"Manny...Manny..." A strange, but familiar, adult-like voice trailed off in the distance, slightly getting louder by the second.
The young feline blinked in confusion, but reached out as if he was trying to grab something, "...huh? Mom..? What's going on?"
The light bluish figure grabbed his shoulders, gently shaking him awake. "Manny, honey. Wake up, I've made breakfast for you downstairs." Nicole said to her 3rd eldest child as she stood off her knees and headed out the bedroom door, "Gumball, Darwin, and Anais are all downstairs, waiting on you." She mentioned.
"M'kay..." He answered with a yawn, crawling out of his bed and into the bathroom to take his morning shower, brush his teeth, brush his ears, etc. Once he had finished all his morning activities, he stared at his reflection in the mirror and said to himself, "You got this, bro. All you gotta do is be on your best behavior like your mother told you. That, of course means; no fighting, no arguing, AND no throwing things. Got it? Got it. Cool." And with that, he exited the bathroom and started down the stairs at a normal pace instead of going down like he's rolling down a hill every morning. "Morning, guys." He greeted his siblings, who were all watching TV before walking to the table to eat his breakfast.
"Hey, Manny." Greeted Gumball.
Followed by Darwin, "Morning."
"Sleep well?" Asked Anais, knowing that he stayed up late at night before, just to watch a new episode of his favorite cartoon. "Was it worth staying up till 10:30?"
As Manny began to finish off the rest of his breakfast, he nodded to her reply, getting up from the chair and walking to the sink to drop his dishes in, "Definitely! It was totally worth staying up for!" He walked back into the living room, holding his glass of orange juice. "It was ridiculously amazing," he sighed, drinking the rest of his drink.
Then they heard the bus come at the bus stop, Gumball being the first to turn off the TV and race out the door, onto the bus with Darwin right behind him. Anais hopped off the couch, walking to the door of the bus. Once they all left, Manny wasn't too far behind. He had tossed the glass in the sink onto his plate.
As soon as Manny got onto the bus, everyone looked a bit surprised, obviously because they've never seen him before and assumed that today was his first day. While he walked to the back of the bus, both Gumball & Darwin were sitting in the same seat, leaving him out, but Anais, thankfully had a seat to herself. Not bothering to ask, he just sat beside her, expecting a question from her or anything of the sort, but he heard nothing. And so, the bus rode off, with Nicole watching from the window, waving at them as they left.
During the bus ride to school, Manny began to hear some of the kids talking about him. Stuff like, "Who's that", "Looks kinda wimpy for his size", "He actually looks kinda cute", "Yeah. Unlike you, Tobias." He laughed at the comment and laid his head against the seat in front of him where nobody could see his face.
"Pssst! PSST! Gumball! Darwin!" Banana Joe called out their names, only getting Darwin's attention, "Who's the new kid?" He pointed over to Manny.
"New kid?" Darwin looked over at the seat where he saw half of his other brother's head in the seat, "Oh, him? That's our little brother, Manny. Why? You guys aren't making fun of him on his first day, are you?" He asked, slightly narrowing his eyes.
"What? Of course not!" He answered, looking away. While Darwin wasn't paying any attention afterwards, Joe whispered Manny's name over to Tobias, who passed it on to other kids, who passed it up to the front of the bus, where it stopped.
Tobias stood up from the seat and took a quick glance at Manny's head, "He doesn't look THAT cool." He said as he sat back down. "Looks like I'll have to teach him a thing or two," He said, full of confidence as he flexed his "muscles". "Especially if it's getting' ladies," He smirked, wolf-whistling at Carrie, hoping to get her attention, but to no avail, she wouldn't answer. "She'll budge..." He mutter.
"All right, class! I need your attention as usual, but for a different reason. We have a new student today. And it wouldn't surprise me if he was somehow related to you two." Miss Simian said, referring to Gumball and Darwin, while staring into Manny's eyes, causing both his ears and tail to droop. "Well? Tell the class about yourself." She instructed.
Manny sighed and turned to face everyone in the class, "U-uh...hi, everyone. My name's Manny. I'm 11 years old, love basketball, vid-"
"Yeah, great. Now, take your seat," she replied, sitting at her desk.
Manny gulped, looking around and somehow found an empty seat beside Gumball, who was pointed at the seat as if he was letting him know that he could sit beside him. He replied with a small smile as he walked over to the seat, seating himself in the seat, "I don't like this anymore, Gumball..." He whined, looking out the window at the clouds in the sky.
"Don't worry, dude! You've only been here for a couple of minutes. School isn't as bad as it looks. I mean, the food is...pretty decent." Gumball replied, trying to cheer his brother up a bit, "Wait. We haven't has lunch yet have we?" He turned to Darwin, who shook his head. "Didn't think so. Anyway, just give it some time." He assured, earning a small whimper as a reply. "Aw, don't be like that, man."
"Ugh! Fine, fine." He muttered, crossing his arms as he faced the front of the classroom. "First day of school and I already don't like-" He was quickly silenced once Miss Simian was turned around and a certain part was revealed to him, "So that's what a monkey's butt looks like? That's nasty!" He said, covering both his eyes, trying to erase the sudden picture from his mind.
"There's no point in trying to erase something like that from your mind." Replied Darwin, "It's not something you can just erase. It's gonna stay up there for a while."
Gumball patted Manny's back with a reassuring smile on his face, "It's not the worst thing you've ever seen at school."
"You mean there's more?!"
