The darkness around the mansion was broken by a powerful beam of light illuminating Kim Possible as she ran. Even though the source was coming from directly in front of her, the sudden contrast in lighting was enough to briefly blind her.
"Ron!" she yelled, squinting to preserve her night vision.
"Sorry KP," Ron Stoppable responded from his ten yards off to the side. Trying to correct his mistake, he shifted the beam of the high-powered flashlight he was carrying past Kim, attempting to catch the target they had been pursuing through the darkness.
Kim and Ron were dressed in their usual mission clothes. In the light from Ron's flashlight, a dull reddish stain was briefly available on Kim's right shoulder, but it faded invisibly into the black of the shirt as soon as she was in darkness again.
The new angle of Ron's flashlight caught a figure ducking around a corner ahead.
"He's headed into the tennis courts!" shouted Kim, picking up the pace of her running.
Within seconds she reached the chain link gate, only to find in dismay that her target had taken the time to padlock it. This wasn't an obstacle that could delay Kim long, though. Retreating back a few steps to give herself room for a running start, she jumped high enough to grab the top of the fence and turned her momentum into a somersault over it, making a perfect landing on the other side.
A groan carried from behind her. "I'll be over in a minute," Ron assured her as he began climbing the chain links, going carefully to make sure he didn't fall off.
Not waiting on Ron, Kim advanced onto the nearest of the courts. She could see her quarry on the other side of the net, standing next to a machine by the serving line.
"Hey Kimberly, take this!" said the figure, touching a control on the machine. It immediately shot a fast tennis ball straight at Kim's head.
Kim didn't even bother to dodge the ball. With reflexes like a cat, she simply reached out and snatched the projectile from the air before it could hit her. "Pu-leeze. Like I'm afraid of a tennis ball. I may have run from the occasional golf ball, but I doubt these things are going to expl-"
Kim stopped in mid-sentence and sniffed the air, an odd look on her face. She looked at the tennis ball, only now realizing it was matted with a sticky black substance that smelled awful. "Eeeww! What's this thing covered with?"
"Fertilizer," announced her short opponent. "They use it in the greenhouse. It comes from cows. I thought it would be funny to dump some in this automatic server."
He flicked another couple of switches on the machine, which immediately began barraging Kim with an entire volley of tennis balls, more than any sane player would ever want to practice returning. Each and every ball was coated in the same 'fertilizer'.
Kim began dodging frantically. Not that any of balls would do her any serious damage if they hit, but the thought of carrying that smell around on her mission clothing for the rest of the night was enough to keep her ducking and weaving as though her life depended on it. In some ways, dodging the balls was actually harder than dodging death lasers. The thing about tennis balls was, they bounced. Sometimes they bounced at odd and unexpected angles that Kim couldn't predict. Dodging a ball when the machine shot it was easy. Dodging it on the rebound, while trying to get out of the way of the machine's next ball… that was a bit trickier. Especially since no one had turned the court lights on and it was still dark.
Just as she thought she was getting the hang of it, there came a humming as similar serving machine stationed at the next court down the line came to life. "Who needs more than one automatic tennis server?" Kim complained to the world at large, realizing what was about to happen.
Fortunately, a solution came readily at hand. Tumbling out of a flip, Kim ended up next to the back wall. Close enough to notice that someone had inadvertently left their tennis racquet out overnight. "Ah-hah!" she exclaimed in triumph, scooping it up.
With a flurry of swings, Kim began parrying the combined output of both automatic servers, as well as taking the odd swing to knock away most of the stinky balls that littered the court around her. With the racquet, she was able to send them exactly where she wanted, where she wouldn't have to touch or smell them.
Defense taken care of, Kim decided to go on the offense. The next ball she returned, she hit it straight back at the machine, aiming so precisely that she was able to jam it down the machine's firing barrel. Before the machine could launch another ball to clear the way, Kim quickly used the racquet to flip a few more balls from the ground and into the air (without touching them with her hands, naturally) and aimed them into the same small target. The machine responded by giving a strange beep as its safety mechanisms came into play, and it immediately powered down.
Kim then turned to the next machine, only to realize it had stopped without her interference. Though the darkness, she thought she could see something crawling atop it. Her suspicions were confirmed when "Gotit!" sounded off in Rufus's voice.
Kim smiled and waved a thanks in naked mole rat's direction. Now that that was taken care of, it only left-
"I got him," Ron's voice sounded off from across the court. "I got him! For once I beat the bad guy by myself."
Kim walked over to where she had spotted the light switches earlier and turned them on. All the courts were bathed in massive floodlights, and things were much clearer. Across the courts, near the other exit, Kim could see Ron grasping their quarry firmly by the shoulders.
"I'm not sure a ten year old counts as a 'bad guy', Ron," Kim said, walking up to them. She crouched down to speak face-to-face with Samuel Orville Rich, her babysitting job for the evening.
