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"You pick up the weirdest shit, big brother," Tommy comments as he sees what's in Joel's hand. It was a stuffed giraffe that he found under the bed from what was probably a small girl's bedroom from decades ago. "Don't tell me that's for Ellie. Ain't she a little too old for stuffed animals?"
"Mind your own business," he dismisses as he carefully places it inside his bag. "C'mon, we need to get back before school's over."
"Ellie will survive a school day without you waiting for her outside like a guard dog, Joel."
"You'll understand when your kid starts school," was all he replies.
"That's not until a few more years and I ain't gonna be a helicopter parent like you," Tommy shrugs knowingly, as if the few months of being a parent gave him the right to already say things like that. He just glares at him and motions for him to hurry it up. If they don't leave within the next half hour, they won't make it in time for school's end. He didn't want a repeat of that one time that they were late and Ellie scowled the whole walk back home like a kicked puppy, mumbling under her breath that she thought he was dead.
"Survived without a scratch?" he asks later when he picks her up, the same question he asks everyday since he picked her up months ago for her first day.
"None as always," she reports. "Did you find anything good?"
"Maybe," he says mysteriously, he doesn't plan on giving her the giraffe today, wanting to wash it all up first just to make sure it didn't carry any bacteria or something.
She narrows her eyes at him, "You did. You found something. Tell me!"
"It won't exactly be a surprise if I tell you about it, won't it?"
"C'mon, tell me, tell me!" she almost jumps up and down with the anticipation, her eyes bright and full of excitement.
"Uh-uh," he shakes his head. "You'll get it tomorrow."
"Is it a Savage Starlight comic book?
"C'mon, time to go home, tell me what you learned today," he says, ignoring her question.
"Unfair!" she pouts.
He just chuckles at her and pretty soon she was already telling him about whatever science lesson they had as they make their way home.
He presents the giraffe to her the next day, he's washed it and dried it under the sun while she was at school, and before leaving to pick her up, leaves it on the dining table for her to find.
"A giraffe!!!" she gasps as she runs towards it and displays it high up in the air in delight. It's almost identical to her reaction when they saw actual giraffes back in Utah, exactly just how he hoped her reaction would be. "I'm naming him Spot!"
"Shouldn't Spots be more appropriate?" he suggests.
"Oh yeah," she nods as she turns it around and inspects its numerous markings. "Great thinking! Spots it is!"
"Ya like it?" he asks in hope.
"Are you kidding me? It's freakin' awesome, Joel! Thank you!" she runs to him and gives him a hug, Spots right between them.
He sees Spots everywhere after that- the dining table while they eat, the couch when they watch movies, in her bed tucked right in beside her when she sleeps, and he knows she even brings him to school, hidden right inside her backpack amongst all her papers and books.
A few weeks later, Spots was still a permanent fixture in their lives and she's even put in a thread through one of its ears so she can dangle him like a keychain. He watches her walk away with Spots swinging around on her backpack every morning as he drops her off at school. He knows what a teenaged girl with a stuffed animal might look like to others, as evidenced by Tommy's look and raised eyebrow the first time he saw it on Ellie's bag, he challenged him with a look to try and make a big deal out of it, and his brother didn't say anything else about it after that. He'd deal with anyone who dares make a comment about it.
It was Wednesday, his patrol duty day, and he waits outside the school for her after having come back with time to spare and more. He watches the other kids, most of them already a familiar face for him, come out of the building. Ellie was usually in the middle of the crowd or sometimes one of the last ones, today, everyone was already out and she still hasn't shown. He decides to just go in and see where she was, he knows where her classroom was having already gone there before.
"Oh, Mr. Miller!" Mrs. Stevens greets him as he enters the classroom with no more students and no Ellie.
"Afternoon, Ma'am," he gives her a curt nod as greeting, if he had a cowboy hat, he'd tip it for her, she seems like a lady that would like that sort of thing. "I was wondering if you've seen Ellie around?"
"Oh my, they didn't tell you," the old lady says suddenly all flustered. "They did say you were out on patrol but that they'd tell you as soon as you go through the gates. She's at the clinic, there was a fight and..."
He never hears the rest of her story as he's already out the door. He finds her sitting on one of the chairs in the receiving area of the clinic building, looking like a kid waiting outside of the principal's office, readying herself to either deny or confess to her sins.
"Not scratch free today," she mutters under her breath, as she looks down embarrassed as soon as she sees him.
He sighs in relief that she was at least visibly okay. He stands before her and lifts her head up with her chin, there's a laceration on her left cheek, a bruise already starting to appear with it. It's been given first aid from the looks of it, already smothered with betadine and some sort of ointment. "That's one hell of a scratch, kid. You okay?"
"Yeah," she nods.
"Wanna tell me what happened?" he asks as he sits down beside her.
"You want the version where I sound like a badass motherfucker or the truth?"
"I want the version where you tell me the name of the punk that did this so I can show him what a badass motherfucker I am," he tells her.
