*****
Oscar Raleigh set the phone on the hall table and quietly tiptoed towards his sons’ room. If he’s learned one thing with having two sons, it’s that he had to take them by surprise before they had a chance to corroborate their stories. At times he used the same technique that the police do, separate and interrogate, a.k.a. divide and conquer. He could see the light streaming from under their door and he paused, pressing his ear against it, listening for sounds of life. After a few moments of listening to muffled music combined with the amusing ‘knuck, knuck, knucks,’ of the Three Stooges, he opened the door and took a head count; one. “Hey Will, where’s your brother?”
“Shower, why? What’d he do now?”
“Nothing that I know of, unless you know something I don’t?” He gave his son ‘the look’ most parents give when they feel that something is up and are trying to draw out any info possible testing their reactions. In return Will gave him his best ‘What? Don’t look at me. I don’t know a thing.’, look.
“What am I, my brother’s keeper? If you tell me that I’m supposed to watch him shower I’m looking for a new family in the morning.”
Oscar studied his son’s face, then went to the boy’s bathroom and peeked in. The steam blanketed the mirror and swirled like mini cyclones. For all he knew, with this mist Daffy Duck could have been the one in the shower, but the slightly off key voice wafting through the thick clouds was unmistakably that of Jacob’s. Satisfied and in a hurry to get back to Mrs. Kinsington, he closed the door and turned back to Will.
“I’d wait a couple of hours at least if you plan to take a shower tonight. You’re brother’s about to drain the hot water heater.” With that he said goodnight and returned to the hall and the anxiously awaiting Kinsingtons.
Will, on the other hand, watched his father leave out of the corner of his eye and waited for his footfalls to fade before taking a small piece of paper out of his nightstand drawer and made another mark under a column that read, ‘Jacob owes me’. Then he carefully placed the tally sheet back in the drawer, went into the bathroom, and turned off the water and the recording of his brother’s lame attempt at singing.