Induction

"Hey, baby?" Sam said, scanning a piece of paper as she walked down to the basement, where her husband was sitting at his desk, typing away furiously at his laptop. "We just got the official invitation for Spencer's big thing next Saturday."

"Thing?" Freddie grunted, not even looking up from his screen.

"Yeah, you know, one of his sculptures is getting inducted into the Pop Art Hall of Fame?" Sam said. "The thing he's been talking about nonstop for the past month. Carly asked if we'd be okay bringing Clarissa with us since her and Andy are going to be down at the museum with him all day helping him set up."

"Oh…yeah, sure," Freddie nodded, still not looking away from his work.

"Dude, are you even listening to me?" Sam frowned.

"Huh? Yeah, sorry," Freddie said quickly. "It's just I have a ton of work to get done this weekend. All the computers got backed up in the office so we're behind on everything."

"Aw," Sam said, putting her arm around him and leaning down to give him a short kiss. "Well are you still fine watching the kids then while I run to my office? Carls and I were supposed to finish all these script edits yesterday, but then she left to go pick Clarissa up from school early because she wasn't feeling well and, well, I'm just not that motivated when she's not there so basically now we've got to get them all done by Monday or our boss will kills us. But we can always try and work on them here-"

"No, go ahead," Freddie said. "I'll watch them. They're all camped out in front of the T.V. anyway; not exactly much to handle."

"There's stuff to make sandwiches for lunch in the fridge," Sam said, giving him another quick kiss. "I'll be back around five. Don't let them drive you too crazy."

"I'll try," Freddie chuckled.

….

"Man, I'm so bored," fourteen-year old Jason moaned as him and his siblings sat on the couch, watching a random show they had found on television. "Why isn't there anything to do?"

"I know!" ten-year old Emma nodded. "Clarissa is sick, Quincy's visiting his Uncle in Peru…there's nobody to hang out with!"

"Even mom and dad can't entertain us," Ashton mumbled. "Mom's at work and dad's upstairs glued to his computer."

"At least this show seems kind of decent," Jason shrugged.

"I don't like this show," six-year old Tyler suddenly announced, picking up the remote from the coffee table and changing the channel.

"Hey!" Ashton exclaimed.

"We were watching that, Tyler!" Emma yelled.

"It was stupid," Tyler said simply.

"So, it's three against one!" Jason said. "Now give me the remote."

"No!" Tyler said firmly.

"You want me to give you a wedgie so painful you'll have flashbacks to preschool?" Emma snapped. "Give us the remote!"

"No way!" Tyler said. "I want to watch what I like for once. You guys always hog the T.V. because you're bigger!"

"No we don't!" Ashton said. "It's always you who gets to watch what you want!"

"Yeah," Jason nodded. "All you have to do is start crying and mom and dad give you whatever you-"

"Alright, what's going on down here?" Freddie demanded, coming downstairs. "I'm trying to work up here! I thought you were just watching T.V."

"We were!" Ashton started. "But then Tyler-"

"Daddy, they won't let me watch my cartoons," Tyler pouted, putting on a face with the perfect combination of sadness and cuteness. "They want to watch something really, really scary that will give me nightmares."
"What?" Emma cried. "Dad, he's lying! We were just watching the movie about the guy who adopts a monkey instead of a baby! That's not-"

"Guys, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't watch those types of shows around your little brother!" Freddie said firmly. "He's six! You guys should be responsible older siblings and make sure that-"

"But dad, he-" Jason started.

"I don't want to hear it!" Freddie said. "Now let Tyler watch his show. If you three don't like it then find something else to do."

"Emma also took my soda," Tyler added, pointing to the half-finished can of Mountain Fizz in his older sister's hand.

"I did not!" Emma exclaimed. "This is my-"

"Emma! Give your bother back his soda!" Freddie said sternly.

"But-"

"Now!"

Emma narrowed her eyes as she thrust her drink into Tyler's hands.

