Stand and Speak

By Jenna Webster

For whom and for what will you stand and speak? When do you stand and speak against those pressing upon you and yours? When is it time for whispers and murmurs to become roars? When are words no longer enough and you need to speak not with your mouth but with your actions?

As a lawyer, leader, anthro-bear, wife, and mother Naomi knows the answers to these questions for herself, her family and her people. An act of unprovoked violence against her young daughter and the unacceptable responses of others to her son's defense of his younger sister will result in Naomi being arrested twice. The response to the assault on her daughter as well as the near death of her infant son will lead to Naomi and her men to engineer a bar brawl and take a man’s son from him to keep her and hers safe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jenna Webster
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310759277

Jenna Webster

I live near Austin, TX with my husband and our little fluffy yippy dog, Sasha. I love to laugh and enjoy a good joke and I even enjoy bad jokes. I have been a long time fan of 9GAG and it is one of my favorite time wasters. I also enjoy watching documentaries, reality TV is something I can and at times do enjoy if there is more substance than drama.I have recently opened new Twitter and Facebook accounts. You are welcome to come say hi to me on Twitter or Facebook or e-mail me at [e-mail], please make my day by sharing me a funny joke with me.

Book preview

Stand and Speak

By: Jenna B. Webster

Book 1: Boss

Copyright 2014 Jenna B. Webster

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 01

I pushed my chair away from my desk shaking my head as I called out, Isn’t there a law against this sort of insurrection? Trisha, check on that for me please, look under treason and munity laws.

Naomi dear, I am almost sure babies are immune from prosecution. You’d never get a jury to convict. Mary answered laughing.

Hey, when did you get a law degree? I thought you were a super granny nanny. Are you part of the treasonous conspiracy trying to scab my clients while the babies keep me distracted from your real purpose? I asked in a huff.

Mary tickled my sons Isaac and PJ as she cooed, Oh, no she’s figured us out, we played our hand too strong. Now she’s going to be looking for those off shore accounts.

Trisha popped her head into my office, Sparta is what I can get you for precedence on feeding hungry babies being a treasonous act. But as you hadn’t left any of them exposed on rocks it would be a tough case for us to win. Mary’s right about the jury trail. We’d be sunk once PJ starts reaching for you and doing his endearingly pitiful Mama whimpering thing he does.

PJ was fourteen months old a little under two months older than Isaac and he had grown quite a bit physically and developmentally in the five months since we had adopted him but, he was still smaller than his brother by a great deal and his size still worried me some. He still also refused to even take any food or drinks from anyone other than myself or my husband, Doug. PJ had been abused, neglected and more than half starved before we had adopted him. I was not willing to mirror the neglect even enough to try to wait him out in his crying to see that he was fed by someone else.

Isaac on the other hand was a beast of a baby that I was almost as concerned about him being too big as I was about PJ being too small. My father was a pediatrician and promised me just that morning both boys were within healthy range for their lengths. Being the affable chubby beast he was, Isaac was happy to have anyone give him anything if it had just a little bit of chocolate mixed in it. Including his twenty month old sister Paige who was right then doing just that, happily sharing her bottle with him.

I took PJ and the bottle Mary handed me thanked her as I sat. I bent enough to kiss Paige and Isaac’s foreheads saying, Hello there, you two are doing a nice job sharing.

Mama, baba, Paagee, eye, eye, numnum, baba, Paige burbled happily.

Yes, you and Isaac are sharing the bottle very nicely. I answered smiling. I lifted PJ up gave him kisses on the cheek until he burbled happily giving me wet sweet baby kisses in return.

Paige, never one to be left out of anything, knelt up, leaned over and gave both PJ and I her own kisses. Then she crawled up onto my lap holding up her bottle and called out for Isaac. Isaac was an agreeable sort and rocked himself onto his hands and knees and crawled right up after Paige and her chocolate milk burbling happily with what I knew was his approximation of Paige’s name and bottle.

