A Safe Haven

Nine

Mark was pretty annoyed as he drove home. It was bad timing because he had just brought Allison back from the airport and was about to show her around and tell her about the boys. He wondered what they had been thinking. Well, Spencer probably wasn't, he guessed with a sigh as he parked the car in the garage. "Both of you go directly to my office and no detours," he said with his eyes specifically on Spencer whose attention could be distracted easily.

Ace rolled his eyes as he went into the house as Mark unlocked the door. He had to pause as Spencer barreled in before him and would have ran him over had he had not stopped.

"There's a girl!" Mark overheard Spencer shouting and quickly followed the boys in seeing Spencer inspecting her as Ace stared at her as if he knew her. He realized Ace had probably seen her picture. Allison looked a bit bewildered by the presence of the boys.

"Why are you here?" Spencer asked mostly out of curiosity.

Allison who seemed tongue tied opened her mouth to speak and Mark interrupted her, "I'll explain later. I want both of you in my office now," he said sternly.

Ace smirked and walked that way. A moment later, he came back grabbed Spencers arm and dragged him with him. "But Ace I just...."

Mark heard his office door close and he said to Allison, "I'm so sorry I had to run off like that and leave you here without any explanations or without showing you around."

She gave a small smile. "It's alright. A spanish lady showed me to my room. I couldn't understand her very well though."

"Thats Ms. Tony, she works for me and also takes care of Spencer when I can't be here. I promise I'll introduce you properly in a little while. Just make yourself at home. I need to talk to them for a minute as they decided to take the day off and go wandering around town," Mark explained and saw her nod as he went into his office.

Ace was slouching in a chair while Spencer was looking at everything in his office. "Sit down Spencer," Mark said going over to his chair behind the desk and sitting. "What were you two thinking? Was this planned?"

Ace folded his arms and opened his mouth to say something except Spencer beat him to it, "Nahhh, but I escaped and it was such a beautiful day that I thought I'd go and get him. You should have seen how surprised he was to see me but I could tell he was glad and bored silly," he said and giggled.

Ace started to smile.

Mark shook his head looking at Ace. "So you just thought you'd join him?"

Ace shrugged. "Yeah and he was right. I was bored. Besides I don't blame Spencer for leaving. They were treating him like crap at that other school. Spencer tell him what you told me."

Mark looked back at Spencer as he repeated his tale and sighed, "Well, I will have a talk with them but that is not a reason to just leave. You could have had them call me." Then he turned back to Ace. "And you know better too."

Ace smirked at him, "You don't know what I know."

"Well your grounded for the weekend which means no leaving the grounds, no tv and no games," Mark told Ace since today was friday and said to Spencer, "You earned two minus points because skipping is serious and there are way more minuses than pluses and no way you could earn them back by tomorrow so you are also grounded for the weekend. No special trip."

"That ain't fair! That lady was mean. She's always mean," Spencer said stomping his foot.

Ace shrugged. "Whatever. Can I leave now?"

Giving Spencer a stern look. "If you have a tantrum, your punishment will be worse. I can add on your being grounded for a whole week." However, he could see that Spencers eyes had already glazed over into a fury. His face was actually turning red as he threw his chair across the desk and Mark barely moved in time to not be hit.

"Good luck," Ace said quickly exiting the room.

Mark dropped to the floor as Spencer started throwing books and everything he could get his hands on. It seemed to take eeons but he finally made it over to the boy and got him in a hold, reminding himself he needed to get the boy to a doctor.