Isaac punched his pillow over his head for the fourth time and groaned. He was going to kill Taylor. It was such a pain to have an insomniac for a brother. He heard another thump and he dragged himself out of bed and opened the door to Taylor’s room only to find his bed empty. Oops, wrong brother. He switched tactics quickly, now he was going to kill Zac. He heard another thump and crossed the room to find the door to Zac’s room locked. 

"Zac if you don’t quit making noise I’m going to pound you!" Ike threatened as he hit the door with his fist. 

The door opened and a boxer and tee shirt clad Zac looked at his brother absently. "What do you want?" he asked innocently.

Ike looked at his brother’s room that looked very much like he was in the middle of trashing it and shook his head in disbelief. "Zac, what are you doing? You’d better get this mess cleaned up before Mom sees it."

"I will. I’m in the middle of organizing," Zac said and he disappeared under his bed only to push a bunch of stuff out the other side and drag himself out. 

"Organizing?" Ike repeated in amazement looking around the room.

"Yeah, I need to take inventory," Zac mumbled.

"Well, do it more quieter." Ike grumbled. "And, clean up this mess. I’m going back to bed."

"More quieter." Zac repeated looking up at his brother’s retreating figure. "And, Mom says I need more time on English," he mumbled and went back to his task.

Zac had completed his ‘inventory’ before it was time for breakfast but he hadn’t managed to clean up any of the mess. After breakfast they had their lessons, so it was after lunch before they were free to go their separate ways. Ike took off to visit some friends, Taylor retreated to the studio, the little kids went in the family room to watch T.V. and Zac sat in the kitchen with his mother. 

Diana was very good at reading the needs of her children. Although they had just finished lunch she fixed two cups of hot chocolate, topping her sons with a handful of marshmallows and sat down at the table beside him. 

"You have something you want to tell me?" she asked gently.

Zac sat silent for a few moments sipping his hot chocolate. "Mom, I need to earn some money. Separate from what we earn in the business. Money that I can use."

"What for?" Diana asked. "If you need or want something all you have to do is discuss it with me and your Dad. I’m not saying we’ll agree, but we’ll listen."

"I don’t want anything," Zac explained. "Mom, I need to earn a lot of money because I owe someone a lot."

"Honey, you’re going to have to give me details." Diana exclaimed. "Why do you need money, you get an adequate allowance."

Zac hung head for a moment, his eyes focused on his cup, and finally he confessed, "I’ve been borrowing. But I haven’t been paying back."

"Why? Who?" Diana demanded.

"Mostly Tay," Zac admitted unhappily. "And, mostly for video games."

"And he wants his money back?" Diana guessed.

"He didn’t say anything about me paying him back, but he said he wasn’t going to loan me anymore either." Zac looked up at his mother with worried eyes. "Mom he never said anything for a long time, and I didn’t realize. Then he got kind of mad and yelled at me and it made me start to think and then I added it up, and boy, it adds up fast."

"Zac exactly how much do you owe your brother?" Diana asked.

Zac didn’t answer immediately. 

"Zac?" his mother prompted.

Still concentrating on the cup in his hands, the boy finally answered. "If I didn’t forget anything, about four hundred dollars and I probably owe Ike about eighty, but he stopped loaning me money a long time ago."

Diana sat starring at her thirteen-year-old stunned at his confession. "You’re going to have to give me a little while to think about this," she said quietly.

"Mom, do you have to tell Dad?" Zac pleaded hopefully.

"You know the answer to that," Diana said quietly reproaching her son.

"Well, could you maybe not make a big deal out of it then. I mean, like, not a whole big ‘family’ deal. This is kinda between me and Tay and I’d like to pay him back without everyone getting involved." Zac negotiated.

"I know your father is going to have something to say about this," Diana warned. "And, I’m not too pleased about it either. But, since you seem to be willing to make it right, we’ll talk about it. Why hasn’t Tay complained before?"

"I don’t know, he’s kinda weird that way," Zac shrugged.

"Or maybe he’s just kinda being nice and trying to keep you out of trouble," Diana suggested.

Zac grinned. "And here, I go and blow it. Mom, am I in BIG trouble?"

