Chapter 1 - A Challenge of Skill
What a rotten day. That was Gus Griswald's only thought as he stormed into Kelso's and stomped over to where his favorite soda pop was kept. He needed the comfort of the familiar drink after the conversation he just had. His dad had been on his case again about the army and joining and doing something good with his life and blah blah blah.
It wasn't just today's conversation that got Gus's nerves all riled up. The whole summer has been crummy. Well, not all of it—but plenty of it. Ever since finishing up sophomore year of high school, it seems an imminent storm with clouds labeled "College" have rolled in and threatened Gus and the gang. With all the testing, brochures, and mentions of college by teachers, there was no escaping it. Each friend has their own uncertainties about the future and what it might hold. Although they are firm in their standing of sticking together no matter where they go, the realization that they won't be physically together for the rest of their lives has begun to set in. That point was made most evident when Spinelli took off this summer for Italy.
Ashley Spinelli's family was an odd one—then again, all families had their own quirks—and her family likes to up and take off on "family fun vacations" as Mr. and Mrs. Spinelli put it, but Spinelli doesn't agree. She claims as soon as they arrive, her parents disappear for half the actual fun, leaving Spinelli and her brothers on their own. Sure, they were fun, but it wasn't "family fun" like the vacation name claimed.
The gang had took the blow hard, hearing that Spinelli would be gone for the entire summer. T.J. put it best after the news got out when he said, "This whomps!" Yes. Yes it did. A piece was missing. The gang had gone through the month-long camps they all stated was necessary for their futures (Gus still shivered at the word), but those were only a month—not a whole summer! Spinelli's absence was doubled in disgust when her father accidentally dropped her phone in the ocean early on in the trip. Her only means of communication with the gang after that was whenever she managed to steal one of her brother's phones and hide for more than five minutes before they found her and took the phone back. Only once was she not interrupted in her call by one of her angry brothers.
Gus remembered that phone call. T.J. was the one she called (to no one's surprise) and he spent the majority of it biking to everyone's home to get them in on it. The call lasted a blissful hour and fifteen minutes where the gang stayed in the park and talked with Spinelli while she was on speaker phone. Even if she wasn't there, it felt like it, and for a minute the summer was ok again.
She never got another chance at a full-length conversation after that, and summer became dull once more after her spunk faded from the gang's spirits. Boy, did Gus miss Spinelli. Who knew she could be such a vital part in keeping the spirit of the gang alive?
Gus was brought out of his thoughts when someone knocked into him. He was about to turn and apologize for his lack of attention to those around him until he heard the words of the other person.
"Out of the way, Griswald," Lawson said with a sharp bite in his tone. He laughed as he grabbed a twelve-pack of soda and heads for the counter where he can purchase his item.
That was the final straw. Gus was usually one to avoid a fight, but his dad's blood runs through his veins, and right now his is blood boiled at the very thought of the long-term bully getting away with another act of jerkiness. If a fight is necessary, then so be it. And Gus was in the mood for a fight, even if this one wasn't necessary. The extra height and weight Lawson had on him didn't intimidate him much anymore. Thankfully, Gus had had a much needed late growth spurt over the summer. Even if he did end up getting beaten up, he knew he could actually hold his own for a while against the soon-to-be senior. It would feel great to see a black eye on him and know that it was Gus himself who caused it.
Just as he turned to face the bully, fists clenched, he paused when he saw that Lawson was talking to a girl. Although Lawson was talking to her, the girl had her back to him and Gus, obviously uninterested in the conversation. Gus lowered his fists. As much as he wanted to mutilate Lawson's face right now, he would not get close if it meant the possibility of accidentally hurting a girl. His parent's taught him better than that.
Gus turned and picked up another soda, suddenly needing more than he originally thought. The conversation between Lawson and the girl was quiet and short. Gus could hear Lawson's boastful phrases here and there, but the girl's answers were quieter and harder to hear no thanks to her facing the opposite direction of Gus. That is, until one outburst gave Gus a stab of fear in the stomach and a thrill of joy up his spine at the same time.
