See ya, you comin' over tonight for night stuff?"
"I can't tonight, my aunt is making me clean the attic this weekend and I should get that done before we get into the new kids coming in. Plus, isn't your-"
Kate cut her off, "Oh look at that, now you're late, bye!"
Sarah blew a raspberry at her, waving to Charlie and snagging one of his cookies on her way by, Charlie half-heartedly tried to grab it, not really caring as Kate dropped another one on his plate in response.
Before he could ask, Kate rolled her eyes at Charlie and slid him the rest of the meat lovers pizza box, "Don't worry about sharing, Cheryl ordered enough to feed everyone like twice over. Besides, the concession stands only run for another ten minutes so you being a runner will be over anyway."
Charlie went ahead and kept eating, watching as Kate fussed with a black guitar case beneath the table, pulling out a redwood acoustic with fake pearl inlays, "That's cool."
"Wanna try?"
Wiping his hands on his jeans, even if his mom was so going to be mad about the pizza stains, Charlie accepted the well-used instrument with care. Kate hopped back up on the table, moving Charlie's plate side and sticking her feet on either side of his legs to be close enough to help move his fingers into position, "There, hold those two like that, uh-huh, now strum with your other hand-use the side of the of your finger, not the pad, won't tear up your fingers so much…"
Strumming a bit, Charlie let her guide his fingers along the bars-the frets-in different notes and chords as she eased him through strumming the chorus to a song he could remember, but not name right away.
"Cool."
"Yup," She grinned, soft and encouraging, "Not bad Calvin."
"Yeah?"
"Totally, you should come try a class," Kate moved back a bit, pulling a couple more brochures from a pile and handing them over-Charlie shoved them in his hoodie. Going back to the guitar, she watched as he kept going, only needing to nudge Charlie's fingers a couple times as he repeated the pattern of notes she'd shown him, "Most people don't get this one right for weeks."
Charlie shrugged, "I…maybe…gotta finish the community service hours…my mom's probably going to have me in lockdown for the rest of high school."
"She does know the accident wasn't your fault, right?" Kate nudged his leg before sliding back, "The police report for Zach Hanes was posted a week ago."
Before he could answer, the conference room door slammed open, Danielle scanning the room and locking on the two sitting so close together.
"Ugh…seriously?"
She spun away with a growl, storming down the back hallway without another word. Charlie scrambled up, trying to look apologetic as he almost threw the guitar at Kate before charging after the other girl.
His sneakers slid on the linoleum trying to turn a corner and catch up, finally snagging Danielle's arm out in the lobby area.
"C'mon! Wait!" Charlie stumbled when he got her attention, trying to talk past her angry glare, "Look, we were-"
"Getting all up close and personal, give me a break Charlie!"
"Seriously?" Charlie yanked his hand back, now glaring at Danielle right back, "She was showing me her guitar, that's it!"
"And why were you in the back room anyway?!"
"Volunteers got fed by one of the teachers-"
"You aren't one of the volunteers, you're basically on probation-"
"Well so are you!"
Danielle scoffed, "Yeah! So why are you bothering? Everyone knows you're just a screw up-"
"Hey-"
"-and besides, not like Anderson actually cared! Captains get points for recruiting new kids anyway-"
Jerking away a step, Charlie glared, "What is your problem-"
"My problem Charlie," She sneered, "Is to ever think you'd be more than the school rebel and not just a waste of my time-"
That was it, Charlie jerked back again, scowling at her with a vengeance. His eyes burned, but he refused to even blink and risk anything more than a red face. Turning away from Danielle, he shoved past Devon Lancaster and the dance mom he'd been working with all day, swerving around kids and parents crowding the lobby and entrance way.
"Charlie!"
"Charlie! Stop!"
Distantly, he could hear his mom and Lucy yelling, the sound so far away compared to the roaring in his ears.
It was downpouring by the time he made it through the throng of people waiting for a break in the weather, rushing out into the rain and darting between cars. The slick parking lot made it hard not to outright fall, but Charlie barely felt it as he stumbled into the side of his mom's minivan, scrambling at the door and more than anything glad she never locked it.
And that Neil had a horrible habit of keeping the spare key in the glove compartment.