Diana smiled at her son and gave his hair a playful tug, but she nodded her head. "Big trouble," she repeated. "Why don’t you go find something to get into that doesn’t involve ‘borrowing’ and I’ll talk to your Dad."

"Could you kinda keep it ‘low profile’, so maybe he won’t kill me?" Zac pleaded.

"Out," Diana ordered.

Zac went. He didn’t feel like watching cartoons and playing video games just didn’t ‘feel’ right considering that it was his obsession with video games that had gotten him into this mess so he decided that he’d better stay out of sight. When his Dad came back from running an errand, he and his Mom went into the den and they stayed there what seemed like hours. Zac took possession of the computer in the family room and tried to work on a paper that he was supposed to write for history. And, he couldn’t help it, but he tried to access Taylor’s computer across the household network to find out what he was working on, but Tay, not being dumb, had already changed his passwords.

When it didn’t look like his parents were coming out anytime soon, Zac started getting really worried. His parents, holed up in the den discussing his possible future or maybe his lack of one was driving him crazy. When Taylor came out of the studio and headed into the kitchen for some refueling Zac took advantage and slipped down the studio steps.

Walker came out of the den and called Zac’s name but there was no response so he stuck his head into the family room to look for him.

Taylor was sitting on the couch with Mackie playing a Nascar game. 

"Have you seen Zac?" Walker asked.

"Yeah, he’s downstairs," Taylor responded. 

Walker started to cross the room. 

"Hey, Dad unless it’s real important don’t interrupt him," Taylor requested jumping up between his father and the door leading to the studio.

"Why?"

"‘Cause, it’s the first time in over a week that he’s playing," Taylor said opening the door slightly to let the sounds of drum rolls and symbols escape. "It’s a good sign Dad. We haven’t been pressuring him or anything."

"Okay, but as soon as he stops, tell him I want to speak to him," Walker suggested.

"Is Zac in trouble or something?" Taylor asked curiously.

Walker looked at Taylor seriously for a moment and realized that his son really had no clue about what he and his wife had spent the last several hours discussing. "No, I just need to speak to him."

Taylor went back to his game with Mackie listening in the background to his brother pounding out the beats, wishing he had the natural talent that his brother seemed to be gifted with. 

Finally, after two hours Zac reappeared at the top of the steps, his hair tousled and tangled and his shirt damp from sweat.

"Dad wants to talk to you," Taylor informed his brother as he passed him on the stairway. 

Zac detoured by the kitchen for a drink of water and his Mom reinforced his brothers’ statement. So with Mom behind him, Zac walked down the hallway feeling like he was being led to his own execution.

Zac did get a stern lecture from his Dad with his Mom chiming in with an occasional point. Walker was quick to point out that he had not been behaving in what he called a "responsible manner’. But, after the long lecture he was relieved to find out that there was not going to be any punishment attached to his confession. His parents had come up with a job for him do. It would earn him the money to pay back what he owed his brothers and would get a job done that his parents had wanted completed for a while but had simply not had the time to do. After delivering his lecture, Walker deferred to his wife and let her detail Zac’s new job. They had spent hours discussing their son’s actions and Diana had made it very clear that although Zac hadn’t acted responsibly he was showing a degree of responsible behavior by admitting and wanting to rectify the problem. 

Diana began to direct and help Zac unload several large boxes out of the closet. Avid photographers of their children and family activities even before their three oldest children had become famous, there were thousands of photographs of their children. Nowadays, Walker was a walking camera, always attached to a video camera and forever taking video of all of their children. He was so attached to the camera that Diana often teased him that his children wouldn’t recognize him if he put the camera down. The boxes were full of photographs that Diana had lost track of putting in albums and she wanted them organized. Zac’s job was going to be to both put the photographs in some order into albums, but more importantly he was to scan selected ones and put them on the computer and then transfer them onto video tape. They had already set-up the scanner and computer program, they would hook up the video links later when it was time to put the pictures to video and add music. Diana would work very closely with her son on the project, working on captions and time sequences, but it was going to be up to Zac to take care of the timing and selecting the music. 

Zac was thrilled with his new ‘job’. He loved working with computers and he thought that creating the video would be like ‘directing’, something he was very interested in. So, Zac began by attacking the programs on-line tutorial so he would some idea how to plan his strategy. He was so excited because, this was a ‘cool’ job. And, he was really happy that his parents hadn’t used his need to earn money to give him a ‘punishment’ job. Usually, punishment jobs were nasty chores that no one wanted to do, but were forced on them because they’d screwed up and they didn’t have any choice.

