"What are you doing in my room?"
Justin spun around, shoving the notebook behind his back and meeting his brother's angry eyes with a smile. "I lost a book and thought you might have brought in here."
"Me?" Phil wanted to know. "Borrow one of your geeky books? Have you been drinking Kyle's finger paint again, Justin?"
Justin's smile quickly turned into a glare. "Maybe I read," he shot back. "But at least I'm not as stupid as you are! I saw the last test you brought home. You won't pass the eighth grade if all you get is F's!"
It was a D plus!" Phil growled.
"Same thing," Justin said as he rolled his eyes. "It doesn't change that fact that you're a stupid moron and I'm ashamed to be your brother."
"I'm two and a half years older than you, Justin," Phil reminded him before taking a step forward. "I'll ALWAYS be smarter than you."
"Keep dreaming!" Justin laughed. "I can beat you at anything. Just name it and I'll do better than you."
"What's that behind your back?"
Justin gulped, pressing the notebook further into the back of his shirt. "Nothing," he insisted.
"Then why won't you show me?"
Phil was getting closer to him, and Justin started to back up against Phil's bed. "Can't I have my hands behind my back and not be accused of hiding things?" he wanted to know.
"You?" Phil said as he tried to grab Justin's arm. "No."
Justin moved out of the way and landed on his back on Phil's bed. The notebook slipped out from behind him, but Justin recovered it before Phil could get his hands on it.
A look of terror flashed in Phil's eyes when he realized what exactly it was that Justin had. "You didn't read that!" he exclaimed. "Did you!?"
Justin only grinned as he held the notebook away from Phil's grasp. "What do you think?"
Phil's face turned red with rage and he leapt for Justin, but the younger boy did a backwards somersault and landed on the other side of the bed... right on the balls of his feet. Phil fell flat on his face in the middle of the empty bed. When he looked up from his comforter, Justin thought he saw actual fire in his eyes. "Give it back!" Phil growled as he pushed himself up.
"Go to hell!" Justin spat out, not waiting for his brother to get off the bed. He ran out the door, pushing it shut, and then dashed down the stairs. He would have slid down the railing, but since Mom had complained about skid marks on the floor from his landings, he decided against it. He could outrun Phil without sliding down, anyway. Just as he reached the bottom of the steps, he heard Phil's door fly open and hit the wall.
"Justin, you better give that back!"
Justin smiled, knowing that even if he did get the notebook back, there were still the torn out pages folded up inside of his pocket. He turned and grinned up the stairs. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"I'm gonna KILL you!" he screamed as he made his way down the stairs. "Give it back!"
Justin flew around the corner and through the kitchen. Once he'd made it to the living room, he realized that their house wasn't big enough for him to run from Phil forever, but he could at least have some fun. With a grin, he crouched down on the other end of the couch and pushed the notebook underneath. When he heard Phil nearby, he jumped up and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Ahh!" Phil shrieked, taking a step backwards. Justin watched as his knees hit the edge of the coffee table and he fell onto it, crashing right into Mom's reading lamp and knocking it to the floor. Both brothers squeezed their eyes shut and cringed as it shattered.
"You are in SO much trouble, "Justin said, widening his eyes. "Mom is gonna be SO mad at you!"
"Me?" Phil squeaked as he got up from the coffee table. "You mean YOU! This is all your fault! Now give me my notebook!" He began searching around for it, lifting couch cushions and looking in the drawers underneath the television. "Where did you put it, asshole?"
"Phillip!"
Phil turned around and both boys saw their mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Mom," he started, panic lacing his voice. "It's Justin's-"
"I thought we talked about swearing, and what did you boys do to my lamp?" She made her way over to the lamp and picked the crumpled shade up from the floor.
Both Justin and Phil pointed at each other. "It's his fault!" they said in unison.
"He fell over! Right onto it, Mom, I swear!" Justin insisted. "I think he's drunk or something because he was walking like this." Justin proceeded to try and walk a crooked line across the living room.
"I am not drunk!" Phil screamed.
Justin plopped down on the couch. "Well, is it my fault he's so uncoordinated?"
"It is when you jump up from behind the couch and scare the shit out of me!"
Mom gave him one of her Listen-To-Me-Or-Else looks. "Phil, if you don't stop swearing, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap!"
Justin grinned. Even though the broken lamp was his fault, his brother was setting himself up by swearing in front of their mother. Justin decided to press him. "Yum, soap!" he said.
Phil turned to glare at him. "Shut the hell up!"
Mom grabbed Phil's arm and pulled him to face her. "How many times do I have to tell you-"
"Mom! I'm thirteen! Practically an adult!" Phil said shrilly. "But if you'd let me explain-"
Mom led Phil to the couch and pushed him down beside Justin. "Okay, Phil," she said. "You go first."
Justin glared as Phil glanced over at him with a superior smile. He didn't say anything.
"I found him in my room, reading my personal notebook. And he wouldn't give it back!"
"Diary," Justin interrupted. "It's a diary, Phil. Admit it."