"Now just keep it down," Freddie said. "And be nice to Tyler."

As Freddie turned to go back upstairs, Tyler returned happily to the couch with the remote and Emma's soda in hand.

"Way to go, Ty!" Jason snapped. "Now you got us in trouble!"

"I know," Tyler said proudly, sipping the soda. "Cool, right?"

"You're so dead!" Ashton frowned. "That was-"

"Oh dad…" Tyler began, grinning from ear to ear.

"Come on," Emma said, rolling her eyes. "Let's just get out of here. If we stick around he'll just make some new thing to tattle on us for and we'll get in even more trouble with dad."

So the three older Benson children retreated into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

"He's the worst!" Ashton fumed.

"I know!" Emma agreed. "He gets away with everything around here because he's got mom and dad wrapped around his finger! All because he's the youngest."

"He knows he'll never get punished for anything too," Jason said. "So he's just going to keep coming up with these schemes forever!"

"He needs to learn a lesson," Emma said. "So he knows that he can't get away with getting people into trouble like this! I can get into enough trouble on my own; I don't need his help."
"Yeah, he really needs to stop this," Ashton nodded.

"Hey…maybe we can teach him that it's not cool to keep getting us into trouble!" Emma said excitedly.

"How?" Jason frowned.

"We can pull a prank on him!" Emma said.

"A prank?" Ashton repeated.

"Yeah," Emma nodded. "We-We'll pretend that we're doing something fun in here, and he'll of course run in here to ruin everything and then try to blame on us. Only we'll be one step ahead of him this time…"
"I dunno," Jason said slowly. "Dad might get kind of mad at us."

"Could you try to be cool for like, two seconds?" Emma frowned. "Besides, dad's already wazzed off at us for the whole T.V. thing. What do we have to lose?"

"I guess it would do him some good to learn he can't get away with this stuff forever," Ashton said.

"Well…fine," Jason finally conceded. "We can prank him. You got any ideas?"

"You're talking to an expert," Emma grinned. "Alright, here's what we're going to do…"

…..

About an hour later, Jason, Emma and Ashton were putting the finishing touches on their plan to get back at their younger brother.

"Alright, so let me see if I got this," Ashton said. "We're going to make Tyler think that Jason's keeping a giant slice of chocolate pie in the fridge. Then when Tyler comes in to steal it like he always does-"

"He's going to have a vat of mom's special Stink Sap spilled all over him," Emma beamed, staring up at the large, metal bucket perfectly positioned so that it would dump over the second the fridge was opened. "If that doesn't teach him a lesson, I don't know what will."
"We'll just have to make sure we get it all cleaned up before dad comes back down," Jason said.

"Relax, will you?" Emma said, rolling her eyes. "It will be fine. Now go! You know what to do!"

"Alright, alright," Jason nodded. He stepped over to the entrance of the kitchen that led out to the living room. He cleared his throat. "Okay, everybody!" he said loudly. "Don't touch that pie in the fridge; it's mine. I'm saving it for after dinner! Yup…so nobody better get any ideas about eating that delicious pie smothered in whipped cream! It's just mine!"

"Is he coming?" Ashton whispered.

Jason craned his neck to get a better look into the living room. "Yes! He's getting up from the couch now! Run!"

The three hurried out the back door to the patio, leaving the door cracked open just enough so that they could see the fridge without Tyler catching sight of them.

Sure enough, a moment later Tyler stepped into the kitchen. After looking around and making sure nobody was around he reached for the handle of the fridge.

"Here it comes!" Emma whispered anxiously. "He's about to have Stink Sap everywhere; even in his underwear!"
"He'll definitely think twice about getting us all in trouble now!" Ashton beamed.

"Hopefully," Jason nodded.

Back in the kitchen, Tyler opened the refrigerator fully, and before he could even realize that there was no pie waiting for him, the metal bucket toppled from its place on top of the fridge. But instead of simply dumping the Stink Sap onto his head, the bucket fell and hit Tyler square in the face.

