Yet another Archie/Valerie oneshot, focusing on the teachers before they were teachers. It's more fluff at the end than an actual romance, but it gives a past encounter between the two.

She wiped at the sweat that beaded on her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing a dab of grease across her pale skin. Curly red hair that had escaped from her high ponytail clung to the sides of her face, and she continued to concentrate on the engine before her. The sounds of tinkering and her soft pants echoed in the cramped garage; the humidity in the small space was almost unbearable.

The teenage Miss Valerie Frizzle straightened her back and stretched. She'd been working on the engine of her grandpa's car since early that morning, something that she had long since been able to do without the older man's help yet always enjoyed doing with him much better. It was an old car anyway and could barely start, but Valerie hoped to change that soon.

She wiped some excess grease and oil from her hands onto her overalls then rolled the sleeves of her green shirt back up her arms. She ignored the music that played softly over the small radio nearby and once again dove into the engine. She was extra careful to not hit her head on the raised hood, or the crowbar that served to prop up the battered chunk of metal.

Everyone at the school she attended though it unusual that a young woman such as herself would rather spend time fixing engines and running tractors than wear dresses and try to get boyfriends. But Valerie turned the other cheek and continued to follow what her heart said was okay. She'd rather be seen and liked for what she was than for what she wasn't. Unlike most tomboys she'd heard of, she had no problems with wearing dresses or looking pretty.

However, one couldn't climb trees, work on a farm, or work on engines in a dress. End of story.

The young teenager poked around the entire engine, leaning over it further when she spotted something that could quite possibly be a faulty connection. She'd just grabbed a hold of it when a voice startled her, causing her to jerk her head upwards and into the raised hood with a dull thud.

"Ow!" Muttering a few choice obscenities under her breath as an oil-blackened hand rubbed the tender bump that was forming, Valerie glared at the intruder of her workspace.

"Murph! What's the big idea, surprising me like that?!"

Her cousin, only a few months older than she was now, smirked and picked up a grease-soaked rag. Her shoulder-length hair was the same color and just as curly as her cousin's, only it poofed out untamed and free from her head.

"I would have thought that you'd be out in the fields with your brothers raking hay or something," Murph handed her the rag, "Not in here in this heat working on engines."

Valerie tossed the rag to the floor and made to return inside the engine, but her cousin grabbed her arm. "Please, Valerie. Grandma's taking me to meet the neighbors and I don't want to be the only one going against my will."

"Should have thought of that before you made me hit my head on the hood," The grease monkey stated and pulled her arm from her cousin's firm grip. Then she returned to her previous work, leaving her cousin looking scornfully at her back.

"Fine. Be that way."

For the next half-hour, Valerie was content in listening to the radio and her own breathing. She wanted desperately to fix the old car up before it got too hot and sticky in the old garage to do so. Then she could help her brothers milk the cows and possibly fit in a quick swim in the pond before dinner.

She had noticed it before that the harder things got, the closer you were at the end because usually (aside from a few flukes) the hardest things to do were also the last things to do. The theory was proving itself true as she still hadn't been able to pinpoint just what the problem with the engine was. It was also getting hotter and stickier, her hair was coming undone from its ponytail and what wasn't sticking to her face was poofing up from the humidity. She was also getting rather cross.

She never noticed when the newcomer had taking a standing position at the entrance to the garage, watching her intently while she worked. He had never before seen a girl of all things working at an engine. Her frizzy red hair was splotched with grease, oil and transmission fluid, and he noted that her greasy hands were actually pretty delicate. His analytical mind then hypothesized that, as her hands were tiny compared to the men who usually worked on such things, they could possibly reach into spots where no others could.

When she shifted and leaned further over her workstation, he noted with a blush and a quick look at her chest that she couldn't be any older than fifteen or sixteen years old.

He almost went over to her when she yelped a bit; he waited as she put the injured finger into her mouth for a moment to ease the pain, and then returned to her work. He couldn't quite decide whether or not this was normal girl behavior in this rural town he had just moved to. He did know that it was rather refreshing to see a girl who knew her way around a complicated piece of equipment.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?" Valerie reached over to the spark plug, realizing a bit foolishly that she probably should have looked at it much sooner.

"Hello?"

Once again, her head jerked upwards at the sound of the unfamiliar male voice, and once again her head hit the underside of the hood. This time the crowbar was knocked away and the hood fell to deliver yet another good blow to her head. She pulled out and shook her head, tears of pain leaking from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," a gentle voice responded, and a strong hand helped to pull her from the oil puddle she had sat in after she'd been startled, "I didn't mean to startle you."

She looked up into the dark eyes of a teenager she'd never before. He wore rather large glasses, and there was an intelligent, if not nerdy, charm about him. Sure his brown hair was in a bowl cut, but something like that could be overlooked; she was wearing overalls soaked in engine fluids, after all. Her cheeks reddened as she realized just how dirty she probably looked.

"I'm Archibald Seedplot--Archie for short. I just moved here with my parents. Your cousin's told me all about you."

'Cousin? Oh yea. Murph.'

"Who are you?" The dark eyes pierced her own grayish-blue ones; she realized that his eye color was the same as chocolate.

"Oh. I'm Valerie. Valerie Frizzle." Since when did she go around acting so unsure of herself?

"That's a very pretty name, Valerie. So I see you like engines?"

She noticed that he seemed even shyer than she did. So what if he'd actually expressed an interest in what she actually liked? There was no reason for her to go about acting any different than her normal, confident, and especially loud self.

"I love them."

Or maybe she could.

(End)

Disclaimer: I do not own the above-mentioned characters.