"Anyway," Phil went on, ignoring his brother. "He ran down here, hid behind the couch and when I caught up with him, he jumped out, scared the sh- I mean, scared me half to death, and I tripped over the table."
Justin rolled his eyes as Mom looked between the two of them.
"Is this true, Justin?"
Justin blinked at her as though he couldn't believe that she bought Phil's story. "Do you see a notebook?" he wanted to know.
"He hid it!" Phil yelled. "Where did you put it, Justin!?"
"I didn't know you were keeping a diary," he told Phil, and then turned back to Mom. "Mom, I swear, I went into his room to look for a book I was missing, when I found his notebook. I opened it up to see what it was, and I wouldn't have kept reading, but he was writing about ME in there... and he wasn't writing nice things either! That's when Phil walked in and saw me with it. I was mad at him for writing those things about me, so I wouldn't give it back to him. He got it eventually, but then he chased me down the stairs because he was so mad. I tried to get out of his way, and I did... that's when he landed on the coffee table and broke your lamp. I wouldn't have read it, Mom, if he hadn't said those awful things about me." He scrunched up his face as if he were trying not to cry.
"You are such a liar!" Phil exclaimed. "That's not at all what happened, and I never wrote a word about you in my notebook!"
'You're right,' Justin thought. 'It was all about Cindy Blackburn.'
Phil looked at their mom with pleading eyes. "Can't you see he's lying? Make him give me back my notebook!" He folded his arms over his chest. "It's personal," he muttered.
Mom looked back at Justin. "Justin, give your brother his notebook back. And I hope you don't go around telling everyone stories like that. You know that lying is wrong."
"I'm not lying!" Justin said, but it was no use. Mom stared at him until he groaned and moved up from the couch. He reached underneath it, pulled out the notebook and threw it at his brother. "I hope you're happy."
"No apologize to your brother."
"I'm sorry," Justin spat out.
"For what?" Mom prompted.
"For reading your diary."
"It's a NOTEBOOK!" Phil corrected.
"Fine! Notebook!"
"And...?" Mom went on.
Justin gave a deep sigh. "And blaming you for the lamp, and lying about it to get you in trouble."
Phil looked at him for a moment. "I don't accept your apology," he said.
"Fine!" Justin screamed. "Because I'm not really sorry!"
Phil clutched his notebook protectively. "I hate you!" he yelled so loudly that Mom had to cover her ears.
"Both of you, sit down and apologize to each other!" she said, standing up and glaring at Justin until he sat down on the couch.
Justin folded his arms over his chest and sank down into the cushions. "I'm not sorry!" he insisted. "Why should I have to say I'm sorry if I'm not?"
"You should be sorry," she told him. "One day you're going to be all each other has, and you're going to regret being so mean to him."
Justin jabbed his thumb in Phil's direction. "Him," he said. "He's going to be all I have? Yeah right..."
"You'll see what I mean," she assured him. "Give your brother a hug and tell him you're sorry. And for God's sake, Justin, mean it this time!"
"Ugh! I don't want him to hug me!" Phil protested. "He doesn't have to hug me!"
Mom rolled her eyes.
"Mom," Justin whined. "This is stupid. That lamp is NOT worth this!"
Mom looked more stern than she ever had before. "Give him a hug," she repeated.
Justin gave a big, dramatic sigh as he leaned over and gave Phil the quickest hug he could manage. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
"Phil, tell you're brother that you don't hate him," Mom said, seeming pleased with Justin's actions.
Phil only hugged his notebook tighter. "I'm not going to lie!"
"This is stupid!" Justin repeated. "I don't care if he hates me or not."
Mom wouldn't let up. "Just do it," she told Phil.
Phil narrowed his eyes as he looked over at Justin. "If you weren't my brother and Mom wasn't making me say this," he said. "I'd hate you. But apparently, I'm not allowed to hate you, so I guess I don't."
Mom stood up and sighed. "Oh, Lord," she said. "Never mind. Both of you go to your rooms and stay there until dinner."
Phil stood up. "I didn't do anything wrong! Why should I have to sit in my room? This is all Justin's fault!"
"It is not!" Justin chimed in. "If you didn't leave your diary out in the open like that, this would have never happened."
"Nothing gives you the right to go through my things," Phil insisted, turning to his brother with a glare. "I don't ever want you in my room again!"
Mom was on her way back to the kitchen. "Justin, stay out of Phil's room. He's right. You can't just go through his things without asking."
Phil's glare wouldn't let up. "Don't bother asking," he told Justin. "The answer will always be no."
Justin rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said as he walked past Phil and followed Mom into the kitchen. "Why would I want to be in your room anyway? All of your things are so dull!" He passed Mom and dashed up the stairs, two at a time. Once inside his room, he shut the door tightly behind him, pulled out a book from his shelves and sat down on his bed. Carefully, he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the torn sheets of notebook paper. With a smile, he inserted them into the pages of the book and then put the book back on the shelf.
Justin knew that Phil would never find them in a book.
Family: Timberlake
Non-Nsync Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email Me (irishgirl982@yahoo.com)