100% my imagination, please leave a comment for me, I do love them so much.
It was a typical Tuesday evening, Mackenzie was curled up on the couch in the living room watching "Fresh Prince" and Josh was at the other end working on an English essay. Jensen sprawled out on the floor with his math book working away at his overdue homework. Mr. Harris had threatened to send a note home if it wasn't turned in by tomorrow, and he had at least three weeks of work to catch up on. And if there was one thing Jensen did not want, it was another note home. He shifted slightly as he turned the page of his textbook and felt the crinkle of one-note already in the front pocket of his jeans. He wasn't sure when he was going to ask his mom or dad to sign this one from his Spanish teacher.
Ms. Perez, was generally really laid back, not quite "cool" but she didn't yell much either, and that's why Jensen had thought she wouldn't really mind much if he learned, and proceeded to teach the rest of the class, as many bad words as he could. Enquiring minds want to know these things. But when the words ended up scrawled on the chalkboard this morning (Jensen had NO idea how it got there, really) while Ms. Perez had stepped out to make copies, she was… not pleased. Of course, the snitch, Caroline, had to rat him out about the chalkboard and the fact that he had taught the entire eighth-grade such colorful vocabulary. Ms. Perez erased the board and continued with the lesson and Jensen thought he'd almost gotten away with it except when the bell rang she called him back.
Jensen let out a little groan as he turned back to his teacher, his friends and fellow classmates giving him both props for the amusing lesson or murmured "good luck" as they walked past. He then was chewed out for several minutes about what sort of things were appropriate in school and which weren't and was then handed a note to be signed and returned by tomorrow if he didn't want to have a visit with Mr. Williams, the vice-principal.
Jensen chewed on the end of his pencil as he thought about the problem of the Spanish note, mom tended to go easier on him than dad did, but she had zero tolerance for foul language, somehow he didn't think that saying it in Spanish would keep her from washing out his mouth with soap. Dad would probably just swat him at worst or lecture, dad LOVED to lecture. He sighed as he looked down at the seemingly endless list of math problems he still had to complete, it was taking forever. All the adults around him kept telling him to just do the work when it was assigned, but it never really seemed urgent enough until it was overdue and threats were issued.
The phone rang, Jensen ignored it as Josh got up to answer it.
"Oh hello, Mr. Williams," Josh said with a smirk as he looked down at his little brother. Jensen's head snapped up and he glared at Josh, "Of course, I'll go get him,... Dad!" Josh left the room to find his dad and hand over the phone. A minute later Josh returned and sat back down on the couch, "What'd you do this time, Dipshit? Cause we know Mr. Williams didn't call to set up a golf date with Dad," Josh asked.
"I don't know," Jensen answered with a bit of a petulant whine.
"Don't know? Or there's more than one thing it could be?"
Jensen scowled at his brother and went back to his homework, annoyed that his brother assessed the situation a little too accurately. As he pretended to work on his homework Jensen tried to figure out why Mr. Williams would be calling. It wasn't as if he was a bad kid, he didn't really mean any harm he just tended to take things a little too far. Being naturally quick-witted, good looking, and popular, Jensen often ended up in the role of class clown. When the cute girls in his grade were giggling and smiling at him he just kept going, eating up the attention, the attention of the belt later or Mr. William's paddle, on one unfortunate occasion, usually was the furthest thing from his mind. When Josh was in middle school Mr. Williams had only called home once, and that was because Josh had done exceptionally well in his math class and the teachers wanted to move him to the advanced class, mid-year. By the time Jensen was midway through sixth grade, Dad joked that Mr. Williams had their number on speed dial.
"Jensen Ross!" a deep voice called out.
"Yeah?" Jensen tried to sound nonchalant.
"We're going to have a talk after dinner. Got it?"
Jensen closed his eyes and hung his head in a feeling of defeat before answering, "Yes, sir," with a groan.
"You gonna get spanked again, Jensen?" Mackenzie asked innocently from her spot on the couch, she looked worried and sad.
Josh laughed and answered, "oh, I'd bet on it."
Mackenzie scowled at him it upset her to see her big brother get in trouble and she didn't like Josh taunting him further.