Thankfully after the first few weeks PJ didn’t jealously guard his feeding times and was happy with his brother and sister’s company as long as Doug or I were the ones feeding him. Other than feeding times he played and shared happily with all of his siblings. We were still having some hiccups about feedings but all things considered I was happy with the progress he had made.

Trisha looked around behind her before she leaned herself against the doorjamb and asked in a hushed tone, Are you really going to take them?

I gave PJ his bottle and sighed a little I promised his mother I would at least once. I went to see him when he got out of the hospital. He didn’t remember me and I don’t expect him to remember Leah or PJ even with his mother’s coaching.

Trisha crossed her arms, He was a scumbag before she shot him. A bullet doesn’t make everything he did and didn’t do all better. It pisses me off that everyone is pretending he wasn’t a scumbag that had it coming at least a little. She’s a psycho hoes beast no debate but he wasn’t a whole lot better. Trisha huffed out.

Mary lifted her brows, Does that make me a, nobody to you young lady?

Well, uh, no, uh you know, Trisha started then shook her head, I need to learn to do that shaming with the lifting of the eyebrows thing. No, not anyone in the family because we’re not stupid. Other people talking about poor scumbag got shot in the head and he survived, he is so brave such an inspiration kind of crap I hear at school.

I scooted Isaac more onto my lap, patted the couch Come sit tell Mary and I about your day. Using my powerful super lawyer girl skills of deduction I’d say it was rough.

Trisha did some back pedaling telling us it was okay but, I only needed to pat the couch and invite her once more for her to sink down between Mary and I and tell us about her day. She was still in high school and would be graduating this June and was clerking part time for me after school. She had aspirations of being the second female lawyer in our family’s law firm. She had the ability, temperament and drive to be a fabulous lawyer. We were all trying to encourage her and I had been given the pleasure of mentoring her and most of the time it was fun for both of us.

Isaac crawled off my lap onto Trisha’s scaled up to her shoulder and gave her a sweet baby kiss. Paige looked at her bottle then at Isaac and Trisha then back at her bottle stuffed it into her mouth and carried it with her teeth as she went to join Isaac and Trisha for hugs and kisses. When she got onto Trisha’s lap, she took her bottle out of her mouth and pushed it into Trisha’s mouth and gave her kisses and cooed her attempt at all better as she adorably patted Trisha’s shoulder. Trisha sniffled a little as she made a show out of pretending to drink out of Paige’s bottle before she returned it to Paige. She hugged Paige and Isaac and whispered thank you to both of them giving them kisses on their foreheads and cheeks.

After a few minutes Trisha did get around to telling Mary and I about what had upset her that afternoon. Trisha had what I had hoped was a fleeting crush that would have passed by now on a young police officer named Stan. It wasn’t wholly unseemly or illegal because she was eighteen and he twenty one. A month ago after a great deal of speaking about him with me among others she had asked him out on a date for the day after she graduated from high school and he had accepted. Trisha was upset because she had seen Stan with his arm around a very pretty blonde woman going into a café on her way over to the office.

There was a part of me that wanted to let Trisha continue to assume Stan had been on a lunch date and not have her speak to him again and work past her crush. Instead I asked about the woman and after a few moments I told her the woman was very probably his sister, Elise. We had both she and Stan over to dinner the night before, she was a very nice woman.

Elise was visiting her brother and parents in Anchorage for a long weekend up from Juneau. I also knew from dinner conversation they had, had a late lunch date for today so I was pretty sure unless there had been two blondes hanging on to Stan and talking his ear off it was his sister. The mystery as to why he was often quiet was solved for me within minutes of meeting Elise. She was a talker and spoke enough for three people. Thankfully she hadn’t been overly obnoxious or rude about it, she was just excitable and shared her excitement a lot.

Trisha leaned into my side thanked me and apologized for unloading on me she had known Elise was going to be in town she had just forgotten when she had seen Stan with her. It had gotten her thinking about my scumbag ex-husband Phillip who had run around all the time. She had spent the rest of the drive thinking on how all men were scum like Phillip and she should forsake them all. She had gotten herself worked up on the theme that all men sucked before she had gotten to the office.