This was going to be fun and something that he was going to work on with his Mom and he really liked that idea. It had been a really long time since he’d spent some really good time with his Mom.

Ike flopped down on the couch beside his brother, picked up the remote and changed channels immediately.

"Hey! I was watching that!" Taylor protested.

"Sorry," Ike said and he tossed the remote at his brother, and slumped down with his arms crossed over his chest.

Taylor kept pushing the button until he found his station again and resumed watching the old "Commando" movie. It hadn’t gotten to the exciting part yet, so he looked over at Ike and nudged him.

"So what’s your problem?"

"Carrie called. Her little sisters have the chicken pox and she’s in the contagious stage or something. Her mom called our mom and ‘we’ have not had the chicken pox so ‘they’ decided that our date is off." Ike explained.

"Bummer," Tay commiserated. "I thought there are shots for Chicken Pox, and with us traveling, we’ve had every shot known to medical science."

"I asked Mom about that, she said the shots aren’t exactly 100% for all people, but if you ‘do’ get Chicken Pox and you’ve had the shot apparently you’ll have it easier or something. If you get them when you’re little, it’s two weeks of being uncomfortable, if you get them when you’re older it’s two to three weeks of pure misery."

"Tell Carrie to stay home then," Taylor said rudely.

"Thanks," Ike growled. "Well maybe we can practice or something this evening. Jes said that Zac was playing the drums today."

"Yeah, but not for the band, just for himself. Then he holed up the den with Mom and Dad for a while and I haven’t seen him since. There’s something going on but I haven’t figured out what yet."

"He probably got into trouble because he trashed his room." Ike said.

"He did?" Taylor questioned. "Why?"

"Who, knows, it’s Zac," Ike mused. "I wonder if he’s grounded. Maybe we can go to the movies or something tonight."

"You guys can go, but I got roped into baby-sitting tonight," Taylor complained. "Mom and Dad have a home schooling meeting thing to go to and I got volunteered."

As it turned out later that night there wasn’t anyone left to babysit. Jes and Avie were invited over to their cousins for an overnighter and their Aunt offered to keep Mackie and Zoe while their parents were at their meeting.

So for the first time in months the three brothers were left on their own, without a schedule or preplanned activities and without supervision. It took them about thirty minutes to realize that they were free to do anything that they pleased. They began to discuss the possibilities immediately. Going out in public was difficult, but not impossible. If they called the movie theatre ahead of time, the manager would slip them in the back door. They had pulled that trick several times. If they didn’t sit together and stayed in contact with walkie talkies it had proven to be fairly safe. So they got the newspaper and then realized that there wasn’t any movies playing that they hadn’t already seen or wanted to see.

"We have such an exciting life!" Zac exclaimed dramatically throwing his arm wide and pretending to ‘act’. "What does that leave us, home videos and ordering a pizza?"

"Sounds okay with me," Ike agreed with a grin.

"Instead of staying home, why don’t we go for drive?" Taylor asked looking at his older brother with a gleam in his eye.

"No way," Ike responded immediately.

"Why not?" Taylor demanded. "You promised me that you’d take me driving."

"That was before Dad laid down the law," Ike protested.

"A promise is a promise and besides how is he going to find out? I’m not planning on telling him. Are you?" Taylor demanded.

"I won’t have to, because we’re not going. Tay, I asked you to give me a couple of days to work on changing Dad’s mind," Ike negotiated.

"Come on Ike, how many times do we get a chance like this?" Taylor pleaded. "We don’t even have to take your precious new car. We can take the van, ‘cause Mom and Dad took the Bronco. I’ve had more practice with the van anyway."

Ike didn’t answer immediately and then he slowly nodded his head in agreement. 

"Yes!" Taylor shouted.

"Yes what?" Zac asked coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of ice cream.

Ike looked at Taylor and then back at Zac. "I’m going to take Tay out for a few minutes. We want you to stay and wait for the pizza."

"No way, I’m going with you." Zac protested instantly suspecting his brothers were up to something.

