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THE FIVE TEENS stood together, as they awaited laurel's scoldings.
"officers thank you. it won't happen again, i can promise you that much."
"tell mr fisher the chief wants to set up a tea time for when he gets back in town."
laurel nods her head, "absolutely. sorry again for all the trouble," she opens the front door, "have a good night, officers." laurel turns to the kids and throws up her hands, "how could you guys be so irresponsible?"
steven steps forward, "mom, it wasn't a big deal. all right?" laurel raises her eyebrows, and steven continues to plead, so they don't get one of laurel's infamous lectures at two a.m. on the first day back, "seriously. the cops were just looking to break up the bonfire."
"not a big deal? i would say getting picked up by the cops for underage drinking is a pretty big deal, steven."
steven furrows his eyebrows as his nose turns up. he scoffs, "were you guys smoking tonight?"
"what?" laurel raises her voice, "keep your voice down. susannah's asleep on the couch.
"well, i wasn't yelling. you-you-you were."
jeremiah steps forward, trying to calm them both down and defend the rest of the group, "just so you know, laurel, i-i didn't drink tonight. i was the dd, i swear."
laurel shakes her head and ignores him, moving on to conrad, "you're the oldest. what the hell's gotten into you?" she turns to look at belly and a scowl makes it onto her face, "and when did you leave the house without telling anybody? and what in the world are you wearing?"
belly covers herself with the fleece that the boy from earlier had given her, "it's taylor's," she answers referring to the dress, "and why am i the only one not who's not allowed to go out?"
"it's not that you're not allowed, it's that you should have told us you were going. how did you even get there?"
"i walked," belly mumbled, looking anywhere but at her mom.
"jesus! you know better than to walk that far down the beach alone late at night!"
belly looks up, "can you stop treating me like a kid?"
"if you want to be treated like an adult, you need to act like one."
conrad finally speaks up, "then maybe you guys should, too."
everyone looks at him and it goes silent before laurel speaks up, "what does that mean? i hope you realize this night could have ended a lot differently if your family wasn't your family."
