mercy ; peter ballard

6. f a m i l y l i n e

march 23, 1986

bea sits with max as the boys go over the article.

"how are you holding up, kiddo?" bea asked as max wrote frantically.

"okay for having less than twenty-four hours left, i guess," max scoffed.

"you know what i do when i'm stressed?" bea asks with a hopeful smile.

max looks up at her, shaking her head.

"i think of happy times with the people i love and i listen to my favorite music," bea suggests, smirking. her voice changes to a sing-song tone. "and i know someone likes a bit of kate bush.

max cracks a small smile. bea wraps an arm around her shoulders, giving her a side hug.

"let me know if you need something. i'm going to lay down for a bit."

"thanks, bea," max smiles, returning back to writing. bea stands up walking over to the boys.

suddenly, nancy and robin run down the basement stairs, each holding a folder.

"okay, so...we have a plan," nancy smiles, proudly.

steve opens one of the folders as they explain.

"thanks to nancy's newspaper minions, we are now rock-star psychology students at the university of notre dame," robin says, sitting down on a stool.

"i'm now ruth."

"and i'm rose."

"ruth?" steve questioned, looking up at nancy.

dustin scans the folder. "nice gpa."

"thanks!" nancy replied. "so we called pennhurst asylum, told them we'd like to speak with victor creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics—"

"to which they said no," robin adds.

"but we landed a three o'clock with the director."

"now all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to victor."

"then maybe we can rid max of this curse."

the group looks to max who continues to write on.

"yeah, about that," steve adds. "we've been doing our victor creel homework, and, uh...we got some questions."

"lots of questions," lucas repeats.

"so do we," nancy responds. "hopefully, victor has the answers."

steve furrowed his eyebrows lifting up the folders. "wait...wait...wait a second. uh...where's mine?"

steve follows nancy upstairs, arguing with her about not wanting to babysit. robin follows closely behind, rolling her eyes.

"jeez, i don't mind babysitting," bea sighs, sitting on the floor.