"Zac, it might be safer for you to stay home," Ike suggested.

"Hey!’ Taylor interrupted.

"Oh, cool," Zac exclaimed. "You’re taking Tay driving!"

"Zac, you’re staying home," Ike exclaimed.

"No way!" Zac protested.

"Yes way!" Taylor interrupted.

"If I stay home, you’ll regret it." Zac threatened.

"You are a major regret," Ike complained but when he backed the van out the driveway, Zac was sitting in the backseat. 

They were barely out of the neighborhood and out of sight of any nosy tattletale neighbors when Ike pulled over and switched seats with his brother. "Be careful!" he admonished.

Taylor was excited. This was actually the first time that he’d driven after dark. Always before it was during daylight hours. He pulled out of the parking lot carefully and followed Ikes directions to get them out past the city limits so the roads would be fairly straight and flat and less traffic. Taylor thought he was doing fine. He hadn’t made any major mistakes, or at least any that Ike had noticed because he hadn’t yelled at him. 

Zac was bored in the backseat. He knew he was courting danger by being in the same vehicle with his brother who, already had a reputation of being a lousy driver, but being a passenger was BORING! Zac started playing games with the vehicles on the road, waving at them and smiling broadly. He knew instantly when someone recognized him. He also knew he made major mistake when one of the cars that he waved at suddenly became a car full of teenage girls with faces pressed up against the windows with their eyes and mouths wide open in surprise.

"What the...." Taylor swerved when a small red car speeded up like it wanted to pass him but instead of moving forward stayed parallel with the front of the van and the driver started honking.

"Oh, no," Ike exclaimed. "We’ve been spotted!"

"What do I do?" Taylor yelled trying to concentrate on staying on the road and keep from veering to the side and sideswiping the car.

"Calm down and hit the gas!" Ike ordered.

Taylor looked over at his brother in surprise and then pressed his foot to the floor and van shot forward. 

Zac howled in delight at the prospect of a chase and began to make racing sound effects from the backseat.

"Shut up, Zac!" Ike and Taylor yelled simultaneously.

"All right!" Zac cheered. "And, the chase is on!"

Taylor sped down the highway nervous but thrilled. The car that had given chase was right on his tail. Ike was orchestrating his brothers driving while keeping a close watch on the vehicle in the side and rear view mirror. 

"I want you to slow down, and when they pull up beside us again I’m going to tell you when to slam on the brakes." Ike ordered.

"Okay," Taylor agreed trying to breathe calmly.

Ike waited until they were on a fairly straight road and then he told his brother to slow down. Taylor complied immediately, and sure enough the car tried to pulled up beside them again. They drove side-by-side for a few seconds and then Ike ordered. "Brake now!"

The van came to a sudden stop and they were thrown against their seatbelts but the red car continued onward.

"Now, turn down that side road, fast!" Ike ordered and then as he watched the car begin to turn around in the middle of the road, he continued to guide his brother through a series of turns. With each turn the car was soon on their tail again. Finally, with a substantial distance in front of the chaser, Ike had his brother turn down a side street, down an alley and then pull up behind a building. Then, he had him turn off the lights and they sat quietly and waited to see if the chasers were going to find them. Finally, after ten minutes of talking quietly, they decided that they had ditched the car for good.

"That was so cool!" Zac exclaimed.

"Not!" Taylor denied and then he grinned. "Well, maybe a little. Now which way do I turn to get us back on the highway?"

"I have no idea," Ike admitted. 

Taylor turned the van around and they took a wild guess about finding their way back home. Unfortunately, their guess was wrong and a half hour later they still had no idea where they were, except that they were further out in the country then when they started. They were looking for a gas station or convenience store but there didn’t seem to be any around. Raindrops began to hit the windshield and Taylor continued to drive while Ike tried to spot someplace where they could get directions. 

"Stop sign," Ike warned looking up and then back down at a map in his lap.

"I see it," Taylor retorted sharply resenting the fact that Ike thought he had to be told. He put his foot on the brake.

"Stop sign!" Ike shouted.

"I’m trying!" Taylor yelled back, panic rising because he knew his foot was on the brake pedal and the brake pedal was almost to the floor but the van was still moving forward. Finally with a sideways slide the van finally stopped, ten feet past the sign.

