[A/N: this is just a little drabble that goes somewhere in the middle, what happened was I re watched an episode and Carolyn says to Mark "You look just as guilty as you did when you were 10 years old and you put Derek's favorite frog in the microwave," and thus this story was born]
Ten year old Mark got into my car after school. It was friday and this had been their agreement, every friday Mark goes home with us and he sleeps over every weekend, but they both had to have good weeks at school and not get into any trouble with the teacher. Derek followed moments later, he had come from another part of the school because this year he was doing so well he was put in a combo class where he was with kids from one grade above. Mark had decided just to stay in a regular grade. I took them home and made them some sliced apples with peanut butter for dipping. I was outside in the backyard watching Amelia play in her sandbox and talk about her day in kindergarten and I heard yelling from inside and walked in to a sort of warm, wet, seafood smell. "Its not what I meant" Mark yelled.
"You're stupid,"Derek yelled back throwing a punch at Mark. Sadly, the boys still hit each other, even in their late fourties, boys will be boys I guess.
"What is going in in here?" I asked calmly, putting an icepack on Mark's eye, sitting next to him so Derek can't get him.
"He microwaved Froggicus,"That was the name of the frog Derek liked the best. Our family had four frogs we kept in the living room next to our aquarium. We caught the frogs at the lake last summer.
"Mark! why on earth would you put a frog in the microwave?" It almost made me sick to open the microwave door, the frog had blown up like a marshmellow and all of the organs were everywhere.
"I didn't, I just wanted him to be able to spin around, we read a story in class about this frog that was able to morph because of a certain type of rays and I'm really sorry, I wanted Derek to be surprised because I could figure out something that he missed out on because we don't have the same class." The boy was doing science! i felt practically guilty.
"We are NOT a science lab in this house," I said firmly. "You touched my family's things without any permission." Shouldn't have said that one. Mark had tears dripping down his face and he walked out. We had known Mark for six years now and he had practically integrated into a Shepherd, he'd been places with us, his parents had given us money, he bonded with my husband, myself, and Amelia and some of the other siblings, and I've just told him he isn't in our family. Derek cried over the death of his frog. I helped him bury what was left of Froggicus in a shoebox in a yard. Amelia was also sad, Nancy and Kathleen thought it was funny. I told Derek I need to go talk to Mark. He didn't object. I went to his house and knocked on the door. Surprisingly enough, Mark's mom was home.
"Carolyn, what a surprise," She said with a smile. "Come on in, what are you doing here, I knew Mark was home early, I thought maybe you guys had family plans or something." Mark hadn't told her. I decided to explain to her. "I'll ground him!" She said.
"No. I wasn't here to tell on him, I'm telling on myself, for what I said to him," Chills ran down me as I repeated 'touch any of my family's things.' I felt horrible. She went and got him and brought him down to the kitchen table. He wouldn't even look at me, I really messed up. Eventually after apologizing I got him to give me a hug and I told him We would always be his family and we loved him no matter what and I was disappointed in him, like I would be if Derek had done that himself. I brought him back to our house and cooked his favorite dinner, pasta with red sauce, I made him chocolate chip cookies and I let the boys watch two movies instead of one. I really just wanted him to feel welcome again. He always did come back though, I was just very careful not to always go into family defense mode when something happened, because they were all the same family. My boys and my girls.