They came for him this morning.
Now I know that a lot of people on this forum are going to disagree strongly with our decision, and say that we should be parents and suck it up and do everything ourselves, but I want you to know that my wife and I did a lot of hard thinking about this first. Our son, Tommy, was falling behind in his studies when he went out at night. My wife caught him stealing and lying numerous times. He was making poor choices, and setting a bad example to his little sister, which we could not tolerate any longer.
We had to do something so he wouldn't end up dead or imprisoned. We really had no choice. He was simply slipping too fast and he wasn't going to realize that he had a problem on his own. My wife didn't want to do it any more than I did, but we knew that we absolutely had to call someone that could help. I think we made the right decision.
There were two men and one woman, and they came right on time at 3:15 AM. They were very professional, very polite, and very discreet. The woman stayed in the car when the men went upstairs to take care of my son. My wife and I stood outside, waiting for him to come out. We knew what was supposed to happen.
A few minutes later, we heard him yelling. "Mommm! Daad, where are you?!" It tore us apart inside to hear that. God did that ever hurt. My wife had to stop herself from crying. I know that many of you are going to pooh-pooh us and say that we're bad parents and have no idea about anything, but we really felt sad when we heard him yelling for us like that.
And we were shocked- utterly shocked- when he came bursting out of the door in his boxer shorts, carrying two bloody knives.
The woman in the car was horrified and immediately gunned the engine when a silvery disk crashed through her windshield, shattering the safety glass and ripping open her throat, nearly cutting off her head. She clutched at her neck for a couple of seconds before she slumped down, hitting the horn once, before falling over onto the parking brake.
Well, at least someone in this family knows how to do things right.
"Do you know what you did wrong?", I asked Tommy.
"That was a test?", he asked blankly. The little fool!
"Of course it was a test!", I snapped at him. "Any one of us can be tested at any time. You know that! Now tell me, do you know what you did wrong?"
"I went out without camouflage."
"And?"
"And I didn't wake up until they came to my door."
"AND?"
He could tell from me staring at his knives. "And I walked into an open area without a ranged weapon."
"That's right. You could have grabbed your shuriken, the .38 in the closet, even some of the disks that Jenny used. If it wasn't for her, I would have had to step in before that woman got away. Jenny, that was a great job. Go get changed and your mother will take you out for ice cream."
"Yay! Ice cream!" She ran upstairs as fast as her little legs would take her.
"Now, what else did you do wrong?", I demanded.
"And I... and..", Tommy sputtered.
"And you called out. While Jenny was searching the perimeter, you were running around the house yelling for us. Do you know how much it hurt to hear that? You're fourteen, not three!"
"Sorry...", he mumbled. "But at least they didn't, right?"
"That was about the only thing you did right.", I said. "We didn't even hear their bodies hitting the floor. At least you haven't forgotten all your training."
"That wasn't all you did.", Susan said. "I've seen you stealing from your sister. And from me." Tears welled up in his eyes. "And I never see her when she does it! And what's more, I caught you lying! Do you know what our family has to say about lying?" He mumbled something incoherent about expressions and intentions. "Speak up! We can't hear you.", she shouted at him.
"Never let your body's expressions betray your true intentions!", he shouted in a bawling rush.
"And don't you forget it.", she said sternly.
Jenny came back down, dressed in her overalls, and she skipped with her mother to the car, to go off to the all-night Dairy Queen. Tommy would get no such luxury.
"Do you want your sister to start leading missions when it's just the two of you?"
"No!" The humiliation would be mortifying.
"Well then, you're going to clean up the mess. All of it! There better not be one piece of glass or one drop of blood left visible, and I better not see one glimpse of that car in the river when we're on our fisning trip tomorrow. And after that, we'll forget all about this."
"The river! Dad, that's ten miles away and mostly uphill coming back!"
"And feel lucky it's only that! The drive will be bad enough for detection, don't even think about bringing your bike. Haven't I taught you anything? If you're ever going to represent this family in the Outworld tournament without ending up as a fatality or in the Dragon King's dungeon, you can not ever falter this way again!"
"Yes, Dad. I'm sorry. I understand." As he went to get the rubber gloves, the heavy-duty cleanser, and the sponge (smart kid- the blood needs to be cleaned up first, it's a bitch to get out of the carpet when it clots), he asked, "Uhhh.. um, Dad? They weren't Lin Kuei or another clan, but they were really going to try to kidnap me, weren't they? And you must have at least pretended to pay them... where on Earthrealm did you find people like that?"
"You don't want to know, son.. you don't want to know."
He's a good boy, really- just needs some correction from time to time.