I nodded as I agreed a lot of men did suck but there were quite a few good ones. I added there were a fair number of women sucked just as much if not more than the scumbag men. If some women weren’t scumbags too I wouldn’t be feeding PJ right then and his biological mother wouldn’t be in prison for the next twenty-five to life. Phillip hadn’t cheated on me on his own, that would have been masturbation not cheating.

There was blame enough to go around to give some to the trash who had known Phillip had been married and had slept with him anyway. There were also women around who didn’t stand for such things like Phillip’s last mistress Paula. She had upon finding out he had a wife and baby at home tossed him and his things out of their hotel room and refused him reentry. I reminded Trisha that Paula like her wasn’t under the misconception that Phillip’s past sins had been wiped clean by his second wife shooting him.

Paula knocked lightly on the doorjamb and asked if she should pretend to not have been eavesdropping. She had recognized the men sucking look from Trisha when she had come in and took a break to see if her help was needed with that theme. I laughed a little as I asked when she was going to come out of the closet and admit she was a demon. We knew by now she was summoned by the uttering of her name and she could stop pretending it was coincidence she just happened to show up and always sought a direct invitation to enter another’s space.

Trisha waved her in and said please join us, she was done thinking all men sucked but she was still in a mood and if Paula wanted to come out of the demon closet it would be cool with her. They could talk about how a lot of people were stupid and sucked and plan their demise. Paula smiled as she shook her head and said as supernatural friendly as Alaska was demons still had a bad rep. She stepped into the room as she continued, if she was a demon she wouldn’t be admitting so at her work place.

I shrugged and said that made sense the fodder for jokes would be just about endless. Not being above such things and for the sheer comedy of it I’d probably insist on having the firm pay for her continuing education to become a lawyer rather than a paralegal. Paula laughed as she asked who was trying to tempt who, was this my way of coming out of the demon closet and see if her soul was up for barter.

I laughed softly as I shifted PJ on my shoulder patted his back gently. I said Paula should have read her employment contract more carefully. Even without reading it, being a top notch paralegal she should know the law firm was legally required to insist all of our staff relinquish their souls upon hiring. She sat down in the chair next to the couch and we visited until we were interrupted by the phone on my desk ringing.

Trisha bounced up taking Paige with her who was the only of the babies still awake, both Isaac and PJ had fallen asleep shortly after the bottles had been finished. She asked cheerily if I was irritated with either of my two husbands that afternoon. I shook my head and said no, but Doug was the favorite husband for the day if it was Arthur on the line and she was welcome to have some fun with it after ensuring our three elder children, Leah, Dominic and Mason, were alright. He was supposed to be picking the three up from kindergarten that day.

It was Arthur and Trisha dutifully asked if our older children were okay in a very good put upon tone while grinning and bouncing Paige in her arms. She conveyed his less favored husband status hilariously before she sighed and said she’d see if I would talk to him anyway. I stood very carefully and slowly, PJ was a light sleeper and often had issues going back to sleep after he woke.

Arthur informed me he was in the line of other cars picking up children at the school and had called to see how my day was going and if I wanted our three eldest children brought to the office or if he should take them home. He also wanted to know what crime he had committed to get less favored husband status. I sighed heavily as I said it must be nice to be able to forget such things so easily, I reminded him that day it was to be his fault he had needed to hold my hair that morning while I had been ill again.

It had been Doug’s fault the day before and I was being equitable in blaming them on alternating days and not blaming anyone on Saturdays. He assured me he hadn’t forgotten I was carrying the twins he had merely forgotten it was his day to be blamed for the pair’s inconsiderate behavior of making me ill upon waking. He was purposefully trying to block out the unpleasantness of that morning and the others. He had, had no idea morning sickness could be that bad he was truly sorry I was going through it.

After I was placated enough by his apology I said I had planned on leaving early that afternoon, I was still working only half days and had come in early for me that morning. I’d need to do some work at home and had been waiting for Trisha to come in to see if she wanted to work with her grandfather, my Uncle Clyde, for the afternoon or was up to going to our home for the majority of her work day.