The engine growled to life, dry tires squealing on wet pavement as he threw the van in drive. He made it six blocks away before he started actively paying attention to more than base instincts in the vehicle. Scowling as he came to a red light, Charlie dug in his hoodie at the hard corner stabbing into his stomach. The brochures Kate had handed him.
Top two were for the dance school classes, the middle was for the volunteer options, and the bottom…
Something took over, whether it be rage or grief or frustration or stress…something made Charlie slam his foot on the gas, jerking the van into the turn lane once the light changed. Throwing the vehicle forward, Charlie nearly raced across town, ignoring the honking horns at his reckless driving. Around the pounding rain, almost as loud as gunshots on the roof of the van, Charlie vaguely heard what sounded like sirens, but it didn't click until he almost spun out on the gravel road.
The cop car behind him wasn't faring much better in the rain, lagging behind long enough that Charlie was able to regain just enough common sense to ease the van to a more sane speed before coming to a stop in the dirt yard at the end of the road. Jerking out of the van, he was immediately soaked to the bone, mud pooling up his shoes and now the rain hid anything else on his face while the sirens screamed behind him.
A woman stepped out from the main house of the property, leaning on the column of the porch with a glass of something alcoholic, her blonde hair was still curled like a night out, but pulled back with a shiny scarf that probably cost more than the minivan behind Charlie.
"Usually the sheriff arrives without an escort, whatcha doin' kid?"
"I-"
"That's what I'd like to know!"
"Hi there, McCaffery!" The woman smirked, a bit too loose to be completely sober, she did focus a bit more as another car pulled up, this one a mud-streaked truck that Charlie knew instantly. Kate just about fell out of the lifted vehicle, at least she had the sense of a proper jacket and hat to protect her from the weather, scowling at Charlie who looked like a drowned rat.
Glaring at the woman on the porch, Kate shot Charlie a look of desperation that should have been reversed, especially as the sheriff approached the teen and spoke into his radio about notifying Mrs. Miller of her missing child.
"Mom, this is Charlie-"
"That's your mom?"
Kate elbowed him in the side, hard, "He's volunteering to be a new crew member. Can put in his community service hours for the school. I told him that he had to talk to you, and then you'd talk to Sheriff McCaffery and the school board, right?"
The teen's mom snorted softly, eyeing the sheriff with disdain and scowling when he went to grab Charlie, "Leonard, you and I both know you don't want to be out here staring at my pretty face, the Calvin kid is one of my guys. You just call back to the school and get it straightened out, okay? Leave me and my girl alone."
"Elle, you can't just-"
"Oh can't I?" Elle smirked, staring at the man with a look that made Charlie uneasy, to the point it took Kate elbowing him again to get his focus off the woman. The adult's voice dropped to a sultry tone, even having to nearly shout over the rain, "Sheriff, just make your calls and go, Calvin can work off his time in the barns and everyone will be happy. Go on now."
Sheriff McCaffery stumbled a little, easily blamed on the mud and rain, as he headed back to his cruiser and left them. Kate sighed softly, almost in relief, before her mother turned to Charlie.
"You gonna be a moron on my property?"
"No ma'am." Charlie wanted to flinch away from her, Kate's hand on his back grounded him when Elle stared for a moment.
Nodding mostly to herself, the woman turned to disappear back inside, "Katie, go show him around, might as well put him to work, Jack's not gonna make it in tonight with this storm."
Kate scowled at her mom's back, but complied anyway. She yanked on Charlie's arm, dragging him around the house and towards a huge green building in the back.
Once out of the downpour, Charlie's ears were almost ringing at the lack of noise, until Kate just about shoved him on his butt.
"You owe me big time Calvin!"
Dropping onto a bench right inside the door, Charlie scrubbed at his face, nodding in agreement and unable to reply further as Kate groaned in annoyance.
"…sorry…"
"For what?" She scoffed, pulling a towel out of a cabinet and throwing it at him a bit harder than truly necessary, "Racing across town, a stand off in the driveway, or you getting publicly humiliated by Danielle Eisen-the Princess Bitch herself?"
"You saw that?"
"Dude, we all saw that." Kate's tone got him to finally look around, the storage ish room they were in full of what looked like first aid equipment, blankets, towels, and a variety of heat lamps hanging on hooks from the rafters. The side door they'd entered through rattled with the wind, the chill in the air making him shudder a little. "Here-"
Kate handed him a different hoodie, motioning for him to just drop his soaked one to the floor and to follow. Shrugging into the slightly warmer hoodie with JFK stamped on the back, Charlie stepped out into the main alleyway of a stable, multiple long nosed heads peeking out at the new arrivals.