"You sure have been a bad boy, though. What are your parents going to say when they come home and I tell them about how you wouldn't play nice, wouldn't eat your dinner-"
"And sprayed Kim with ketchup when she tried to cut your burger for you!" Ron interjected.
"Yes, and sprayed me with ketchup," said Kim, rubbing the stain on her shirt. "Thanks Ron, I had almost managed to forget that. And then to top it all off, not only would you not take your bath and go to bed, but you made us chase you out to your parents' tennis courts, where you covered all their tennis balls in… fertilizer."
Little S.O. Rich screwed up his face in defiance. "Probably the same thing they said when I did it to all the other babysitters. Why else do you think they had to go to you and your stupid website? I hate it when they go out! I wasn't even able to do nearly as much with you as I am to their normal sitters."
As he said this last, there was a sneaking note of admiration in S.O.'s voice.
Kim caught the signal and decided to work with it. "Well, I seem to recall someone yelling that all I had to do was catch him and he'd go along quietly. Are you still going to keep up your end up the deal?"
S.O. looked downward and muttered, "I suppose. Maybe you could tell me a story before I go to sleep?"
Kim let some of the sternness fade from her face as she signaled Ron to release the ten-year-old. "I don't see why not," she said, ruffling S.O.'s head of short blonde hair.
At school the next day, Ron and Kim sat down at their usual lunchroom table, trays filled with an unidentifiable blue goop. Kim poked at her goop with a fork, but she there was something about the way she did that said her mind was somewhere else. There was also a vague frown on her face.
"Last night wasn't exactly our normal kind of mission, was it?" said Ron, trying to get her talking.
"No, I think dealing with Duff Killigan would have been a lot easier," replied Kim. After checking that no one was looking, she furtively sniffed her hand, trying to make sure that washing it ten times had really gotten off all the 'fertilizer' smell.
Ron tapped his index fingers together. "There were some similarities. But hey, one good thing about a babysitting job compared to the normal stuff- we got paid!" By way of demonstration, Ron pulled a green bill out of his wallet and waved it at Kim.
"Want to come down to Smarty Mart after school and help me remind them why I'm their best customer?"
"Neh," was the response he got back from Kim.
Ron decided to try again. "All right, we can go to Club Banana then, and I can help you shop for your fancy 'name brand' clothes."
Even Ron's sneer at 'name brand' failed to elicit a reaction from Kim, as she responded with another sluggish, "Neh."
"Kim, you've been asking depressed all day! What's the matter? Is there anything I can do, because you know you just have to say the word." Ron used his most earnest tone.
Kim perked up and looked her best friend in the eye, touched. She hadn't been looking for sympathy, but the reminder that Ron always had her back served to cheer her nonetheless. She gave one of her patented Kim Possible smiles, that never failed to brighten up a room. "No big, Ron. I mean that. I'm just bummed that cheerleading is over for the next couple of months."
"Yeah, I know the squad's on its annual break now that football season is over," confirmed Ron. "But you'll have the chance to cheer again after the holidays, same as last year."
"That's true, but for some reason I'm missing it more this year. I really love cheering. You know, stretching my body, the competition against other squads, the teamwork- well, most of the team. It's almost like when you and I are on missions, but in some ways it's better because there's nothing at stake but the cheering. No worries, you know?"
Ron nodded back in response. "And getting the crowd to support the home team, right? That's what it's all about for me when I'm the Mad Dog of Middleton High. Feeling that school spirit." He made a couple of vague mascot-like hand gestures to support his position.
To Ron' surprise, Kim's agreement wasn't very enthusiastic. "I suppose that's part of it…. Really Ron, most of the time I try not to let myself get distracted by what's going out on the field. I mean, I want our team to win, but I'm sort of concentrating a lot more on how my squad is doing. That's why I have just as much fun in practices as I do when we're cheering a game."
Kim followed this up by taking a bite of her cafeteria food, halting conversation for a few minutes while she struggled valiantly to choke the meal down. During this time, Ron was uncharacteristically quiet, thinking about how to make Kim feel better.
As Kim arrived on the home stretch of her meal, Ron suddenly spoke. "Excuse KP, there's something on the bulletin board I need to have a look at. I'll be back in a sec."
Hopping out of his seat, Ron walked over to the cafeteria message board, where school-approved notices could be posted for the Middleton students to read. It almost seemed primitive in today's world where kids were more likely to see 'message board' as something on a computer screen, but paper notices and thumbtacks still had their place. He tapped his notice, posted that a couple of days ago, 'Petition for Bueno Nacho lunch Wednesdays'. It had taken some time to persuade the school administration to let him put it up, but there were already something like a hundred signatures. Not bad.
That wasn't what he had come up here to check, however. There was a stack of something like a dozen of the flyers he was interested in, with perforated edges inviting interested parties to take one. After studying the flyer to make sure what it was what he had remembered, Ron neatly ripped off the top one and folded it up.
Back at the table, he found Kim sipping the last of her drink. "Hey Kim."
