Sarah and Richard ate mostly in silence within the picturesque dining room. A large meal of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed broccoli, and buttered biscuits was arrayed across the glossy sheen of an imported oak table. An expensive, espresso colored grandfather clock stood monolithically in the corner and ticked away each uncomfortable second.
Tick...tock...tick...tock...
"Pass the biscuits please," Richard requested of his son Eric.
Ten year old Eric, who idly used a fork to push the mostly uneaten food around his plate, seemed oblivious to his father's words. He instead stared absent-mindedly through a cold-frosted sliding glass door and into the darkness of the early winter evening.
Richard sighed heavily before he said calmly but sharply, "Eric."
Hearing his name snapped Eric from his reverie. The young boy moved his head and turned his pale blue eyes quickly to the left which caused his straight, crow black hair to rustle against his cheek. Eric locked gaze ever so briefly with that of his father before he cast his gaze downward.
"Sorry dad," he apologized before he lifted the glass dish that contained the biscuits and placed it within his father's reach, his eyes never lifting their sight from the table top.
Sarah listened to the brief interplay between father and son, sensitive to the fact that Eric still felt he had been punished unjustly. Being a good and loving wife she had to stand firmly behind any discipline meted out by her husband Richard, but inwardly Sarah was very proud of her son. Eric had protected his sister even if how he'd gone about it was wrong.
She reached across the table, touched Eric's hand with an understanding gesture, and asked, "It's the best thing in the world that Zerra has such a caring brother, Eric, but you know why you've been grounded, don't you?"
"Yes," Eric responded flatly, his voice devoid of expression.
"You broke the boy's nose, son," Richard explained in an even tone. "He had to go to the hospital. You could be
expelled
."
Eric's younger sister Zerrafina, who had been silent to this point in their family's evening meal, interjected, "But...Tommy was
hurting
me, daddy!"
Zerra's brilliant, emerald green eyes glistened softly with moisture, the eight year old on the verge of tears at the fresh memory...
Tommy Jensen, for some unknown reason, had been picking on Eric's sister for a couple of weeks. It was mostly just verbal taunts during recess and the occasional spitball hurled during class, but this afternoon Tommy had pinned little Zerra to the ground in a little-used hallway after school. The bully was roughly pulling Zerrafina's long, straight locks of cornsilk blonde hair with one hand while he used the other arm to grind the point of his elbow painfully against the sternum of the much smaller girl.
"Whatchu gonna do, whatchu gonna do? You gonna cry?" the heavier Tommy ridiculed with a cruel derision in his voice as he used his greater size to keep Zerra from struggling free.
Zerrafina
was
crying and begging for Tommy to stop when Eric, who had been searching for his sister so they could head home together, heard her plaintive cries. Eric had run toward the sound of his younger sibling's voice when he turned the corner and took in the scene.
"No one hurts Zerra," Eric growled in a low, menacing, almost animal voice.
Tommy looked up at the sound, and his eyes grew as wide as saucer dishes when he realized Zerra's brother was charging toward him at a dead sprint. To his detriment Tommy froze with sudden panic and fear as the older boy barreled toward him.
"RRWAAAA!" Eric bellowed as he swung his thick math book sideways and double-handed like a baseball bat.
-THOCK-
The heavy textbook connected solidly across Tommy's face, threw the boy backward, and broke his nose in the process. After a sparse moment of shock had passed Tommy began to cry tears of pain, and a low moan of agony escaped his lips as blood poured profusely from his nostrils. The injured boy clamped his hands instinctively to his face in a mostly vain attempt to staunch the flow.
In the meantime Eric helped lift little Zerra from the floor of the dark brown, carpeted hallway and asked, "Are you alright? He didn't hurt you bad did he?"
Zerra sniffled once and replied, "No...I'm...I'm okay now that you're here."
She looked up into her brother's pale blue gaze and saw the undeniable love and concern written upon his face as plainly as if she were reading a book. Her heart swelled with happiness, and Zerrafina suddenly felt safe and warm. It was like staring into the eyes of a guardian angel whose soft, feathered wings were draped gently around her in a warm halo of light like an impenetrable armor that could easily deflect the world's worst slings and arrows.
Zerra hugged her brother with a sudden tighness and said, "Thank you, Eric. You're the best brother I could ever have."
"It...it was nothing," Eric responded as he suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable at the attention.
"I think you broke my nose," Tommy wailed painfully through his sobbing.
Zerrafina loosed her embrace as she felt her brother gently try to move away. Eric took two quick steps toward Tommy. The bleeding boy cowered and cringed at his approach.
"And if you
ever
touch my sister again I'll break your arms," Eric threatened in a dire tone that left no doubt in Tommy's mind he was deadly serious.
Eric turned away, took his sister's hand, and said, "C'mon, Zerra, let's go home..."
It was at that moment the school counselor, Ms. Vale, walked around the corner and asked, "
