Hello everyone!
I'm excited to share my new story. The plot is actually based on an amazing movie I discovered in 2014 called Keith, starring Jesse McCartney and Elisabeth Harnois. (The movie itself is based on a short story by Ron Carlson.) Keith is a great indie romance/coming of age film.
Keith is about a seventeen year old named Natalie. Natalie is a very academically and athletically driven student. In the second semester of her senior year, she is partnered with a 'truck geek' named Keith Zetterstrom in AP Chemistry. The two strike up an unlikely and rather tragic friendship.
This story applies the plot of Keith to characters in the Jimmy Neutron universe. There are a few times when I used dialogue directly from the film, although this was mostly just memorable one-liners.
This story is named after a song from the Keith soundtrack called Times Infinity by Mexicolas. The soundtrack and the song are both excellent and I highly recommend you listen to them!
To set the scene- this is an AU in which Jimmy and Cindy never really took to each other during their middle school or high school years and therefore, never really had any of the adventures they had together in the TV show or the movie. The gang is non-existent, and Jimmy is a bit of a loner.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy Neutron and affiliated characters, nor do I own Keith.
On the first day of AP Chemistry, Cindy Vortex took her customary seat right in the front row. Thankfully, it was the last class of the day. She took out her mechanical pencils and calculator, arranging them in a straight line next to her textbook. She glanced at the doorway out of the corner of her eye and sighed. Just another semester to go before she was off at an Ivy League— and not just any Ivy League— Harvard. But until then, she had to slog harder than she'd ever slogged in her entire high school career. There were karate competitions to win, clubs to lead, homework to finish, honor society projects to slave through. But it was worth it.
At approximately 2:15, students started pouring in. Most of them took seats towards the back or the middle. Only Libby Folfax joined Cindy in the first row. Libby was always dressed to the T. She could make the funkiest sweater-skirt combinations look marvelous, and her hair was never styled the same way for more than two days in a row. Today, she'd chosen to wear a magenta cable knit dress with dark green stockings. Her hair was tied up in a bun, and secured with a large scrunchie. Libby's bold aesthetic stood in contrast to Cindy's own muted, pastel palette of clothing. However, the duo's style differences had never mattered too much insofar as their friendship was concerned (although Libby secretly hoped one day Cindy would drop her librarian look for something less...boring). The two had been best friends since elementary school, and they'd been there for each other through good times and bad. However, the stress of junior and senior year had taken a toll on their closeness. In a serious effort to re-strengthen their friendship, Libby had taken Chemistry upon Cindy's insistence. Libby, while smart, was not as academically inclined as her companion. She much preferred the performing arts to molecular equations. Cindy had convinced her that the two could work on lab assignments together— it would give them time that they hadn't had for quite a while.
Silence fell upon the room of chattering teenagers as a middle-aged man in an argyle sweater and a pair of black slacks entered the room carrying a clipboard. He cleared his throat and stared at the tired teenagers seated in front of him. "Welcome to AP Chem. I'm Mr. Anderson. We're going to start by discussing lab methods. You'll have the same lab partners for the whole semester." Libby and Cindy shared a look and smiled.
"I will be assigning you all partners." The class let out a collective groan. Cindy and Libby shared a look of horror.
"Folfax, Stevens. Wellesley, Dulles. Neutron, Vortex. Heinz, Smith.."
Libby paired off with a short boy with blonde hair. Cindy glanced around. Of all the people to be paired with, she'd ended up with Neutron. There was little to be said for him. She'd seen him in the hallways every so often, but he'd never stood out in her memory. He was somewhat of a loner, and had oddly styled hair. Neither had he or his two strange friends ever been on her radar. All she really knew about him was that he liked to invent things. More often than not, these inventions backfired and made the front page of the Retroville Journal when they cut someone's hair off, or rendered someone temporarily invisible.
She tapped her foot irritably. Everyone had already found their partner and had started to set up their equipment at their lab stations in the back of the room. Everyone except for her, that was. Where was this damn partner of hers?
Suddenly, a loud crash punctuated the air. Everyone turned their heads towards the front of the room. A few kids pointed and muttered, and Cindy's cheeks reddened as she stared at him. She would get stuck working with the weirdest kid in school. Jimmy Neutron stood panting in the doorway, hands covered in soot, and white shirt stained with grease. He was wearing some kind of jetpack.
"Neutron, you're working with Vortex." Anderson grunted, barely looking up from his grading.
Jimmy made his way over to Cindy. His filthy t-shirt and jeans only served to highlight how impeccably dressed Cindy was. Not a hair out of place, Cindy always took care to make sure she looked prim and proper. Her light green sweater and blue jeans were meticulously pressed, and she wore her hair in a ponytail tied tightly with a light pink ribbon.
"Your side job as a mechanic can wait, Neutron." She spat, leading the way to their table in the very back of the room.