"Shut up, Josh," Jensen muttered trying to ignore his brother's laughs, concentrate on his homework, and wrack his brain about what he could be in trouble for this time. The note from Spanish class didn't seem like it was call-home worthy, so Jensen crossed that off of his mental list of transgressions. The only other thing he could think of was the disaster that was his science project. He had certainly not meant to set the desk on fire… it just sort of happened. And he had gotten the fire extinguisher and put it out right away. His teacher looked like he had been ready to march him down to the VP's office but the bell rang and Jensen grabbed his bag and ran out the door to his bus.
Dinner was always a lively affair. Dad was a funny guy, he was always cracking jokes or telling stories, he didn't seem to have any trouble setting aside the impending conversation with his youngest son in order to make the meal enjoyable. Jensen on the other hand, idly stirred his mashed potatoes and gravy into a grey-brown pile of sludge, barely eating anything. His stomach tightened into a large knot whenever he tried to take a bite to eat. The rule had always been that you had to finish your plate of food before you were allowed to leave the table. It was almost always a race between Josh and Jensen who could finish off their plate, and then some, first. Tonight was a different story though Josh and even Mackenzie had long since been cleared to leave the table and even Mom and Dad had gone off to find other things to do while Jensen contemplated if he could launch his broccoli into the vase on the buffet across the room. "Jensen, aren't you done yet? Are you feeling alright?" Mom put a worried hand up to the boy's forehead to check for temperature, he just looked up at his mom with the most sorrowful expression he could muster.
"Please don't make me finish, I'm not hungry."
"Alright, go on then, just this once," mom added, worried, she knew something was up but Alan hadn't confided in her yet just what exactly that was.
Putting his fist up to the door to the den, Jensen knocked softly before entering. Dad looked up from the script he was reviewing and looked at his son over his glasses, "go get changed for bed, I'll be up shortly."
Jensen glanced at the clock on the wall before answering, "yes, Dad," and saw himself out, it was still a couple of hours before his bedtime but Jensen had the feeling that arguing that point wouldn't be wise, especially since he knew he was in trouble but wasn't sure why or how much. The uncertainty was the worst of it though, usually, when he was in trouble he knew exactly why and usually had a fairly good idea what to expect, but Dad hadn't said anything yet and that made Jensen even more nervous.
Josh was already in the room finishing up some homework when Jensen stumbled in to change, "oh, PJs already, I'm dying here. You gotta tell me what did you did."
If looks could kill, Josh would be dead.
Jensen had just finished changing when Dad arrived.
"Josh, go take care of the dishes," dad ordered stepping aside in the door way to make room.
"But it's not my day."
"Joshua…" the tone was almost a growl and Josh wisely obeyed the warning.
Once his oldest son had left the room Alan sat on the bed across from Jensen, "Jensen," Alan said gently, there was no hint of anger just a tinge of disappointment which was worse, "what's going on?"
Jensen kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor and gave a shrug.
"It's not like you to be so disrespectful," Alan continued. Jensen furrowed his brow in confusion but didn't respond. Disrespect? Sure the incident in science had been bad, but he wasn't disrespectful, "Jensen?"
"I… I didn't mean to. I didn't know it was going to catch fire, and I put it out really fast, nothing even looked burnt," Jensen quickly spit out before looking up at his dad.
Alan was the one who now looked confused, "Fire? Start from the beginning, what happened?"
Taking a breath, Jensen again trained his eyes on the carpet where he dug his toes into it. "Remember the volcano I made for science?" Alan nodded, "Well it was supposed to erupt when I lit the stuff inside it, but,"
"Lit? Like with a match?" Dad interrupted.
"Yes, anyway it didn't go right and the paper mache caught on fire, and then the volcano finally started erupting and the desk caught on fire."
Alan looked shocked and a little angry, Jensen responded by talking faster and the whole story came spilling out, "so everyone in class started freaking out, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the hall and put out the fire. Nothing was damaged, not really, I mean that white foam stuff got everywhere, and that's smelled bad, but everything was ok and no one was hurt, but I really really didn't mean for all that to happen, Dad! It was an accident, well I suppose lighting it wasn't but it wasn't supposed to do that!"
Jensen had worked himself up into a slight panic at this point and his brimming eyes started to spill over with tears, "I'm sorry."
Alan sat dumbfounded for a moment before moving over to sit next to his son and pulled his distraught son into his arms. He wasn't sure what to do about this news, it wasn't what Mr. Williams had called about at all, he wasn't happy with this new information but it sounded like the whole situation had at least scared his son enough to not try it again, he hoped anyway.