"Oh!" Emma gasped. "Oh…that-that wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Is he okay?" Ashton cried.

The six-year old, slouched down against the still-open fridge, let out a loud howl of pain that seemed to answer her question clearly.

"Aw jeez!" Jason moaned as him and twins raced into the kitchen. "Tyler! Tyler, you okay?"

They all hurried over to their brother, who was sobbing hysterically, clutching his nose.

"Tyler, what-what hurts?" Ashton asked.

"Ow!" Tyler wailed. "Ow, ow, ow!"

"Here, move your hands so we can see what's wrong," Jason said, kneeling down and gently prying his brother's hands away from his face. The second he did, though, he wished he hadn't. A heavy stream of blood was pouring out of his nose which seemed slightly askew.

"Gross!" Ashton gagged, quickly turning away as Emma grabbed the roll of paper towels from the counter.

"Here," she said anxiously, reaching down to attempt to clean some of the blood off of his face. Right when she touched his nose, though, Tyler screamed even louder.

"This is not good!" Ashton moaned. "Do you think we broke his nose?"

"I-I think we might have," Jason said slowly. "Which means…oh…we-we are going to be in so much-"

"Guys! What is going on down here?" Freddie asked, coming into the kitchen. "How many times do I have to tell you to keep it down while I-Oh my God! What happened?"

He rushed over to Tyler and scooped him up in his arms.

"Ow!" Tyler continued to cry. "My nose! Daddy, my nose!"

"Okay, okay, just-just try to calm down," Freddie said desperately, tilting Tyler's head back slightly to try and stop the blood from dripping down him even more. He turned back to his other three children. "I'll ask one more time," he said, his voice so scarily soft that it rivaled that of Sam's. "What. Happened?"

"It-It was an accident," Ashton said slowly.

"Yeah," Emma nodded. "We-We didn't mean to hit him in the face with the bucket."
"Bucket?" Freddie yelled, his voice so different than his usual calm tone that the older children stepped back, alarmed. "Why-What-Did you hit him in the face with a bucket? And what's this all over him? Wait…is this Stink Sap?"

"We-We were just trying to pull a prank on him!" Jason said. "It wasn't supposed to hurt him-"

"Well it did!" Freddie yelled. "I can't believe you three! How could you all be so stupid? Look at your brother! I have never been so angry at you guys! You were really that mad that he wanted to watch his T.V. show that you had to disfigure him?"

"Disfigure?" Ashton squeaked.

"Dad, we're really sorry!" Emma said.

"Yeah, we-" Jason started.

"I don't want to hear it!" Freddie exclaimed. "Now because of your little stunt I have to rush your brother to the emergency room so they can sew his nose back on!"

"What?" Tyler sniffed, his eyes widening in fear.

"Oh, oh no, Ty, I-I'm just-they won't-you'll be fine," Freddie said quickly. He grabbed the rest of the paper towels and tucked them under his arm. "Now you three stay here and get all of this cleaned up! It better be spotless when we get back! And you can use the time to think about this! I am just so…so disgusted with you all right now!"

And with that he spun around and hurried out of the house with Tyler, leaving the older kids flabbergasted.

"Whoa…" Emma said softly once the front door slammed close. "That was the scariest I have ever seen dad."
"He was just as bad as mom back there," Ashton nodded. She looked up at Jason. "Jason…Tyler's going to be okay, right?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine…" Jason replied heavily.

"Think he'll hate us for breaking his nose?" Emma asked.

"I'd be pretty wazzed off," Ashton mumbled. "Dad probably hates us now too…And wait until mom finds out."

"We're so dead," Jason sighed. "And poor Tyler…he was really crying. Poor kid."

"I know," Emma said. "I-I know he had been annoying us all day, but I didn't want him to get hurt or anything."

"Me neither," Ashton said shakily.