Jimmy glared at her. His shaggy brown hair swept over his brilliant blue eyes. Cindy found herself gazing at him for a second longer than strictly necessary. If her memory served her correctly, he'd taken to a fudge shaped hairdo for most of middle school. However, it seemed he'd lost it now for a less candy-inspired look. He wasn't even as short as she remembered. He'd leveled out over the years.
"And what's your occupation? Queen of the chem lab? " He remarked bitterly.
"Just don't come in late again. I can't afford an absent partner." She started to set up the test tubes in their holders, washing them out one by one.
"Just why is that, your royal highness?" He sneered, arranging bottles of acid along the corner of the table.
"First off, don't call me that again. Second of all, it's because I care about my future."
"And what does this future entail, Miss Vortex?" He asked mockingly.
"Oh I don't know...graduating top of my class this year and every year after in college until I can start my own firm. Or at least work for some bigshot corporation."
He smirked.
"What?" She rested her hands on her hips.
"Really? Harvard?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Yes. Harvard. I'm on the waitlist. So if I mess anything up this semester, I'm done for, and so are you."
"Calm down, Vortex."
"Calmness is only for people like you who can afford to sit back and—"
"Who says I'm not just as smart as you?" He countered.
"I have the highest GPA in the school."
"Check again, Vortex."
"Are you suggesting you have the highest GPA?" She raised her eyebrows.
"I'm not suggesting anything."
After class, Cindy approached her teacher privately. She wondered how to broach it to him. She finally decided to just take the straightforward approach.
"He's insufferable, Mr. Anderson. Please give me someone else, anyone else."
"Ms. Vortex, you have only worked with him for one day. Surely you can try a little harder than that."
"He doesn't take anything seriously! And I mean, not to be corny but we lack...chemistry."
Mr. Anderson gave a half smile.
"Try to make it work, Cindy. You're both very capable students. That's all I will say on the matter. Good day."
Cindy stared in disbelief at her teacher as she filed out.
"So what did Anderson say, girl?"
Cindy shook her head in utter defeat. "I have to continue working with Neutron." The blonde set down her lunch tray beside her friend at their usual table.
"So there's no way we can work together and dump Neutron with that kid I was assigned to?"
Cindy shook her head. "Anderson isn't sympathetic."
Libby groaned. "You mean to tell me we're stuck with losers as lab partners for a whole semester?"
"At least Stevens is normal. Neutron is…" She struggled for a word to describe him.
"An outcast?" Libby motioned to him. He was sitting in a far corner of the cafeteria, joined only by a red headed boy wearing a pair of pinstripe pants.
"You might say that." Cindy picked at her limp salad.
"Let me know how working with the dweeb goes for you. I know you'll find a way to make it work. You sort of have to." Libby offered, discarding the crust of a piece of pizza on her paper plate.
"Yeah, I have to get it into Neutron's head that there's a lot at stake for me. And he mentioned that I might not be top rank anymore."
"What?" Libby looked at Cindy incredulously. "No way that's true, Cin. You're the smartest kid in this whole school. You've got to find out who's threatening your spot at the top. it's not Neutron, right?"
Cindy scoffed. "No way it's Neutron. He barely helped with our first lab. And the only time you see his name in the newspaper is when he blows something up."
The two laughed in unison. "Yeah, who are we kidding? This is Neutron." Cindy rolled her eyes.
"Bighead aside, you might want to clear your night for the big party Nick's hosting. "
"I completely forgot about it, Libs!"
"Nick totally wants you there, girl. You can't not come."
"How can I come? I have this stupid lab report to finish on top of all my other AP work."
"You need to be there. Work on finishing your homework during your free period."
"I'll try my best." Cindy resigned to work extra hard to complete her work. She deserved the break, much as she was averse to these rather witless parties.
It was a little windier than normal for Texas, but it remained pleasant that night.
Jimmy alighted in his hover-car not far from where the party was. The parties generally happened in a giant secluded space on the far side of the woods. Everyone went to these parties. Everyone except for Jimmy, that was. Jimmy much preferred to spend his nights working on his inventions. But some nights, when he just needed some clarity and time alone with himself, he would park his hover-car at a safe distance, from across the creek. Paper lanterns were strung haphazardly between trees, casting shadows across the grass. Vapid pop music echoed across the green. Jimmy regarded the parties with a sort of disgust for the shallow frivolity of adolescence. At times, he counted himself lucky for being less than welcome at these gatherings. At other times, he wondered what it would have been like if he had just been a normal teen— a teen who went to wild parties, got plastered on cheap beer, and gossiped about trifling issues like Nissa's hair extensions or Brittany's brief fling with Nick.
No, he was glad to opt out of that kind of a insipidly foolish existence. It was lonely at times…but that came with not being a part of the high school food chain at all...