The following Tuesday, I arrived at the Dunphy house with a stack of flashcards and a laptop bag. My Total Recall told me this was the week the "Starry Night" fallout settled—Jay was feeling closer to Manny, and Gloria was feeling relieved. But in this house, the pressure was rising.
"Mason! You're back!" Claire said, blocking the doorway with a tray of celery sticks and ranch. Her eyes were darting between my bag and my face. "I thought you might be too busy with football to help Haley today. Isn't there a... big game film to watch? Or a locker room to... sit in?"
"I'm ahead of schedule, Claire," I said, stepping inside. "The coach is happy, and I promised Haley we'd tackle the reading comprehension section."
"Right. Reading. Because Haley loves words. Usually the ones with three letters like 'OMG' or 'LOL'," Claire muttered, her eyes narrowing.
[INTERVIEW - CLAIRE]Claire is holding a pair of binoculars, looking startled when she realizes she's still holding them.Claire: "I'm not spying. I'm 'monitoring the household ecosystem.' Alex is upstairs whispering into a headset about 'liquid assets,' and Haley is in the dining room with a boy who is—let's be honest—distractingly handsome and strangely brilliant. It's like a heist movie in my own living room, and I'm the security guard who just realized someone stole the vault."
I sat down with Haley. She looked stressed—genuinely stressed. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was tapping her pen against a notebook.
"My mom has been walking past this room every five minutes," Haley whispered, leaning in close. I could smell her perfume—something floral and light. "She thinks we're doing something bad. If she finds out I'm actually learning something, she'll never let me live it down. It'll be 'Haley the Scholar' for the rest of my life."
"Let her think what she wants," I said, opening the book. "Focus on the passage. Paragraph three. What's the author's tone?"
"Annoyed? Like me?"
"Try 'Cynically Detached'," I corrected. I reached over to point at a line, and my hand brushed against hers. She didn't pull away immediately. Instead, she looked at me, her guard dropping just a fraction.
"Thanks, Mason," she said softly. "For, you know... not treating me like I'm stupid. Everyone else in this house has a 'Haley box' they put me in. You're the only one who treats me like I can actually get out of it."
"You're smarter than they give you credit for, Haley," I said. "You just apply it to social dynamics. I'm just showing you how to translate that to a test."
[INTERVIEW - HALEY]Haley is looking at her nails, trying to act casual.Haley: "Mason isn't like the guys at school. Dylan is great, but sometimes I feel like I have to lead him around like a golden retriever. Mason... Mason leads. But he does it in a way that makes me want to keep up. It's annoying. And also... not annoying."
I felt a vibration in my pocket. I looked at the screen of my phone. ALEX: M - Sector 4. The Inquisitor is in the hallway. Switch to the 'Decoy' screen.
"Haley, look at the diagram," I said loudly, just as the door creaked open.
Claire "stumbled" into the room, holding a basket of laundry. "Oh! Sorry! I didn't realize... I just needed to fold these socks. In here. Where the light is... better?"
She hovered, her eyes scanning the table. She saw the SAT prep book, the flashcards, and a notebook full of math equations. Her face shifted from suspicion to total confusion.
"Is that... long division?" Claire asked, pointing at a page.
"Polynomials, Mom," Haley said, rolling her eyes. "Go fold your socks."
Claire retreated, but I knew she wasn't done. I excused myself to the bathroom and slipped upstairs to Alex's room. She was sitting on her bed, her laptop open.
"She tried to pick the lock on my desk drawer while I was in the shower," Alex whispered, her eyes wide. "Mason, we need to move the hardware. If she sees the Veridat equity certificate, we're dead. She'll think we're identity thieves."
"We're not moving it," I said. "We're hiding it in plain sight. Put the documents in a folder labeled 'Alex's Fan-Fiction: Twilight Edition.' She'll never open it. The cringe factor is too high."
Alex looked at me with newfound respect. "That's brilliant. You're a monster, but you're brilliant."
[INTERVIEW - ALEX]Alex is nodding slowly.Alex: "The Syndicate has a new rule: The more suspicious my mother gets, the more boring we become. If she wants to find something, we'll give her a mountain of boredom to climb. Meanwhile, our Series B stake is gaining 2% value every week. I'm starting to think I should buy Mason a cape for Christmas."
As I left the house later that evening, Haley walked me to the porch.
"See you tomorrow?" she asked.
"Same time," I said. "And don't worry about the author's tone. By next week, you'll be the one setting the tone."
She smiled—a real, soft smile—and for a second, the 'Modern Family' world felt like it was pausing just for us. I saw Claire watching us from the kitchen window, her brow furrowed in a mix of maternal concern and utter bewilderment.
She knew something was different. She just hadn't realized yet that the "Miracle" wasn't just that I survived—it was that I was changing everything.
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