"God, Taylor!" Ike shouted. "I told you to stop!"

"I tried," Taylor shouted back. "It wouldn’t stop."

"You could have gotten us hit." Ike growled.

"With what?" Taylor demanded. "We haven’t seen another car for miles! It’s not my fault!"

"Fine," Ike snapped. "Just stop the van and I’ll drive now."

"If you haven’t noticed, we are stopped!" Taylor snapped and he opened the van door and stepped out only to slide wildly for a second until he regained his balance and making a wild grab for the door handle.

"Watch it, Ike," Taylor yelled. "The rain has frozen to the road!"

"Terrific," Ike grumbled sliding his way around the front of the van. Taylor had gotten back inside the drivers side and slid across the seat.

"Hey guys," Zac said from the back seat. "We’ve only got an hour before Mom and Dad are due back home. We gotta get back home."

"We’re trying Zac," Ike grumbled getting in the drivers seat. "We told you to stay home!"

"Hey, just cause you got us lost don’t yell at me," Zac pouted.

"Guys, sniping at each other isn’t going to help," Taylor suggested.

"Shut up, Tay!" both Ike and Zac exclaimed together and then they both grinned as their brother faked a shocked and hurt look.

As Ike pulled the van back onto the road, ice crystals were hitting the windshield. He turned the defrosters on full blast to keep the windshield from freezing, but the road was getting slicker by the minute. Taylor took over the job as navigator, looking at the map and hoping to find a road marker that would give them some indication of their location. They continued on for another twenty minutes, and although they weren’t saying it, they were beginning to get scared. Ike was having a hard time seeing through the fogged up and icy windshield. 

"Tay, there’s a sign, Route 134," Ike exclaimed and he slowed the van down to a crawl.

"I’m looking," Taylor exclaimed scanning the map.

"Let me see," Zac exclaimed and he grabbed the edge of the map. 

"Darn it, Zac, now I’ve lost my place!" Taylor complained.

"Then, do it yourself," Zac retorted and shoved the map back towards his brother. "I was only trying to help!"

Taylor yanked the map back and Ike let out a howl as the paper edge of corner of the map poked him in the eye.

Ike was suddenly blinded in his right eye. It only took a second and his eye was full of tears and burning. Taking his hand off steering wheel he covered his eye with one hand and the van swerved off the edge of the road.

Taylor grabbed for the steering wheel and yelled for Ike for stop the vehicle.

When the van came to a sliding halt, Ike was holding his hand over his eye. 

"What happened?" Taylor demanded trying to pull his brother’s hand down. 

"I think my eye is cut," Ike exclaimed. "God, it stings!"

"Let me see," Taylor asked and as Ike removed his hand, he could see that Ike’s eye was already blood red and tearing constantly. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a handful of napkins and handed them to Ike who pressed them against his eye.

"You’re going to have to drive,’ Ike suggested.

Taylor nodded and he jumped out of the passenger side of the van and slipped around to the drivers side again. The road was a solid sheet of ice by this time and he was worried, but he took the wheel firmly.

"We’re bound to run into something pretty soon," Taylor said hopefully.

"Now that’s a happy thought!" Zac exclaimed from the back seat.

"Shut up, Zac!" Ike and Taylor shouted together and then they grinned at each other.

They drove along the empty road for another ten minutes. They were all quiet and worried. What was supposed to be a couple of hours of covert driving time was turning into a nightmare. An animal darted across the road in front of the van and Taylor in a sudden panic to miss it forgot for a second that he was driving on an ice covered surface. But that second of sudden braking was all it took for the van to fishtail across the road out of control.

Ike, Taylor and Zac all yelled at the same time as the van swung first one way across the road and then the other as Taylor tried desperately to get it under control. Then just as he thought he’d gotten it under control, the van suddenly began to slide off the roadway sideways and began to spin in a circular movement. After two full revolutions it came to a jerking and shuttering halt and the engine died.

"Are you guys all right?" Ike demanded looking at his brothers.

Both Taylor and Zac nodded their heads, their eyes wide with shock. Taylor tried to start the van but the ignition just whined and refused to start. He kept trying again and again, but it wouldn’t start. Finally, he stopped and put his head down the steering wheel and moaned.

"Dad is going to kill me!"