When she looked up, Ron opened up the flap of his pants pocket and pulled out Rufus. He extended the palm of his hand out towards Kim with Rufus standing on it, and with Rufus holding the folded-up flyer out towards Kim. "I've got something for you."
The naked mole rat turned and chattered something indignant back at Ron. "Sorry, I mean that Rufus and I have something for you."
Looking curious, Kim took the flyer and unfolded it to read. "Middleton Teen Girls Tennis Team tryouts?"
Ron nodded enthusiastically as he set Rufus down on the table. "It's the perfect thing to take the cheer squad-shaped hole in your schedule! Try-outs are this Saturday, and then it's a super-short season. Just four weeks long and then there's an all-day tournament against the Upperton team."
"So this is… a competitive sports team, right?" Kim answered. There was something strange about her reaction.
"Of course," replied Ron, pushing ahead. "You said what you loved about cheerleading is the competition and athletics stuff, right? The way I figure it, that means what you're really looking for is a sport to play."
Ron stopped speaking and looked off vaguely, as if realizing what he just said. "Actually, why don't you already play sports, KP? I know you'd be great at them, and your natural 'Kimpetitive' spirit is… kind of scary. I mean, there are girls teams here at school, or heck, you could probably embarrass most of the guys on the football team at their own game."
"Cheerleading is a sport!" Kim replied firmly. Then she ruined the effect by shifting her gaze so she wasn't looking Ron in the eye and muttering, "Sort of…."
Avoiding the question any further, Kim picked up the flyer and read the rest of it. "It says that with only a month to do training, they're picking girls who are already good tennis players and just giving them a little polish on their skills. Ron, I haven't actually played all that much tennis."
Ron laughed. "Oh come on Kim, I haven't forgotten what I saw you do last night. You're all about the tennis moves."
"Well…."
"I mean, what about the way you hit all the loose balls into a ball pyramid stack for storage? You didn't even use a bucket or anything or pick them up. Just Kim's skills with the racquet." Ron made a few whooshing 'skill' noises.
"No big," replied Kim uncomfortably. "They were sticky, so it wasn't as hard. I'm still not sure about this."
Kim considered for a few moments while Ron waited, the expression on her face indicating she was putting some serious thought into something. Finally she said, "You know what Ron? You're right, I think I would like to play some tennis. Competitively. I'm old enough that I can make my own decisions now, and I don't have to listen to- to anyone else!"
With that, she got up to take her tray to the trash. "Thanks Ron," said Kim, briefly touching his sleeve before she walked away.
Left behind, Ron and Rufus looked at each other puzzled. "Yeah, I think it got a little weird at the end there too, buddy. Make her own decisions? What does she mean by that?" said Ron.
Kim held a Club Banana tennis skirt against herself, trying to envision how it would look if she were wearing it.
"Hey girl, great minds think alike!"
Kim turned to find Monique holding her own copy of the tennis skirt. "Monique," replied Kim in a friendly tone of voice.
"So you thinking about a new look?" said Monique.
"Not so much a new look as I need something to play tennis in," replied Kim. "I'm going to try out for the Middleton Teen Girls Tennis Team."
"You too? All right!" Monique pumped a fist for emphasis.
"Monique, you're trying out for the team?"
Monique help up a warning finger. "Correction. I am going to be on the team. Second year running. There is no 'try'. I've been playing tennis since I was six years old, and with all that practice I have got it down. I had no idea you played too. You should have said something. We could have had a friendly match or two."
Kim turned slightly red. " I haven't actually played- Well, I've never played a game of tennis. Or had any lessons. Actually…" Kim kicked a shopping bag that she had laid down near her feet. Out of it was sticking the handle of a new tennis racquet.
"Actually, I really came out to the mall to buy a tennis racquet. I just thought I'd visit Club Banana and get a tennis dress while I'm here."
A concerned look crossed Monique's face. "Kim… you realize those try-outs aren't for beginners. I mean, I know you're athletic and all, but maybe you should leave this to the experienced players. I wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself."
A stubborn look settled on Kim's face. "What, scared of the competition? Don't worry about me, I pick up this sort of thing pretty quick."
Monique didn't seem to take real offense, but she shook her head. "Hey, if you want to try out, that's fine. I'm just saying don't be disappointed if you don't make the cut. Crazy saving-the-world martial arts are your thing, but tennis is my thing. Back flips won't help you out on the court."
Kim shrugged, but something about the set of her face suggested a sudden strong desire to prove Monique wrong. "We'll see, Monique. We'll see."
Author's Notes:
I haven't yet seen all the episodes of Kim Possible, so I hope there's nothing contradicting the idea that Kim doesn't play competitive sports regularly. Because that's kind of the central thing I'm hanging this story on, along with the revelation of why she doesn't play sports. I understand there's a late third season episode where she does the X-Games, but that seems to be mission-related and so doesn't count.
Where is this going? Well, you'll have to wait and see. Hopefully by the end, readers will have gained a different view of some things about Kim Possible that I hope fits with everything we know about her from the cartoon. Please Read and Review, as the mantra goes.