We went inside the house for dinner, and then after dinner mom went to deposit Captain Hetherington back home, which left me and Ian all alone in the house.  You feel different when a grown up is not around. Even if you do the same old thing, you just feel different. So, Ian and I sat around playing video games. Koon came over to visit.

"Hey, did you two ever find out what's in that 'secret room' of your dads?" asked Johnny while manhandling the video game controller staring at the TV screen. My house is a regular run of the mill North Jersey home that has two stories. The living area on the bottom and the sleeping quarters on top, with a basement almost the size of the house, a small yard, and the house next door so close you can stick your arm out of your bedroom window and touch their window sill. Not to flashy, not too big, but not too small, just comfortable for the 4- 2 legged humans and 1-4 legged dog. But downstairs, in the living area, there is an extra bonus room that could be used for a game room, a study, or a spare bed room for guests. This room in our house is known as… the 'Secret Room.'  We call it that because dad has always kept it a 'secret' from us. When we were little he would tell us goblins and snakes and all kind of creatures lived in that room. But I would always ask, "Well, daddy, why don't you get rid of then?"  He never had a good answer.  As we grew older, our curiosity took the best of us. And that's when dad put a lock on it. 

"Mom, is dad ever gonna tell us what's in the 'Secret Room?’" I would ask her. 

"Com’on  mom...you know what’s in that room... tell us...tell us...tell us,” we would chanted.

"Look, you two have your special spots, your rooms; I have my special spot, my garden and sewing room. So dad has his special spot, the 'Secret Room,’” she said.

"What, we have our what?” Ian said. “Special spot? Mom, my room is Grand Central Station around here! How can you say it’s my space?”

"Yeah, I don't have any privacy in my room neither," I said.

"It's either, dear," my mom corrected me. "Look, that's your dad’s special room. And you know what. . . he pays the mortgage of this house.” She became more heated as she rambled on. “So, I'm thinking that he could have ONE special room to call his own. And when you two minors, non-contributing, food grubbing, parasite members of the family grow up and become big people with big people jobs, and make big people money, maybe you can have a big people 'special room' yourselves!” Ouch.

"Na,” I said to Johnny as I was into the game, “we kind of just gave up on it." Oh fudge, I missed getting into the castle.

             "I mean, don't you ever wonder what he has in there? Like, like maybe he has bags full of dead corpses and, and pieces of body parts just lying around, like,” Koon said with a grin on his face. “I mean, he does work in a hospital, right?”

“Yes, and most of the people he works with are still ALIVE!” I said. “I think he works in the ‘living people’ portion of the hospital.”

"No Johnny, that has never really come to mind," Ian said, also very intense in his game. "Oh, you see what just happened! Koon, dude, if you want to stay that's fine, but I'm trying to get to the second of the fourth to the last before the end level, and you’re making me loose my concentration. Go downstairs and play with Mr. Hetherington's walker or take his blue pill so you can chill.”

"Are they on top of the counter downstairs?" Johnny asked.

"AAAAAhhhhhhhh, you see! You see what you did!" Ian yelled to Johnny.

"Dude, I didn't do nothin'. You’re just playing muy sucko today.”

"Ian, calm down. Koon is right . . .you are playing muy sucko today," I said with a chuckle.

"Okay, okay, I've had it! Here you go Nina, how-do-you-like-that, and that!" Ian screamed. POW! SMACK! BAM!

He was purposely smacking my character around without provocation.

"Hey, cut that out you moron! I didn't do nothin' to you!" And with that, I start fighting back. "Take that sicko! And that pee brain!”

"Oh, Nina that was a good one," Johnny chimed in.

"Shout up Jon-a-thing!" Ian shouted.

Then Ian went ahead and did the unthinkable. After months of building up my character and fighting against unmentionables and just struggling to reach this level . . . Ian completely struck me down to a nothing!  It's like I never played the game, it's like I never existed! I had to start from SCRATCH! My breathing was fast, my eyes swelled up with tears and I had snots coming out of my nose.

"Oh, oh. She's gonna bloooow," Johnny said under his breath. "I'm out of here.”