"LUNCHTIME!" All three shouted in unison, running over to be the first three to get their lunch first.
Gumball licked his lips, rubbing both his hands together, "One of my favorite parts of the school day! Which includes stuffing my facehole!"
Manny looked around in the cafeteria for an actual clean table, considering that a bit of the other tables weren't so clean. "Do you guys usually have assigned seats at lunch?" He asked out of curiosity.
"Nah. There's practically no point in having assigned seats," Darwin said as both him & Gumball grabbed their plate and moved over to a table with Manny following behind.
"Since we're brothers and all, do you think I can ask you guys anything?"
"Sure you can, man." Gumball responded.
Darwin nodded, "Yeah. Depends on the topic."
"It's about the girls here...are they mean? Bossy? Sensitive? All 3?"
Gumball tapped his chin with the fork before stabbing the plate with it, "I think it's better for you to wait for an opportunity, bro. Those ladies are..."
"Confusing?" He finished off the sentence.
"Yeah, somewhat. Some of them are mean," He then faked a couch and said, "Jamie. Anyways, yeah. Some are mean, bossy, sensitive or even all 3."
Darwin raised a brow while eating his sandwich, "Why not just ask Penny? She's a girl, so she could know what girls like and what they want." He pointed out, although having a slightly angered expression on his face.
"Dude, are you still mad about what happened when I started paying more attention to Penny than you? I thought you said you was over it!" Gumball sated, grabbing his fin and holding it up, "And where's the ring I gave you?"
"It's...at the house..." Darwin stuttered, getting his fin out of his grip.
"...riiiiight. I'll just go talk with the girls and learn more stuff about themselves." He got up from his seat and walked over to the table where the females were sitting, "Wish me luck!" He waved behind him, cracking his knuckles.
Gumball stared at the scene he had just saw, "It looked like those girls were all over you. Better be lucky they weren't wearing lipstick. Cause if they were, then Mom would LITERALLY have a cow."
"Gumball, they weren't going to kiss me at any moment during any point of the conversation. Matter of fact, those girls actually doesn't seem all that bad. Carrie looks and sounds nice, Teri...uh...I'll have to get back on her. The rest seem pretty cool in my book. Oh, and by the way, they told me about what happened in the tree house." Manny grinned, looking at his brothers, "That kiss must've been nice, am I right?" He snickered, trying his best to hold in his laughter.
"Sure was! Who knew kissing girls would feel so amazing?" Darwin replied, remembering back to when the kiss took place.
Gumball nodded in agreement, "Eh, I've gotten more kisses. Including the ones from Darwin." He claimed, tossing his plate in the trash.
"What? Really," question Manny as he raised a brow, looking at Darwin, who just looked down. "From who?"
Darwin pointed over to the flame-colored...thing, "Penny. After all the years he had to ask her out, he finally had the guts to do it." He said, earning a punch in the arm by Gumball.
"Speaking of asking girls," Manny began, looking back at the table where the girls were sitting, "Do you think I should ask one of them out?"
"Ask 'em out? Manny, you /JUST/ met 'em. Not to mention, they will turn their backs on you," Darwin whispered, tossing his empty tray into the trash. "So, if I were you, I'd watch my back around them..."
"Well...okay, if you say so." He turned his attention back over to his older brothers, "Speaking of girls, isn't Anais supposed to be in here with us? I'm pretty sure she got onto the bus with us this morning." He said as he looked around for Anais.
"Yeah. We'll see her on the bus anyway, probably reading a book or something."
Scratching his ear, Manny just shrugged, throwing his tray in the trash, "What else is there to do here besides work and eat?"
Gumball blinked. All they basically do in school is work and eat. Except for when GYM is involved, "There's gym. All we do is exercise and run laps...which also is exercise. It gets real tiring, real quick."
"Doesn't sound that bad! I'll give it a try, but you guys get me to run around the neighborhood." The small feline hopped off the chair and ran out the door.
As the school day had finally ended, everybody had dashed outdoors to the bus, getting in the exact same seats as they were seated in the morning.
Gumball, Darwin, Manny, and every other kid who had gym near the end of the day were completely worn out. All the windows had to be brought down to keep the cool breeze coming in and hitting everyone in their faces.
One of the boys' friends had tapped Manny on the shoulder, causing him to look back at whoever it was, only to find Carrie sitting behind him, "Manny, right?"
"Yeah...?" He blinked, a bit confused that he was actually talking to a ghost.
"Name's Carrie. I saw you earlier and called you, but you didn't answer."
'She did? I don't remember hearing anyone call my name, actually.' He thought. "Oh...sorry about that."
Carrie shrugged, "Don't worry about it, Manny. Hold old are you exactly?"
"11." He answered, turning his body back around to face the front as the bus came to a stop at his house, "I gotta go, Carrie. Maybe we can continue this conversation tomorrow morning?" Manny questioned, getting up to let his siblings go first, quickly following after them.
"See ya tomorrow!" Was all he heard as he jumped off the bus.
As Gumball opened the door, they all found their father snoring on the couch. "Home sweet home.." He murmured as he walked upstairs, followed by Darwin and Anais.
Manny closed the door and climbed onto the couch and patted Richard's stomach, causing him to slightly twitch as a reaction, "Dad? Where's Mom?" He asked.
"Zzzzzz...working...zzzzzz" Was all Richard could say before falling asleep once again.
"Just making sure." He said, running upstairs into the room, "Well. First day didn't seem so bad I guess. Except for Miss Simian...and other things. Can't wait for tomorrow!"