"None of us did," Jason said. "But…okay, look. Let's-Let's try to make this right. Let's get all this cleaned up and then-and then we'll bake Tyler a cake! And-And those cookies he likes! And we'll make him a banner! Maybe with all that he'll forgive us for breaking his face."

"Well what about dad?" Emma asked.

"That…that I don't know about," Jason answered honestly.

…..

"You're so brave, sweetie," Sam said several hours later as her, Freddie and Tyler entered the house again. She shifted the six-year old in her arms as she hung up her jacket.

"My nose still hurts a lot," Tyler mumbled. "And my cast looks funny!"

Just as it was thought, Tyler's nose had indeed been broken, and for the next week, he would have to deal with the large, plate-like cast that covered half his face.
"No it doesn't," Freddie said, gently rustling his hair. "It makes you look like a cool robot!"

"And once you take your pain medicine, you'll start to feel better," Sam promised him, kissing the top of his head. "Come on, let's get you up to bed and-"

"Tyler!" Ashton said as her, Emma and Jason ran out of the kitchen. "Are you okay?"

"You broke my nose!" Tyler said indignantly.

"Cool cast," Emma offered weakly.

"We made you cake and cookies," Jason told him. "They're in the kitchen."
"Cake?" Tyler said, perking up. "Cookies?"

"You can have those later," Sam told him. "Right now you need to rest."
"We can bring him some up to your room later," Ashton said.

"That will work," Sam smiled. "You'll have the time, after all, seeing as you three are grounded."
As she headed up the stairs with Tyler, Jason, Emma and Ashton all turned back to Freddie, who was standing in the middle of the room, his arms crossed.

"We're sorry, daddy," Emma said softly, looking down at her feet.

"Yeah, dad, we-we shouldn't have tried to prank him," Jason nodded.

"I just don't understand," Freddie frowned. "What would entice three normally well-behaved kids to do something so stupid to a six-year old."

"We-We were just mad at him," Emma replied.

"Yeah," Ashton said. "He's not as innocent as you and mom think, you know."
"Really?" Freddie said, rolling his eyes.

"It's true!" Jason nodded. "He takes his role as the annoying little brother way too seriously!"

"And he never gets in trouble for it!" Emma added. "You and mom never punish him!"
"Your mom and I punish Tyler when he deserves it," Freddie said.

"No!" Ashton said. "Last week when he spilled my nail polish all over mom's MMA magazine, I was the one who got in trouble because he told you I was chasing him with it when I wasn't!"

"And the other day when you and mom yelled at me tracking dirt all over the rug, it was really Tyler!" Emma nodded. "He just told you it was me. I was up in my room the whole time!"

"And when I got in trouble for spilling root beer all over the tablecloth, that was all Tyler, not me!" Jason said. "But you guys always believe him because he's 'the baby'!"

"That-That is not true," Freddie said.

"Yes it is!" Ashton said. "It's like you guys love him more than us!"

"Alright, now that's just ridiculous," Freddie said. "You guys know your mom and I love all four of you equally. Now-Now I'm going to go upstairs and help your mom with Tyler, but we'll discuss this later."

"I don't know what we're even bothering to discuss this for," Emma mumbled later that evening as her, Ashton and Jason sat in the living room. "They're just going to say that Tyler's completely innocent and we're some monsters."

"Yeah," Ashton agreed. "I miss being the youngest…we were never this bad, were we, Jason?"

"You had your moments," Jason said, rolling his eyes. "Hey…you know what's not fair? I never got a chance to be the annoying little sibling!"

"Oh cry a river!" Emma snapped.

Before Jason could reply, though, Sam and Freddie came into the room along with Tyler.

"Alright," Sam said, sitting down in her armchair and pulling Tyler onto her lap. "So…obviously today was…eventful. So right now your dad and I just want to get to the bottom of what happened."
"I told you," Tyler said. "They made a bucket fall on my face!"
"By accident!" Ashton interjected.