It took Johnny just seconds to get out of the room . . .then I jumped Ian! Not like in the game, I literally and physically jumped him! "You idiot! Look what you did!" With spit, snot, and slobber coming out of me, I attacked Ian, and then he started pushing back with his feet.  I went flying right into his bed. Ian then took out a tennis racket and made believe it was one of his fencing swords.

"Ha ha, ha take that!" he said as he continued to poke me in my stomach. I let him do it several times but after a while I reached for the racket, took possession of it and broke it in half. Moment of silence.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!" Ian screamed. Then he really attacked me.

We were on the floor wrestling and grabbing anything we could find to hurt each other. That’s when my mom walked in the room. I knew she had walked in the room, but that wasn't gonna stop me from betting on Ian.

"Oh, Lord. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it, the two of you this instant!" she yelled. And when she physically tried to separate us . . . that's right. . . that’s when she went down too! She swirled on the floor still trying to stop us get up on her feet, but we kept on sending her back to the floor. Then with one good thrust of adrenalin she separated us. My hair was all over the place, Ian had cuts on his arms and his shirt was ripped. I was bruised.

"Get out of this room! Right this instant! MOVE IT!" she screamed with an authoritative voice.

 We sat quietly in the kitchen table as she made an assessment of the casualties. 

"I left you two alone for 1 hour! One hour! You both are 15 years old, and you can't behave properly for 1 hour!?" mom yelled.

"Well, he started it!" I said to my defense. Ian stuck his tongue out at me. I stuck mine back.

"Shut up, shut up when I'm talking to you! Do you think this is the way two grown teenagers should be acting . . . answer me!"

"Well, I . . . I mean, no.”

"Shut up! Look at you both, all cut, bruised and tattered, all because of what, huh, all because of what? Answer me!"

"I'm confused whether or not we could talk," Ian said softly.

“Agh.” She walked away in a huff into the bathroom to get the first aid kit. And as she left, we started to elbow and kick each other. And although mom was still in the bathroom and not in our field of vision, she knew exactly what was going on in the kitchen.

"You two better stop it by the time I get to the kitchen, or had already killed each other, because if not I'm gonna finish the job off myself!" she shouted from the bathroom.

We were sitting next to each other but facing opposite ways on the stools by the kitchen counter. When she came back, we proceeded trying to explain both of our stories.

"But, mom you don't understand what Ian did to me!" I said as I started to cry.

"Oh, yeah, a woman's ultimate weapon . . . tears,” Ian said with a sarcastic tone.

"I don't want to hear it from either one of you,” mom said as she started wiping down our wounds. “I don't care what happened in your game. If triffle dinkes didn't survive, or wasapoppys were destroyed. IT'S-A-GAME! When are the two of you going to understand the difference between a game and reality? I don't care what happened to you in the game, it should have stayed IN-THE-GAME!" Mom was already patching up Ian's cuts and gave me an ice pack to place on my bruises.

"I'm taking away your games for a week," she said.

"What, oh no mom, come one, not fair!" we both shouted.

"Okay. Two weeks. Wanna go for an even month.”

We both just sucked in some air then let out a long sigh, not knowing what to say. Then all of a sudden . . . salvation. My dad was home. He plays with us. He knows the intricacies of the game. He knows how important this game is to us. He'll fix all of this.

"Honey, you’re home early," mom said to dad as he was walking in through the basement door. My dad usually doesn’t work on Friday nights. He works extra hours on Thursday to have a 3 day weekend, but today he was called in.

"Yeah, slow evening.  So what do we have here?" he said looking at both of us with a bewildered face. My mom explained. You know, her version of the truth. Then he heard my version of the truth. Then he heard Ian's version of the lie. I was very sure he would understand.

"And what was their punishment?" he asked my mom.

"No video game for 2 weeks," she said.

"Huh, that's absurd,” dad said. 

Oh yeah, here it comes.

"No video games for the rest of the summer!" he said.

There wasn't enough air in the room for me and Ian to suck in.

"And, don't-test-me.” With that dad went to the refrigerator, retrieved a drink, left the kitchen and went to the bedroom.

            With a smirk on her face mom walked away also. And without looking back at us she said, "Oh, and by the way… pick up the mess in the bedroom before going to bed…both of you.” Rats!