"If you don't back off, pal, I'm going to introduce you to my good friend Madame Fist!"
Spinelli turned, holding out her right fist and shook it in Lawson's face. The bully's shock was palpable to anyone in the establishment. A few of the customers were students at the local high school—the same one T.J. and the gang attended—and stared in shock at what just unraveled. Lawson, the better-than-everyone Senior had just unknowingly hit on Ashley Spinelli, a Junior. Gus could understand the mistake. Spinelli had her back to him and was wearing a dress—a dress, like with straps and heels and everything—and looked nothing like the tomboy that left those months ago.
"What's the matter, Lawson?" Spinelli mocked the dumbstruck boy. "Am I so pretty that you're speechless? Well too bad. You're not my type. Now scram before Madame Fist finds out if you're her type."
With the laughter of other customers ringing in his ears, Lawson hastened out of the store, not even remembering the twelve-pack of soda pop he left abandoned on the counter.
Gus's laughter was the loudest of them all, but once Lawson had fled, his joy turned from laughter into an exclamation. "Spinelli!"
Spinelli's eyes finally settled on him. As soon as they did, joy unlike that he has seen in a long while from her spread across her face. "Gus!" she exclaimed.
"Hey—oof!" Gus had taken one step forward, but Spinelli had taken the final five with a sprint and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing.
"Gus! How ya been, buddy? I missed you," Spinelli said. She continued to squeeze unbeknownst to her friend's astonishment and slight pain.
"Spin—can't—breathe," Gus managed to spit out between gasps. Spinelli immediately released him.
"Sorry about that, but hey, you lasted a lot longer than the last time I gave you a hug. Look at you. You're huge! You're taller than me." As if to prove her point, Spinelli set her hand on the top of her head then raised it a few inches higher to where the tip of Gus's head was. Suddenly, the smile on her face faded. "Great. Now I'm the shortest one in the group. Stupid genetics."
"Good to see you too, Spinelli," Gus said. The grin on his face came unconsciously. It seemed that Spinelli simply being there was enough for the anger and sadness to leave him. He felt stronger around her, which is weird considering she usually seemed to make him feel weak. That could be because she always pushed him to go farther, both with his physical boundaries and his mental ones. Often she would state that he could tackle whatever it was facing him if he pushed himself, and if not, she would be right there to help him beat the snot out of whatever it was that troubled him.
"When did you get back? Why didn't you tell us?" Gus's mind ran through the possibilities as to why she was on American soil again without his knowledge.
Spinelli shook her head and sighed, "I would have called you, but Mom says she won't get me a new phone until the end of the week so I couldn't really call you guys without having my parents eavesdrop while on the landline. Then she made me stay at the house and unpack. I got in no more than three hours ago."
"What about T.J.? Did he see you come in?" T.J. lived only a few houses down from Spinelli's. He could have seen them and said hi. Then again, if T.J. had seen them come in, he would have alerted the rest of the gang.
"Nah. I made a quick stop at his house, but his mom said he wasn't there." Spinelli shrugged. "I'll see him eventually, but, boy, am I glad I got to see at least one of you guys before the end of the day. I'm going to crash the next few days. Jetlag is the worst."
Spinelli took a seat on one of the stools next to the counter. Gus took a seat beside her. She turned to him and smirked. "What do you want? Anything, it's on me." Then she spied the two sodas on the counter where Gus had left them when Spinelli started talking. She picked them up and showed the employee before pulling some money from the purse she was holding. (Purse—another fact Gus found almost as shocking as the dress.)
"No, Spinelli, you really don't—"
"Say anything else, Gus, and I'll shove the drink down your throat myself—glass and all." Gus immediately quieted his protests. Although Spinelli was smaller than everyone in the gang, and most everyone in school, that hardly stopped her from proving her strength at any given opportunity. Gus didn't doubt her threat. She would force him to give in no matter what. That was no surprise.