"I got him good, don't worry," she says smugly.
"Okay, the truth then?"
"He took Spots and didn't want to give him back, dangled him up in the air over me," she says in an annoyed and angry tone. "I told him to give it back and he wouldn't... So I clocked him right on the nose, caught Spots from his hands, and then before I know it, he punched me right back."
"Spots okay?"
"Yeah, but he's got blood all over him now," she says dejectedly as she removes the giraffe in question from her coat pocket. "And he ripped him from my bag so his ear is ripped, see? That kid was an asshole with a capital A, I should have kicked him in the balls. Hard."
He silently agrees as he looks at Spots who was all bloody and ripped as if he also went through a fight like his owner. He thinks about how he would have done the same thing if it were him, but he's supposed to be a good role model, so he just decides that this is a chance for a lesson.
"Ellie, you should never throw the first punch," he tells her.
"Why not!? He started it!" she whines in protest.
"Because you always gotta be the bigger guy," he says. "Also, it's not worth getting hurt over a stuffed animal."
"Hey! Spots isn't just a stuffed animal," she frowns as her grip tightens on the giraffe and moves it closer to her in a protective gesture. "You gave him to me, he's important."
He realizes it then, it's like how she was protective of that damn Will Livingston pun book, a gift from her friend Riley as she said. It made it all the way to Jackson from Boston because she'd held on to it through it all, she treasures things not because of what they were or how much they were worth, she treasures them because of what they mean. Spots was definitely not just a stuffed animal for her, just like the watch on his wrist wasn't just a broken old thing.
"You mad or disappointed at me or something?" she grumbles.
"Nah," he shakes his head, how can he even be mad at her for defending what is important to her, he'd have done the same thing and more over for sure.
"You sure?"
"You're good," he reassures as he carefully places an arm around her shoulder to pull her against him. "Never again though, right?"
"No more scratches," she nods in agreement, leaning into him closer. "I think you need to sign me out."
"Okay," he nods and moves to stand up. "We need to render first aid to Spots once we get home, get him good as new."
Before he gets out of his chair, a middle-aged man suddenly comes barging into the room and stops right in front of Ellie.
"You the kid who broke my son's nose?" the man asks, like a man looking for trouble.
"We got a problem here?" he asks as he stands up to put himself in between them.
"Teach your kid how to behave, old man, I'm not sure where you folks came from but we don't go around breaking noses around here," he says in an angry, accusing tone.
He takes a step forward, forcing the man to take a step back, he had a few inches over him, though he didn't really need to be taller than this man to take him down if needed. "Well, tell your kid, your son, not to take things that aren't his and that it's not nice to hit girls."
"Well, tell your kid not to carry stuffed animals like a damn baby then," the man points back at Spots in Ellie's hands.
That did it.
"Ellie?" he looks back at her. "Forget everything I told you earlier, sometimes it really is okay to throw the first punch."
She nods and actually grins, her whole face lit up with a twinkle in her eyes. He then punches the man on the face, hitting his nose straight on, the man retaliates after the initial shock, just as he expected and their fight rolls on. The scuffle ends when one of the clinic aides finally gets in between them.
He ends up with a split lip and a laceration just like Ellie's on his left cheek. And just like his son, the man ends up with a broken nose and even more and was whisked away by another aide towards the other room. With the man gone, he takes a seat back beside Ellie to catch his breath, it's been a while since he was in a good-for-nothing-bar-fight. He's still got it though, he thinks satisfactorily.
"You got him good," Ellie whispers approvingly at him. So much for being a good role model, he sighs.
The aide, with a disapproving glare, works on his wounds, dabbing them harder than he probably should have. He then asks who to call to sign both of them out and leaves them to wait for Tommy who didn't come until minutes and minutes later, much to his and Ellie's impatience.
"Aren't you two a sight for sore eyes," Tommy hides an amused smile horribly as he looks over them as soon as he enters the clinic.
"Just sign us out," he orders his gloating brother.
"Oh, these are for you," the aide hands him some papers. "First warning."
Tommy whistles as he looks at the two slips of papers. "Hope that's the last of those for you two."
"What is it?" Ellie asks, trying to look at it from beside him.
"Yellow slips, it's like a police write-up here, you collect enough and you get the boot. Haven't seen anyone collect enough though," he muses and then eyes the two of them back and forth, and in a teasing tone speaks again. "Maybe you two will be the first."
"Just sign us out, Thomas Jay," Ellie says with an eyeroll and he couldn't help but let out a laugh at Tommy's annoyed look at the use of his real name.
After the aide finishes instructing Tommy about wound cleaning and observing for concussion, they finally make it home and he pulls out the yellow slips from his inside pocket. He puts it right next to Ellie's Outstanding Student certificate on the refrigerator. He looks at them proudly, like trophies, they were reminders that no one messes with the Millers. And Spots.
Ellie Miller
Offense: Fighting, 1st warning
Joel Miller
Offense: Fighting, 1st warning
Like father, like daughter.