"Alright, alright," Sam said quickly. She looked down at Tyler. "Ty…so let me get this straight. You were being a perfect angel when all of the sudden, for no good reason, your siblings decided to throw a bucket right at your nose?"

"Um…maybe," Tyler said.

"You know…" Freddie said, glancing over at the older children. "I never did get a chance to hear your side of this story…so Jason, Emma, Ashton…what happened."

The three exchanged confused glances. Normally in these situations they never got to give their take on what happened.

"Well," Ashton started. "We-We were mad at Tyler because he had gotten us in trouble with daddy about the T.V. and we were talking about how he always gets away with stuff like that. So-So we decided to teach him a lesson. We got a bucket of mom's Stink Sap and put it on top of the fridge, and it was supposed to pour on him when he opened the door. But-But the bucket wound up falling on him instead. It wasn't supposed to though!"

"So it was an accident then," Sam said.

"Yes!" Jason nodded. "And we feel really bad for hurting you, Tyler. Even if we were mad at you."

"Alright," Sam said. "Well…Jason, Emma, Ashton…I know you didn't mean to hurt your brother, but you still shouldn't have been pulling this little stunt. It was irresponsible. So all three of you are grounded for two weeks. Now apologize to your brother."
"Sorry, Tyler," Emma said.

"Yeah, sorry," Ashton echoed.

"Sorry," Jason said.

"Good," Sam smiled. She looked back down at Tyler. "Now as for you…"

"Me?" Tyler repeated, confused.
"Him?" the other three children exclaimed at once, shocked.

"Tyler," Freddie said sternly. "Is it true that you lied about the T.V. earlier just so you could watch what you wanted?"

"Yes," Tyler mumbled. "But their show was boring!"

"I don't care if it was boring," Sam said. "You know the rules. Whoever was at the T.V. first decides what to have on. Well, unless it's your dad or me. We get to watch whatever we want when we want…but you know you don't lie about things like that. Especially when it gets your brother and sisters in trouble. You wouldn't like it if they did that to you, would you?"

Tyler looked down at his lap and shook his head. "No."

"That's right," Freddie said. "So you're going to be grounded too. We'll shave a week off of your punishment since you have to stay in bed and rest for the next few days anyway, but you're grounded for a week, okay?"
"Whoa!" Ashton whispered. "Did-Did he just get in trouble?"

"I never thought I'd see this happen," Emma whispered back.

"I should've got this on video," Jason said.

"Alright," Tyler sighed.

"Can you say sorry to Jason and the twins?" Sam said, sliding him off her lap.

Tyler stepped over to his siblings.

"Sorry I lied to get you guys in trouble," Tyler told them.

"Wow…" Emma blinked.

"It-It's okay," Ashton said slowly.

"We forgive you," Jason said, shocked.

"Good, now everybody's happy," Sam said, getting to her feet. "Now come on, Tyler. I have to change the bandage underneath your cast."

She led him back upstairs, leaving Freddie alone with the other three children.

"Okay," Freddie said heavily. "I think we all still need to talk…"
"What about?" Jason asked.

"Well," Freddie said. "Your mom and I had a little conversation about-about some of the points your raised earlier. About-About how we may be a little easier on Tyler in the whole discipline department than we are on your three. And-And we realized that maybe…maybe you guys are right. Maybe we do baby Tyler a little bit. And that isn't fair to you guys. We know he can probably be a little much sometimes. So-So we're sorry if you feel we've ever treated you guys differently and now that we're aware of this, we-we're going to work on it. But just know that-that we haven't been doing this on purpose. We really do love all four of you equally. And…And I'm also sorry about earlier when-when I said some things that-that I really didn't mean. You walk into a room and one of your kids' noses is broken you just panic…"

"It's okay, daddy," Ashton smiled.

"Yeah," Emma nodded. "We know you love us."

"Right," Jason agreed.

"Good," Freddie said, breathing a sigh of relief. He held out his arms and embraced the three of them. "You guys are the best kids your mom and I could've ever hoped for. All of you."