What did surprise Gus was Spinelli's sudden look of guilt. She seemed to shrink a little as she quietly handed the soda to her friend.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya," she mumbled. Then the guilt and quietness Spinelli showed disappeared in the blink of an eye and were replaced with that fire in her eyes and confident stance. "So what have you been up to this summer?"
Gus shrugged. "Nothing really. Just…hanging out with the guys. Hey, I'll call them now! They'll be ecstatic to hear that you're back." Gus pulled out his phone only to have it snatched away. "Spinelli! I need that."
Spinelli paid him no mind as she shoved it in her purse, the same purse she used to smack his hand when he tried to take it back. "You can have it back when we are done talking. You haven't even told me about your summer."
"I told you I didn't do anything. Nothing important anyway," Gus insists.
Spinelli raises an eyebrow at him. "Really? Because those bags under your eyes and the anger written across your face are certainly from a summer full of nothing. Come on, Gus. 'Nothing' in a summer means hanging out with friends beside the pond, not anger. And don't deny it. I've been your kind of angry. I know what it looks like. So spill."
"Me? What about you? You're wearing a dress Spinelli. And you hit me with your purse. I've never seen you even touch a purse." The anger Gus had from before was returning and aimed itself at his friend. He was completely ready for another shouting match. That's what happens with anger sometimes. It attacks with little provocation and at someone for no reason.
Spinelli saw this. She may know how to fight, but with that turf comes the knowledge on how to avoid them too. The tomboy immediately changed her tone and lowered her eyes. "I had to. Mom insists on washing all our clothes after a trip. Only the new stuff isn't dirty to her. And the only clothes she bought me on the trip were girly stuff. It was this or a skirt. That's all it is. Emergency clothing. I am not about to become an Ashley. Promise."
With each word spoken, Gus's anger faded a little more. He lowered his eyes too, suddenly ashamed of himself. "Sorry."
"You're sorry? I'm the one picking a fight with one of her best friends," Spinelli scoffed before taking a swig of her soda. Then she grew silent, staring at Gus until she caught his eyes. "I am worried, though. A friend's allowed to worry. What's the deal, Gus? You're always a little skittish, but this is new."
Gus sighed and took a drink of his own soda. It took a minute for him to actually pull out all the information from memory since he hadn't actually sat down and thought about it. He usually escaped to the gang to forget about his troubles at home. Now Spinelli is confronting him, and he doesn't know where to start.
"My dad wants me to join the military," he said finally.
"Yeah. What else is new?" Spinelli asks flippantly.
"The thing is, I'm not sure I actually want to."
"That's new."
"Yeah. Yeah, it is. I had no idea I might not want to join the army until two and a half months ago," Gus said. That phrase opened up the floodgates. His worries flowed out of his mouth like water—quickly and without barriers. Occasionally, when Gus gets excited or anxious about something, his words can be spoken so fast that someone has to ask him to slow down. This was one of those times; only Spinelli doesn't interrupt, instead allowing him to spit out his troubles with no restraint. "So we've been butting heads a lot, and today was a really big fight. He wants me to start looking at different boot camps, and I don't know if I want to actually go into the army. I'm confused. My dad's mad at me. My mom is in the middle of it all. And I'm not sure what to do." Gus put his head in his hands. All those feelings of uncertainty and fear came crashing down in that moment, weighing on his shoulders like a ton of bricks. "It's all this future talk. It's got everyone spooked. None of us have been talking about what we want to do with life since you left. It's like we're at a standstill. No one knows where to go from here."
Spinelli was quiet for a long time. If it weren't for the lack of bell sounds that usually occur when someone opens Kelso's door, he would have thought she left. But she stayed. He knows this because of the hand that now rests on his shoulder.
"Rough," Spinelli said. Although her tone was light, the rumbling behind it suggests a tug of emotion.
Gus didn't say anything, remaining in his self-pity stance.
"Well," Spinelli said slowly, choosing her words carefully, "What are you thinking of doing instead? You got a backup plan?"
