It was a hot summer's day and I was at home. I should have been at work but there are times when excessive heat is a legitimate reason for not working and this was one of them. I told the boss that it was time to call it a day and he agreed -- with no argument, so it must have been hot.
Arriving home I found my son's car there so presumably he was home. Passing the family room I heard some voices that seemed to be laden with snark and not wanting to deal with teenage angst I kept right on going. A quick shower and a change of clothes and I was ready for some serious bludging. I retired to the front room, noting that the teenage voices were still laden with snark. I was not going to sort out a teenage quarrel. A hiding to nothing doing that.
It turned out that I should have done just that. I'd barely gotten settled when the snark turned to anger and I was treated to the sounds of fists landing and something making a loud crash, followed by an accusatory 'now look what you've done'.
From the sound of it the brawl was about to go into round two but I thought it might be advisable to investigate the results of round one. I made smart time to the family room.
There were three occupants to the room. Roger, my son, Tony, his best friend, and Pauline, a pretty young thing I'd seen around a time or two. Now that I thought about it the boys had both attended her eighteenth birthday a couple of weeks back. Both boys were a little older than Pauline but not by much. The look on her face said she was enjoying the situation. That told me her maturity was on a level with the boys, not very high.
"Enough," I growled out before battle broke out afresh. "May I ask what happened to my coffee table?"
"Tony broke it," Pauline said quickly, keen to shift the blame away from herself.
I looked at Tony and he was already shaking his head.
"Don't blame me," he said quickly. "I fell when Roger punched me. I couldn't help it."
"Back," Roger said quickly. "You punched me first."
"Really?" I said in a dry voice. "And what was the reason for this punching?"
Both lads promptly shut up, glanced towards Pauline, you could practically see the lip-zippers being fastened. The three of us glanced toward Pauline who was doing her best to look as innocent as a baby.
"Like that, is it?" I observed. "Anyway, seeing that there's only one car here I have to assume that you all came in Roger's car. Roger, you will take Tony home, swinging past Doc Manner's place to get that arm checked. I'll give it a fifty percent chance of being broken, what with that dent on the side of it. After that you can swing past A-Mart to see what it will cost you to replace my coffee table with a similar one. Of course if your arm is broken you can put that little chore off to the weekend."
Both boys starting protesting, the gist of the protests being what about Pauline.
"Don't worry your pretty heads about her," I told them, giving them a happy smile. "I will personally drive her home after I've had a short chat with her. Or I'll order a taxi if that's what she prefers."
The look I gave them apparently convinced them all to shut up. A closer look at Tony had me making a sling for his arm and helping him into the car. The probability of a break I now put at seventy five percent. Idiots.
I thoughtfully rested one hand on Pauline's shoulder just in case she decided to walk home rather than bother me for a lift. She was probably tempted to get in with the boys but Tony was obviously in a great deal of pain and jostling him was a decided no-no. Likewise I've seen the back seat of Roger's car and I doubt that a self-respecting goat would climb in there. A female passenger? Not in this lifetime.
Once inside I steered her into the family room and directed her to sit while I looked over the coffee table. The broken coffee table. The broken glass coffee table.
"That's a bit of a pity," I said mildly. "Supposed to be unbreakable. Turns out that it's not. Look at that splinter." I indicated a splinter then ran the full length of the table.
"A sword should be as long and as sharp as that shard of glass. Just think, if that had come loose Tony could have had that right through his throat. He'd have been dead before he hit the ground with blood spurting everywhere. Alternatively he might have been skewered through the chest and sliced his heart in two. Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?"
She'd gone so white it was obvious she was thinking about it. I rubbed it in a bit more.
"Talk about two birds with the one stone. Tony dead on the floor and Roger facing a murder charge and a long time in the slammer."
"But it was an accident," protested Pauline. "Roger didn't intend any of that to happen."
"Maybe not but it did. I guess I'll have to ground him for months now. From what I heard he did strike the first blow."
"What? No he didn't. Tony swung first and busted Roger in the mouth. All Roger did was retaliate."
"I see. Ah, what were they arguing about?"
She shut up in an instant. No way was she going to tell.
"Why don't I take an educated guess," I asked. "They were arguing over you and you were letting them, possibly even urging then on a bit."
She blushed very nicely, letting me know I was right.
"I was just teasing them a little," she confessed. "That was all. It wasn't my fault they went overboard."