"Oh…the rescue ranch."
"Did you seriously not pay attention when you drove out here?" Kate asked over her shoulder, whistling softly and counting heads as they appeared over stall doors.
"Kinda just…ended up here, wasn't really thinking."
She snorted, "That's obvious."
"But hey…thanks…for the help, I…the hours-"
"You'll make them up here as payback for covering your ass with the sheriff…and my mom…your mom called the cops when you stole her van back at the Rec Center, she's super pissed by the way." Kate lead him into another storage room, this one for grains and feed. A dry erase board had a taped out diagram of the stalls in this wing of the barn, the entire building a "C" shape and this was just one part. Each stall had a name, color, and recipe for morning and night food. Kate kicked at a stack of buckets and colored scoops, silently directing Charlie to start.
"You should also know that my mom is going to call Principal Newman, and Reynolds, you'll probably legitimately get transferred out here for your community service hours. Which, has got to a better idea than the Rec Center considering Mama Bear Eisen is going to be pissed that her daughter not only threw a fit in public like that, but also went and wrecked an over three-thousand dollar piece of equipment while being so rude to you."
"What happened? You had to have been right behind me," Charlie stumbled a little in filling the different color buckets, having to glance at the board with every scoop to keep from messing up the food, he did avoid the last details, not entirely sure if the ingredients were medications or something else and not wanting to hurt the animals receiving anything.
"Not quite, plus I'm pretty sure you missed a couple turns, there's an almost direct route out here if you use Fortieth Street." Kate only really checked on what he was doing once, nodding in approval and taking over the last part, in reality she was dumping a spoonful or two of molasses into a couple buckets, or a couple extra powders labeled protein or minerals, abbreviations on the board Charlie wouldn't know. "I followed after you left the conference room, saw the whole blow up. You ran one way, Danielle another. She ended up colliding with one of Creekwood's tech guys and he dropped a soundboard. It was the lesser one, but the damn thing costs almost four grand if bought brand new. I kinda guessed you'd go and run, and since I know Newman is out of town again this weekend, you wouldn't go home. Bit of a long shot to find you here."
"Who knew…" Charlie took over mixing up the buckets for her, following her gentle prompting when some of them needed water to go in as well, "Why'd you help me though? I'm just the school fuck-up."
That got a sharper response, Kate spun on him, almost making Charlie drop the bucket he was holding under the faucet, "Don't say that."
"Kate-"
"Do you seriously think you're a screw up Charlie?"
"Have you heard literally anything about me? I've been arrested Kate! Tagged the school, breaking and entering, skipped classes, failed classes, been involved in-"
"Dude just stop!"
Her snap made his jaw click shut, a fire in her eyes that for once wasn't from someone mad at him, she honestly looked worried, "Charlie…okay, yeah…your record isn't exactly the cleanest in the school, you've made some pretty bad decisions…but c'mon…I can't ever see someone who sits in the library with the little kids on reading day, two or three in your lap, and repeating a story four or five times without ever sounding like it's the most amazing book ever…that's not a screw up."
"I-"
Kate ignored him, "A screw up doesn't go and miss his bus home from school because someone else's car broke and they needed help getting it jumped and didn't know how to do it, even if that meant getting yelled at by his mom when she had to come pick him up."
Charlie stared at her, not realizing until now how much she'd seen of that incident. Or the library days the English class did with the kindergarteners.
Grabbing the bucket from him, Kate pulled his focus on her entirely, "I can't see someone who got into a fist fight over little kids on the bus teasing another about believing in Santa Claus, and magic, and good things in the world…that's not a bad person, Charlie."
He ducked his head, not able to look her in the eye, "What do you call that person then…"
She grabbed his hand, finally getting him to look up when she squeezed, "I'd like to call you a friend."