Gus sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "I dunno."
"Gus, what have you been doing in your free time besides hanging out with the others?"
Gus shrugged, still feeling Spinelli's hand on his shoulder. Strange. "Fixing cars with my dad." Gus had done that for years. It was tradition with his father. When he was home, they would go out back and start work on that old car of his.
"Uh huh. And what's your best class in school?"
"What does that have to—"
"Just answer the dumb questions."
"Math."
"Well…" Spinelli finally retracted her hand from Gus's shoulder. She grabbed her soda and took a long drink of it. She took so long in finishing her thought that Gus again thought she might have left. He finally comes out from hiding behind his hands to look at her. Spinelli seemed uncomfortable. She kept biting her lip and looking around the room.
"What is it Spinelli?"
"What about being an engineer? Maybe even an engineer for the army?" After saying her piece Spinelli watched Gus's reaction. There wasn't much of a reaction. He simply watched her.
An engineer?
Gus had never thought about that. Him an engineer? "Really?"
Spinelli promptly punched him in the arm. Gus bit his lip to hold in a yelp. Yep, Spinelli was still as tough as nails. Being exposed to other cultures didn't diminish that in her. "Don't you think I know what I'm talking about? Yes, an engineer. You like working on cars and stuff, and you're good in all those match and physics classes. You're smart. I mean, you're not Gretchen-smart, but you're smart. You could do it."
"An engineer?"
Another punch to the arm. That one hurt worse than the first.
"Yeah, dimwit. An engineer. I said you were smart, but I'm thinking about retracting that statement. Is it in your thick skull yet?"
At Gus's lack of response, Spinelli raised her fist. Gus immediately put up his hands in defense. "I got it! I got it! An engineer. You think I can been an engineer."
"I know you can," Spinelli corrected. "But it's up to you. So…whatever."
The two friends turn back to their drinks. The silence between them was contemplative.
"I could do that."
"Yeah?" Spinelli perked up at her friend's positive feedback.
"Yeah. I can be an engineer. I could even spend part of it in boot camp somewhere. I'm sure my father knows a place."
"That's the spirit, Gus! You got this! You're going to be the best engineer that ever engineered anything!"
"Yeah! I'm gonna be an engineer!" Gus leaped from his seat and stood tall with his hands raised high above his head in victory. The entire summer of worry and anxiety and fear suddenly disappeared. Gus felt that he could take on the world. He could fly. He could be an engineer.
"Thank you, Spinelli!" Gus grabbed a laughing Spinelli, picked her up, and spun her around. Spinelli threw her own hands in the air until Gus put her down again. He then brought her into a hug to which Spinelli returned without the painful rib-cracking strength. Rather that of a friend who is elated for another friend. "Thanks, Spin."
"You got it."
Gus pulled away from her and began waltzing towards the door, but he was so happy he practically danced there. "I gotta go. I gotta talk to my dad. I'll see you later, Spinelli."
With that Gus headed out the door with a grin on his face and a spring in his step. Spinelli watched him go with a large grin on her phase. The grin faded the farther away Gus got unbeknownst to him. Spinelli went back to the abandoned drinks on the counter. She finished hers off then picked up her purse. As she was heading for the door, realization splashed over her like a cool wave. She broke into a run as she moved out the door and down the sidewalk calling after her friend.
"Gus! Wait! You forgot your phone!"
A/N: Look, another story with a cartoon I haven't watched in years but then became obsessed with again in the past two days. This story came to mind while thinking about the future (fun-fun...) and so I wondered how Spinelli's POV would affect each individual member of the group. Each chapter will deal with Spinelli interacting with another member and their problem. There may be a little TJxSpinelli thrown in near the end, but not too much I don't think. That would be a different story altogether. That pairing deserves a spotlight, not a flashlight.
As always, PLEASE tell me if you see grammar/spelling errors. Those annoy me to no end. And reviews are welcome whether you liked it or not. Let me know if you think it's terrible (or wonderful). I've got thick skin.