"So let me see if I understand, you tried to make the volcano that's made out of paper, erupt, by trying to light something inside it on fire, the whole thing caught fire, which you then put out, and when did this happen?"
"Today, didn't Mr. Williams tell you that?" Jensen asked looking as miserable as a wet cat.
Alan sighed and squeezed his son a little tighter. "No, he actually didn't call about that at all." Alan felt his son tense slightly at the news and he correctly guessed that he was kicking himself for confessing to something he may have gotten away with, "But I'm glad you told me, I didn't think I needed to have a conversation with my 14-year-old about playing with fire but it seems I was mistaken."
"No, Dad, I got it, don't worry," Jensen quickly responded. Alan made a non-committed hum as he looked down at his son. "Dad? What did Mr. Williams call about then?" Curiosity finally won out, and Jensen didn't want to volunteer any more things to be in trouble for.
"Ah, well apparently there was a small riot last week in Mrs. Russo's social studies class. Something about her favoring the girls."
Jensen grimaced, "Oh.. that," he said sheepishly, he had honestly forgotten about that entire situation, after all, it had happened last week! He looked up at his dad who waited patiently for him to explain.
"Mrs. Russo is always letting the girls get away with stuff that the boys can't, so last week Jessi, who's really annoying by the way, kept standing up and walking around the room for this or that, but when I stood up to get a tissue she assigned me extra work. It's not fair! So I told her that, so she tried assigning me even more, and I said no and said that she wasn't treating the boys fairly, and I'm not really sure what happened next, everyone was shouting and things kind of got out of hand," Jensen said in one breath. He hadn't realized the last week's incident had caused such an issue. The class had gotten so wound up that despite her best efforts Mrs. Russo struggled to regain control that day and was unable to finish her planned lesson. She had been out sick for the rest of the week.
Alan sighed as he looked back at his son whose wide green eyes were staring back at him, "Mrs. Russo ended up having a panic attack after that, uh… lesson. She said you were the one to rile everyone up."
"But she was the one being unfair!" Jensen couldn't help but try and defend himself.
Alan pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to explain to a middle schooler why inciting a riot in history class wasn't allowed, "Is there anything else I should know about before I decide how to deal with the fire and your behavior in social studies?"
The boy looked up at his dad with a guilty expression before crossing the room to his discarded jeans and fishing out the note from Spanish class, "just this, and I'll probably have a math note tomorrow for not turning in my homework," he said as he handed over the small slip of paper.
"How far behind are you?"
"Three weeks," Jensen winced as he answered.
"Jensen," Alan all but growled out.
Alan regretted asking. He took the note and read through it. Closing his eyes, Alan steadied himself not to laugh, in all honesty, it was just like Jensen to find so much trouble and none of it was malicious or intentional, he just saw opportunities and was unable to resist, and the fact of the matter was that the stunts he pulled were funny. Really funny. Still, it annoyed the teachers and kept them from being able to teach, and that meant notes home, and phone calls, and conferences. And for Alan that meant that he had to discipline his son even though he wished he didn't have to.
"Alright, go pick one out," sighed Alan.
Jensen looked sadly at his father before sighing and leaving the room. A moment later Jensen returned with a comically large belt that belonged to Donna. Alan chucked to himself, this spanking would be more of a formality rather than really hurt, and they both knew it.
"So we have the little mutiny in history class, a fire in science, not turning in homework for 3 weeks in math, and using cuss words in Spanish? Anything else I'm missing? Might as well get this all over with at once."
Jensen thought for a moment, there was a cow on the roof prank that Mr. Williams said he'd expel anyone involved over, but he wasn't about to admit he knew anything about that. "No, sir, that's everything."
Alan studied his troublesome son for a moment, not really believing him before pulling him over his lap and applying the belt to the small pajama covered butt in front of him. The boy squirmed and his face turned red, more from embarrassment than from being in pain, the smacks were like getting whacked with a newspaper or magazine and only just slightly began to hurt towards the end. He did manage to squeeze out a tear or two, just so his dad didn't think he didn't do a good enough job, of course.
"Alright, go to bed, no TV till that math homework is all caught up," Alan said sternly.
With a pout, Jensen climbed into bed after giving his dad a hug, "goodnight, Dad."
"Love you, kid, try and stay out of trouble, ok?" Alan said brushing blond hair out of the green eyes looking up at him. Jensen nodded solemnly before rolling over. Alan pulled up the blankets and took a moment to enjoy tucking in his almost grown wayward boy.