Xxx
Xx
Xxx
11:38pm
Xxx
Charlie had spent the next several hours helping Kate, getting all the horses in that part of the barn fed, every stall mucked out, bedded down, and water troughs filled. While she took care of a couple more serious things, Charlie loaded the racks with fresh hay, following the notes on the feed board again. Once Kate was done with her tasks of passing out meds to a couple horses and checking leg wraps on another, she dragged him to the middle wing of the barn to repeat the entire process. That wing was a bit more fun, as there were a four babies and two miniature horses as well. Charlie was all smiles while getting to pet the soft noses of the youngest ranch residents.
He did sober a bit when on the last stall, the almost emaciated horse was a living skeleton practically and wouldn't even lift his head when Kate and Charlie brought the food bucket.
It took a bit of coaxing and an extra drizzle of molasses to get him to start eating, even if only light nibbling. Kate had sighed heavily, backing away once the horse started to eat a bit better without them too close. The reality of a rescue ranch, most of the residents were pretty healthy and happy, either waiting on adoptions or timing to go to their new homes. Others…had only just arrived.
Most of the time, there were actual crew members caring for the animals. Including Sarah's aunt who was the property director. This weekend, was an off-weekend, leaving Kate, and her mom, mostly in charge as the woman was a last minute addition for some financial stuff needing the actual owner. The Dance event couldn't have fallen on a better date, meaning Kate had little time around her mom by choice. Charlie suspected by Monday in school she'd be roaring pissed like she had been start of Freshman year before the rumor went out that Elle Anderson had gotten arrested.
Whoever Jack was, Kate was normally working him with alongside Sarah, but something came up.
They found Kate's mom in the last wing, obviously still not completely sober, but not as messed up as she had been when they arrived. She wasn't doing anything that required measurements, filling water troughs and hay racks for them without comment while Kate and Charlie went about filling feed buckets.
By the time every stall was clean, fed, watered, and each horse given the appropriate allotment of doting pets, Charlie had almost completely dried off, minus residue from the work. Then Kate dragged him back outside into the downpour to the next barn over, this one smaller and full of chickens and ducks.
She took care of the feed and eggs.
Charlie got stuck cleaning out the kiddie pools and "muddy" water containers. There was outdoor water options for the ducks, but with fewer people this weekend and the storm predicted, Kate hadn't opened the barn for outside that morning.
Meaning the pair of indoor pools were disgusting and Charlie silently noted to just throw out these shoes once home.
Which he did, almost immediately after pulling into the driveway. Kate had sent him on his way after feeding him this time. Her mom had whipped up burgers while the pair of teens had done a walk through of the horse barn one last time on their way towards the house.
The late night drizzle made it hard to see, but Charlie knew someone was waiting on the front porch when he trudged up the steps in his filthy clothes and wet socks.
Bernard was leaning on the front door, arms crossed and staring at the teen in silence.
Charlie didn't even bother to look anything but contrite, sighing softly and scrubbing at his face in exhaustion.
"How bad?"
The elf shrugged, "Your sister, mom, and Neil are asleep. Your dad is in the kitchen, figured he'd wait for you to actually show up. That and I got handed a print out from the Naughty and Nice center at about four o'clock that brought us down here. I just got back to get him. Your classmate called Carol to let your dad know you were on your way home, you forgot your hoodie. Figured I'd get to you first."
Wincing, Charlie let his head hang, rubbing at his eyes to avoid looking at Bernard directly, "My dad's mad…isn't he?"
"Besides the car stealing?"
"I…" Charlie growled, "That was dumb…but I couldn't…I had to-I can't do this anymore!"
Hissing a bit to get the teen to stop yelling, Bernard grabbed his arm to keep him still, "Hey whoa…what's going on Charlie?"
"I can't-" He broke, giving up on holding back the angry tears that had been just under the surface for hours now, "I can't take it anymore…half of my class thinks I'm a screw up and they're right! I can't even try to make things better without someone getting pissed off-I hang with the wrong people and get put on basically probation-I do the work and Danielle yells at me-I find something else-and I'm gonna walk through that door and my parents are going to yell-I just want it to be over! I can't do anything right!"
Sighing softly, Bernard caught the flailing arm, worn hands gripping Charlie's wrists to keep him still, "Easy kiddo…take a breath, and quit yelling would ya, gonna wake up half the neighborhood. What did you find other than the Rec Center? Thought the school board made it pretty clear."
Shrugging, Charlie choked a sigh out that wasn't a full sob, "Animal rescue place, outside of town…that classmate…her mom owns the place. She was supposed to call the school to get it figured out."