I hadn’t gotten that far yet but if he wasn’t pressed for time he could swing by with our three older children and we’d get Leah’s help to drag Grandpa home with us to finish his work day there. I had already checked with his clerk and Grandpa didn’t have any client meetings for the afternoon. Arthur told me he wasn’t pressed for time, he had some work on his desk but nothing that needed to go out before the next day and he’d be happy to bring the kids into the office.

Doug would appreciate the extra time of quiet in the house he had been trying to finish up some sort of bug report when Arthur had left the house. If we lingered at the office for a half hour or so Doug should be done before we got home. He would very likely enjoy the distraction of wrangling the four elder children for a time. Then Arthur mentioned he had heard Paige in the background when Trisha had been talking to him and assumed correctly she was continuing her embargo on naps.

I said I would talk to Trisha before he got to the office with Mason, Dominic and Leah. I reminded him the elder children had ballet and karate that evening so dinner would be early. It would be great if he didn’t allow them to talk him stopping for snacks on the way over and they ended up getting hungry in the middle of their activities.

Arthur thanked me for the reminder and said he would remain strong on the snack issue. It had slipped his mind and probably wouldn’t have remembered until after the snacks had been distributed. When he was the next in line we said goodbye and we loved one another before we disconnected the call. Trisha was agreeable to going to our home to work there and staying for dinner. I had already spoken to Mary and Paula when I had gotten in that morning and gotten their agreement as well.

We had also already worked out Mary’s husband Ted would be coming over in time for dinner as well. They were both very dedicated honorary grandparents bent on spoiling my children half rotten they accepted most invitations we issued for them to come over the house. Shortly after receiving Trisha’s agreement my phone rang again I was still standing next to it and answered it.

It was Arthur, the kids were okay, Mason was suspended for the rest of the week. He had punched a second grader for shoving Leah to the ground. It was taken care of but he was going with proud and wanted me on board. I asked if he wanted me to come down and get nasty about it. The zero tolerance policy was ridiculous it taught nothing but the children to be victims. It was completely asinine to suspend a kindergartener for righteously defending his sister.

Arthur answered, if I wanted to come down on the vice principle, Mr. Paver, and show Mason support he would appreciate it. He was planning on keeping the three of them home at least for the next day but we could discuss those ideas at home later. I told Arthur I would be there within ten minutes and if he could manage it I would appreciate it if he did not to allow the little punk or his parents to leave before I got there either. Paula handed me a note I quickly scrolled directions onto it and told Trisha to take it to my grandfather, her great-grandfather.

Arthur said neither of the boy’s parents were there yet and I might beat them to the school but he’d do his best to hold them there if I didn’t. He had some choice words to say about raising a boy who thought shoving a girl at all was acceptable especially a little girl he outweighed by at least twice. Mason had by all accounts thrown a truly admirable punch laying the larger boy down impressively.

He was having all sorts of warm fuzzy paternal feelings about our boy. Arthur decided to call ahead to ensure at the very least I would be caught up properly if I got a call from the school about Mason’s suspension before they arrived. The vice principle had not been impressed with Arthur’s reaction to the news Mason had punched the other boy. Arthur and Mason had been concerned the man would try to do a run around and try to get me upset at Mason while they were all awaiting the other boy’s parents.

I said he was a smart man and an excellent judge of character, Paula had just indicated the man was on the line. I was planning on keeping him on hold and leave. If the cosmos were feeling kind he’d still be on the line when I knocked on his door. Before I let Arthur go I said to give Mason hugs and kisses for me and promise him he wasn’t getting in trouble with me. Instead he should be thinking about what he wanted to have for his special dinner we’d eat in or out on Mason’s choice.

When I hung up the phone Grandpa was standing in my office door with the note I had sent Trisha with and his coat on. He was ready to go. He also knew it was equally asinine to suspend a boy for standing up for himself or his little sister. Trisha had also rousted her own grandfather, my Uncle Clyde and he wanted to come as well to lend support for Mason and help discuss the inherent dangers of conditioning children to become victims themselves and apathetic to the abuse of others.

