Little Shelby's

Three

"What the fuck is going on?!" John bellowed as he came into the house. It was Friday night, he'd just finished work, and he came home to what he could only imagine was all seven of his own children, plus all of the other's children, trying to murder each other.
Well, apparently asking what was going on was completely the wrong thing to do, because they all started screaming and shouting over each other, accusing each other of this that and the other, and whatever had happened, even Charlie and Billy were joining in, which was odd for the older boys, they didn't bicker, if they were in trouble they were in real trouble, not childish things like this.

"Enough! All of you sit down and shut up!" John took a deep breath as the room quietened down. He looked at the kids scattered across the living room and shook his head "Where're your mothers?"

"Seem to remember putting them in a wagon and burning them" Tilly spat, causing John to give her an icy glare.

"Get upstairs." John said sharply, and didn't say anything until Tilly had left the room and limped her way to her bedroom, still recovering from her injuries. "Well?"

"Something about a girls night out" Eddie said "Apparently we're to stay here until you lot finish work"

"Is that right?" John said, as he put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it "So what the fuck were you all fighting about?"

Emmeline started to say something, but was quickly interrupted by Joey, and then suddenly they were all shouting over each other.

"Oh fucking hell stop!" John shouted, quickly losing his patience with the bunch, and they suddenly silenced at the shock of his loud voice "Emmeline, what were you going to say?"

"Archie, Eliza and Birdie all started fighting over a toy, so Minnie tried to get them to stop, but Hattie told her to leave her little sister alone, and Eddie told Hattie not to get involved, so then they are started arguing, then Tilly tried to get them to stop which is how she got involved, then Artie and Joey tried to get everyone to calm down, which didn't go well, so I asked everyone to stop shouting, which meant they started shouting at me, so Billy told everyone to shut up, which Felix, Vinny, Elsie and Ruby thought was rude and started arguing with Billy, then Charlie came in and tried to calm everyone down but it just got worse from there" Emmeline explained shyly, worried about getting herself, and everyone, in trouble.

"Fucking snitch" Ruby mumbled, causing John's eyes to dart to her

"You've been warned about your fucking mouth" He said, before scanning the room again "What happened to looking out for each other, eh? We're fucking Shelby's, we don't fight each other like this! Billy and Charlie you're not boys anymore, you're fucking men! You should be setting a fucking example! And Eddie, you're a man soon, it's high time you all started fucking acting like it! As for the rest of you, you're lucky there's so many of you and only one of me cause I swear I would smack each and every one of you right now. This is fucking ridiculous"

"What's fucking ridiculous?" Arthur asked, as he walked into the house "What's happened?"

"These lot causing the next bloody world war"

Arthur frowned "Billy, why've you got a black eye?"

"Eddie thought he'd be a big man and punch me" Billy shrugged

"Eddie did what?" Michael asked, appearing from nowhere, along with Finn and Tommy.

"Now who's the snitch" Eddie spat, causing Billy to sit upright.

"Do you really wanna go there?" Billy threatened, already ready for a fight.

"Edward, Emmeline and Felix, come on, we're going home" Michael said, clearly not happy with the situation and having no patience to hear the full story. The three kids grumbled as they were pushed out the door by their dad.