"Well she did, the sheriff called your mom when he found you there. Took Carol getting a phone call to stop your mom going on the war path," Bernard's voice lowered as he lead the teen inside, carefully shutting and locking the door behind them, "But why do you think your parents won't agree?"
"Do you have any idea how hard it was to get the Rec Center approved?" Charlie shuddered, trying to peel the wet hoodie off while talking, and not fall over in the process with his wet socks, "My mom was about ready to have me picking up trash along the highway."
"You're not a juvenile delinquent, an idiot, but not that bad."
"Thanks a lot."
The elf snorted, yanking on the hoodie abruptly and stopping Charlie from falling on his face, "Considering I'm pretty sure you're covered in enough literal crap as it is, I doubt she'll find a rescue center as easy as a trade off."
"I mean, I did get to pet a couple foals tonight."
"Probably shouldn't open with that," Bernard glanced down Charlie's legs, "What did you step in?"
"You saw me throw away my shoes, do you really want an answer?"
"I'm not waiting til Christmas to get you rubber boots." Charlie's dad looked casual with his hands jammed in his jeans pockets and leaning on the stair way, but his face as anything but happy as he watched Charlie struggle to peel off the wet socks without falling over, "You'll have to get yourself a pair before going back."
"With what, my nonexistent allowance?"
"Charlie."
Sighing softly, Charlie nodded, catching himself on the wall before falling, "Yeah…"
"Danielle's been ragging on you for awhile now, hasn't she?"
"Since I joined them all at the Rec Center."
"Why didn't you say anything Sport?" Scott rubbed at his face, "We would have asked for you guys to all get split up, or actually moved you. There were several ideas for community service, not just there. Your mom just took that one as there's a bus from the school over so less driving."
"Would she have believed me?" Charlie fired back, forcing his voice lower when Bernard hissed at him again, shooting a look up the stairs, "C'mon dad, I'm not exactly her favorite person right now. Besides, the hours were almost up anyway, I was just gonna stick it out."
"They were almost up," Scott managed a slight grin, more of parental justice than anything else, "You stole a car, Charlie. You're lucky it was your mom's van and not someone else. That and Sheriff McCaffery assured your mom that Elle Anderson would work you to death. You'll be lucky if you leave that place before sundown every day for the rest of the school year."
"Yeah…I deserve that." Charlie huffed softly, not looking up until his dad tapped his chin.
"The work for stealing a car, yes," His dad's eyes softened, "But not that BS Danielle pulled, nobody deserves that. Now, go get cleaned up-without waking up Lucy-judging by your clothes, you get to do laundry tomorrow before Neil will take you to get actual work gear for when you're out at the ranch. I suggest you get used to school-work-homework-and sleeping. That's all you'll be doing."
"Okay," Nodding in understanding, Charlie shuffled on his feet before heading up the stairs, turning at the middle landing as Scott double checked the front door before Bernard readied to get them back to the Pole. The elf met Charlie's gaze wit a slight look of disappointment, but he did tap his hip where the cell phone he rarely used was. Reminding the teen he was available in his own way. Charlie nodded, watching the pair vanish in a shower of gold sparks.
Once alone, Charlie eased upstairs the rest of the way, peeling off the rest of his filthy clothes once in the joint bathroom for him and Lucy. The hot shower was amazing on cold limbs that were beginning to ache with a different kind of overuse. His muscles had settled into a dull throb by the time he was done and Charlie was already regretting tomorrow when he'd be completely stiff.
At least the laundry was in the basement, easier to just throw his clothes in before anyone else was awake and could smell how bad they were, while waiting for the washer to finish, Charlie cleaned up the front door area from the puddles, and dug his old sneakers out from the hall closet to wear until he got another pair for school. After switching his clothes to the dryer, Charlie trudged up the stairs to his bed, collapsing just before his cellphone buzzed with a message in the silence.
Sent From: Bernard
:Get yourself some leather gloves, you'll tear your hands apart until you're used to that kind of work:
Reply:
:OK thnx, apprec8 it:
Sent From: Bernard
Go to sleep Charlie & you're not a screw up, kiddo
Reply:
:Quit calling me that!:
Sent From: Bernard
:Goodnight Sport:
Reply:
:Gnite old man:
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