Chapter 02

We got to the school within five minutes of me having disconnected the call with Arthur. There was still a line of parent’s cars waiting for their turn to pick up their children but we bypassed them and parked my SUV in the guest parking. We unloaded ourselves and the three babies quickly.

Mary, Paula and Trisha had hopped in for the ride claiming they’d act as baby holders for the price of the show of watching my grandfather, uncle and I descend upon the vice principle, principle and superintendant. The last of whom had been summoned by Arthur for me so I needn’t tip my hand before arriving.

I had also texted for a favor from my favorite officer of the law, Rick. He said he and his partner would meet us at the school for Leah. I had every intention of scaring the crap out of the little punk bully who had pushed my baby girl. It was also illustration to the administration what the consequences of true zero tolerance policies actually were. They might be lords of their little fiefdom but their blind blanket policies weren’t law. There were very good reasons there were laws to protect victims of assault and those who stopped an assault.

Rick was as good as his word and he and his partner Stan were pulling into the school’s parking lot in their police car before we had the babies unloaded. Elise jumped out of the back when Stan opened the door for her. As Elise waved and said hi to me I waved back and quietly asked Trisha if Elise was her mystery woman, she nodded. I smiled and said hello to Elise.

Elise skidded to a stop in front of me and said it was every American girl’s right to have her big brother punch bullies for her and she very much wanted to help. She worked for child services in Juneau and had her credentials. She wanted to help scare the be-Jesus out of the administration for trying to chastise Mason for doing what was correct morally and developmentally. She reminded me she had two impressive degrees along with her work experience. She could spout all sorts of things until their heads imploded.

I welcomed her to the team and promised we’d not leave her, her impressive credentials or her mouth on the bench. We all walked into the front office of the school. My children were sitting on Arthur’s lap being read to while a sullen little boy sat on the opposite end of the room holding an ice pack to his nose. I picked up Leah off of Arthur’s lap, kissed her forehead and kissed Mason’s said we were all proud of him and kissed Dominic’s forehead told him I was proud of him as well. Keeping Leah in my arms I looked at the gaping secretary and said pleasantly I had been informed the vice principle Mr. Paver wished to speak to me.

A few moments later, Vice Principle Paver, Principle Quinn and Superintendant Wallis came out of the office. Out of courtesy I let the Mr. Paver go through his prepared remarks about what he was calling the fighting incident and the school’s zero tolerance policy. When he finished I asked him to please define the word, fight. He stumbled though an explanation about school policies about physical contact.

I shook my head and said as a professional educator he had to be aware that words had meanings that could not be redefined on a whim or convenience. I then defined fighting for him, Webster’s definition as well as the state of Alaska’s definition. What had happened between the boy and my daughter had not been a fight. It had been assault, my son coming to her defense was not a fight or assault as it was covered several times over through Alaska’s Good Samaritan Statutes.

Mason had stopped an assault upon his younger sister’s person and had not further engaged the boy after the demonstrative threat to his sister’s well being had been neutralized. I then asked if they were under the misconception school policies and dictates superseded Alaskan and federal law. Then I handed it off to Grandpa who went into precedent of lending aid to a person being assaulted and the legal ramifications for those who actively enabled the abuse or assault of any person and specifically a small child.

Uncle Clyde was given the ball on the legal and moral ramifications on creating a victim culture as well as attempting to punish people for standing up for someone being abused or assaulted. Allowing a girl or woman to get abused and assaulted by someone twice her size while a boy or man ran for an authority figure was not an acceptable solution to offer anyone.

Elise took over from Uncle Clyde showing her ID and lit into the three men as to why Mr. Paver had behaved in an inappropriate manner to the boy’s bullying of Leah and Mason’s response to it. If they truly wished to enforce a zero tolerance policy they should have called her office in Anchorage and involved child services instead of her getting the information