“Then you forfeit,” Jonathan, his brother and the reason that they were all down here, said with a satisfied sigh as he reached over and plucked the iPad that their mother let Sebastian borrow, out of his hands.
“Wait. I want a turn!” Mathew said loudly, earning a glare, which was the only warning that he was going to get if he got them in trouble.
“You weren’t in on this,” Jonathan pointed out.
“It was implied!” Mathew hissed as he pushed the sleeves of his Scooby-Doo pajamas up, slowly exhaled, picked up the spoon and dug in and right before they had a chance to see if their little brother would survive, they heard it.
The sound of a door opening.
“Go!” Sebastian mouthed to his brother as they both slapped their hands over their little brother’s mouth, grabbed an arm and pulled him toward the back stairs.
“The brownies!” Jonathan whispered, making him frown until he remembered the gray mess they’d left on the counter.
Knowing just how badly this would end if their parents caught them out of bed, Sebastian released his hold on his little brother and mouthed, “Go!” before making his way back to the mess that he never would have guessed was brownies, slapped the foil on top of the pan, carried it back to the fridge, and slid it back onto the bottom shelf next to the brown mush that his mother had claimed was macaroni and cheese. As soon as he was done, Sebastian clicked the flashlight off and headed back toward the stairs.
In seconds, he was racing up the stairs, down the hallway, and sneaking into his room where he plucked the iPad out of his brother’s hands before climbing out their bedroom window with a satisfied sigh.
“Oh, come on!” Jonathan, who just happened to be afraid of heights, hissed while he blindly reached out as Sebastian crouched down on the small roof outside their bedroom window.
“Oh, is this what you wanted?” Sebastian asked innocently as he held up their mother’s iPad just out of reach of his brother’s mad grab.
“It’s my turn,” Jonathan said with a murderous glare as he leaned out the window another inch, but sadly, that just wasn’t going to do it.
“You’re right,” Sebastian said, nodding solemnly even as he shifted on the roof so that he could glance at their sister’s window to make sure that they hadn’t woken her up.
“So, you’re going to give it to me?” Jonathan asked, making Sebastian shake his head with a disappointed sigh because really, his brother of all people should know better.
“I would. I really would, but then, how would you learn?” Sebastian asked, returning his attention back to the iPad in his hands and pulled up Radcliffe Academy’s homepage, curious about the classes they were offering this fall.
“You could have just said no,” Jonathan said with a resigned sigh as he returned to the safety of their room.
“I could have,” Sebastian said, shooting his brother a wink as he stuffed the iPad inside his sweatshirt.
“Just don’t drop it. I want to check out the extracurriculars they offer before tomorrow,” Jonathan said as he grabbed a book off their desk and dropped down on the bottom bunk where he would most likely fall asleep before Sebastian came back.
“I won’t,” Sebastian said, chuckling as he slowly made his way past his sister’s window.
As soon as he came to the edge of the roof, Sebastian lowered himself to the next level and made his way to the chimney where he spent most of his time reading to get a break from his family. He loved them, he truly did, but sometimes he just wanted to sit back with a book and lose himself for a little while. Since they were all afraid of heights, this worked out well for him.
It also didn’t hurt that this particular spot was close to his parents’ room and he’d be able to hear if they decided to check on them, which would give him plenty of time to return to the safety of his room and climb back in bed before they made good on all those promises to wring his neck if they caught him on the roof again. Until then, Sebastian was going to sit here and check out the insanely cool school that was going to save him from spending another year doing the workbooks that his mother downloaded from the internet.
He loved spending time with his mother and studying whatever he wanted, but he missed school. He missed gym class, missed hanging out with his friends at lunch, missed being able to get a new book every day from the library, and missed being taught instead of watching videos and doing busy work. For the past two years, his parents had been trying to get them into a new school, hoping to find a private school that would take them without costing a fortune, but thanks to their school records, none of the schools around here had been willing to accept them.
Except for Radcliffe Academy.
His mother had gone to bat for them, calling and emailing the school every week for the past year until the school finally gave in and allowed them to take the entrance exam. When their test results came in, the school had offered them a scholarship and now, they were going to one of the best schools in the country and he couldn’t wait. They’d have to take two buses to get there, but it would be worth it, especially if–
“Baby, please stop crying,” Sebastian heard his father say, making him frown as he looked up from the iPad in his hands.
Curious, Sebastian shifted to the edge of the roof and looked past the chimney. When he heard the unmistakable sounds of his mother crying, something that he’d never heard before, he found himself shoving the iPad back in his sweatshirt and carefully moving around the chimney so that he could make sure that she was okay.
“Shhh, baby, please. Everything is going to be okay,” his father said while Sebastian watched through their bedroom window as he pulled Sebastian’s mother into his arms and closed his eyes. “It will be fine.”
“No, it won’t,” she said around a choked sob as she wrapped her arms around his father and pressed her face against his chest.
“We’ll figure something out. We always do,” his father promised, but from the expression on his face, Sebastian could tell that he really didn’t believe it.
Sebastian swallowed nervously as he knelt there, watching his parents, more terrified than he’d ever been in his life because he’d never seen his parents like this. When something went wrong, his parents usually teased each other until one of them was smiling and Sebastian knew that everything was going to be okay. But now…
Now, he was absolutely terrified.
“How are we supposed to choose?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know, Zoe,” his father said, making him frown.
“I can’t do this.”
“We’ll make it work,” his father promised.
“How are we supposed to come up with forty thousand dollars every year for the next eight years?” his mother asked, making his stomach drop.
“I don’t know.”
“How are we supposed to decide who gets to go to this school and have a real chance and which one stays here while we fumble our way through homeschooling him? I can’t do it, Trevor. I can’t do that to them,” his mother said as she held on tightly to his father while Sebastian sat there, realizing just how much his parents had been hiding from them.
They hadn’t offered them both a scholarship.
Radcliffe Academy had only offered one of them a scholarship, which meant that one of them wasn’t going anywhere. It meant eight more years of workbooks at the kitchen table, running errands with their mother, and trying not to die from boredom.