Alex groaned into the stack of papers on her desk. She had spent the last five minutes working on all her overdue math homework. It was a cruel expectation of her! How could her teacher make her finish everything or send her to summer school? If she could have, Alex would transformed his desk to a squirrel. Or something.

But now she was stuck at home doing exactly as she wished not to do... all because that same teacher had called home.

And even worse? Her parents were not the ones to answer the phone.

"Are you even trying to work?" Justin peered in through the doorway, watching his sister cautiously. She frowned and stuck her tongue out at him as she hurriedly picked up her pencil and began writing gibberish on a problem. "Do you want me to call mom and dad home from their convention?"

For a minute, Alex entertained that idea. She could easily sweet talk her parents into sweet talking the teacher out of sending her to summer school. But, unfortunately... well. Alex really did not want to do that this time. She was trying to be at least a little responsible.

And failing miserably.

She turned to her brother who was still smirking at the doorway. She noted with a bit of disinterest he had styled his hair and appeared to be wearing something rather fetching for his appearance. Like he was going somewhere. Not that Justin Russo had anywhere to go on a Tuesday Night.

"Aren't you going to let me out of this room to go to the bathroom? Eat some food? Watch television?" She asked, standing up and making her way towards the door. But before she could walk through a force field propelled her backwards onto the floor. "Are you even allowed to do this? What spell is this?"

Justin said nothing, instead only having a set face that look all too humored.

"Is it even necessary? It's not like I'm going to sneak out or anything." Actually, she intended to, not that he needed to know that.

"I have somewhere to be." Justin said suddenly, rubbing his chin. "And I can't be babysitting Max and you."

Hold on, Alex thought. Going somewhere?

"It's a school night! I'm not allowed to leave and neither are you!"

"There is this sort of meeting down town..." Justin said. "Mom and dad would understand."

"But you did not tell them..."

Justin laughed nervously. "Well... no but-"

"Then you are not going!" Alex said with finality, waiting for the moment when Justin would accidentally step inside her room to protest.

And he did. Alex smiled, throwing out a few arguments before he grew tired and backtracked to the door.

And found he too was locked inside the spell's range.

"Wow, guess you'll need to undo it, huh Justin?" Alex smiled, knowing he'd have to do it front of her. She's memorize it and use it on him later. Oh... she'd get her revenge.

But though she expected him to be frustrated, he instead looked rather angry.

"The spell doesn't work like that. We can use our wands inside it... that's why I took yours so you wouldn't cheat" Alex made a sound. "... but-"

"But we can't undo the wall from inside it?"

Justin nodded, and Alex nearly swore. It figured. As smart as Justin was he was just like her; never entirely thinking things through.

She decided to give some advanced thought about what she was going to do next... but could it. Her mind was focused on teasing her older brother.

"What sort of meeting were you going to go to anyway?" She asked, not really curious. "One of your dorky clubs?"

"They are not dorky!" Justin mumbled before sitting down on Alex's bed. "And no, it was a mathematics competition with my friends! I've only been talking about it for the last two weeks."

And that was worth sneaking out for? Alex wondered. Jeez. But maybe she'd get her math-loving brother to be useful after all.

"You could help me with my math homework. You know, to make up for the convention you are missing."

"Nice try."

Well, she made an attempt.

"Let's call Max." Alex pulled out her phone and dialed, but found that it just sounded an empty dial tone.

Oh this was cruel. This was evil. "You locked me inside my room without cellphone service? How am I supposed to text the questions to Harper?"

Justin rolled his eyes. He walked to the door and called their brother, but a few minutes later and he was still not coming down. Max was probably messing around somewhere he should not have been.

All Justin wanted to do was go to the convention... but even something as simple as that was too hard to do with his siblings mucking around. He sighed before sitting back down on the bed where his sister had already made herself comfortable with a book. A math book. She was going to do everything she could to trick him into doing the problems for her. He was not going to allow that. Not after going through all this trouble to look up the spell (that had admittedly backfired) to keep her inside and from cheating.

"How can you stand being so dishonest all the time?" He asked. "Don't you ever get tired of scheming?"

"No!" Alex said playfully. "Now are you going to help me or what?"

"No."

Alex frowned. "If I had my wand, I'd find a way to make you."

But she did not have her wand, and had to deal with doing her homework by herself while Justin read one of her magazines with the occasional bit of laughter and rude comments on its style.

After about twenty minutes of silence, Alex suddenly got an idea. Her brother's attention was turned to the magazine, and he still had her wand.

She reached into the pocket where he usually held his... and took both of them out. She jumped backwards and did a bit of a victory dance.

"Alex!"

The younger Russo pointed her wand at her brother and cited a spell to get him to work against his will on her homework.

But nothing happened. In the sudden confusion as to why the spell did not work (she thought it was clever too!), her brother had wrestled her to the floor and grabbed the wands back from her.

However, they were not in a very compromising situation, and homework, wands, and locking spells were all but forgotten as they both looked at each other intently.

Alex found that her brother's slightly lidded eyes were attractive... and she leaned in to him.

"What are you playing?" Max asked at the doorway, looking every bit as confused as a boy his age would be expected to after finding his older brother on top of his sister in a very suggestive manner as the sister was leaning far too close to his face. "I heard you calling me... but I was busy so-"

Max began to walk in through the doorway and the two older siblings jumped up, shouting for him not too.

But he was already inside before they could finish.

Alex and Justin looked at each other now with frustration. Their parents weren't going to be home until Wednesday. They were stuck together... with Max... until tomorrow night.

Alex blamed it all on her math homework.

AN:// I'd hate to see the Russo siblings after a day of being locked inside the same room together if that was just a half an hour between Alex and Justin. XD FIN.