Disclaimer: I don't own Ned's Declassified
Author's Notes: I thought of this episode after an old friend told me about a Middle School Reunion that her school had right before she started her senior year. This fascinated me for some reason, so I was suddenly inspired to write this. None of these events actually happened at the reunion, but they came from my imagination. Plus the whole high school reunion thing is way over done. These first two-three chapters are going to be relatively short, because they are basically the lead-ins for the reunion.
"I'm Sorry, Moze" Ned says remorsefully. "Really, totally..."
"Sorry doesn't cut it" Moze bitterly responds as her big brown eyes tear up a little.
"I'm.."Ned begins again. Moze locks eyes with him. Her eyes are hard and unforgiving. Ned searches her face for any trace of any affection. He finds none.
"So that's it?" She quietly says.
"I..guess" Ned reaches for a casual hug, but she twists away. "Can't we be.."
"Goodbye, Ned" She turns around slowly. Her face swims in front of him fuzzily, but still visible.. then..
"Ned" Another voice firmly says.
Ned hears a faint buzzing in his ear. No, not buzzing, whirring. Like a car.. Then he hears the voice again, but only faintly. He'd fallen asleep, he decides. Not that he wanted to wake up just yet. So he shifted his position on the dashboard and ignored the voice.
"Ned!" The voice repeats impatiently. Then he feels a hand slap his face, Not enough to make it feel like it's burning, but it tingles.
Cookie's slightly disturbed face blurs then clears in front of him as his blue eyes shoot open. "Are you hungover?"He takes his right hand off the steering wheel to snap his fingers in front of Ned. "Are you high? Ned, if you are, your mom..."
"No" Ned mumbles. "No drinks. No drugs Just tired. Really tired" Right then at that moment, he remembers the alarm clock that he threw at the wall, the cereal he gulped down and Cookie's car almost leaving without him, leaving him to chase after the car. That really isn't anything he wants to remember right now.
"Oh good."Cookie clears his throat. "What were you dreaming about? You were muttering something in your hazy slumber"
Ned feigns deafness, complete with a yawn and stretch. He ignores the question blatantly and stares out the window of the car warily.
Cookie sighs and gives up. "Are you going?" Cookie turns right like a pro.
It seems..Ned muses in his head, That school in general was much easier to tolerate when you didn't have to fight the skinny Junior Varsity football jocks for a bus seat. Cookie's black Toyota Celica was "All Cookied out" as Ned liked to refer it to as, with all the latest (but not necessarily the greatest) gadgets. There was a complete entertainment system in the back of the car, a GPS map in the dashboard, a small mini fridge in the trunk that was stocked with food,a night vision camera and and a lot of other things that Ned feared to ask what it was. He watches the familiar streets of their town zoom by.
"What were you saying?"Ned feigns interest unconvincingly.
Cookie pulls left into another street as the engine zips. "..The Reunion"
The expression on Ned's astonished face says it all.
"For middle school" Cookie clarifies. "Mr. Wright organized it. He says that it's a great opportunity for us" He smirks slyly as he speaks. "Remember how we used to be?"
Ned as a whole looks somewhat the same, with the same blue eyes and casual fashion sense. He grew his hair out considerably though, hoping that it would make him look older. It didn't, but it was a nice try. Today in question, he's wearing a dark blue t-shirt and jeans. In terms of height, he's a few inches away from 6 feet.
Cookie, on the other hand hadn't changed radically, but the change was there. He had started wearing contacts in 10th grade, claiming that it was easier to read things that way. Ned knew for a fact that he missed having the cyborg aspect in his glasses. The fact that he was covered in electronic devices that blinked kept the technology on him. Lisa had inspired the most changes in him, telling him nicely that tucking your polo shirt into your pants wasn't necessarily the most fashionable thing possible.
Ned doesn't say anything for a while. "And when was I going to hear about this?"He grips the armrests until his knuckles turn white as the SUV swings past the Middle School for a brief second. When Cookie turns onto the street, he relaxes slightly.
Cookie zooms into the second spot in the student parking lot at Michael S. Dukakis High School with practiced ease. He takes his keys out of the ignition. Ned spots a black Flash Drive dangling from the keys. Even Cookie's key chains were technical. "Open the glove box" He instructs, waving a finger in the general direction of it impatiently.
Ned opens the black compartment and a cream colored envelope with a white printed label with his name on it tumbles into his hand along with about 20 little widgets . Ned gingerly takes the invitation and tosses it on the seat while he attempts to shove these things back into the glove box. "Cookie, this car is a hazard!"
"I got it when I passed by Polk yesterday" Cookie explains as he blatantly ignores Ned's comment about his car's state "Just in case you threw it out accidentally/on purpose, or whatever"
Good Ol' Cookie. Ned thinks. He knows me all too well. He had stuck by Ned , like good friends do. Even when Lisa became Cookie's girlfriend, it hadn't changed their friendship even a hair. Cookie always knew how to balance his friends and his relationships. I never could flits through his head briefly. "What, you don't trust me to walk across the street and get it myself?"
"No. I don't" Cookie rebutted.
When Ned had walked into his high school at this time 3 years ago, he noticed that was almost identical to Polk, only bigger and with people giving bad haircuts. It was terrifying going in there and not knowing where his classrooms were. He still felt terror sometimes, because of the social part of it. He had basically had his friends since elementary ,and now he had to fake being social because of the schism that had divided everyone he knew into two opposing camps. It was familiar now, though like a second home. When I graduate, he decides, I'm going to miss this place. More than I'll ever admit to myself.
Cookie walks alongside him. "So? Are you going to go?
Ned mumbles something incoherently.
"What was that?"
"How can I decide that now?" Ned says, frustration showing in his voice. "I didn't even know there was even such a thing going on until you told me!"
"Sure you can"Cookie responds patiently. "It's a yes or no question! I'm not asking you to solve world hunger, war, or create a perpetual motion device here. "
"It'll be awkward" Ned mutters as an excuse
"It's awkward anyway" Cookie points out. "Going there can't make it any more worse than it already is."
"You've got a point there.."Ned looks sadly into space, his thoughts elsewhere. "Can't make anything any worse"
Cookie's gaze drifts over to the right hand side of the hallway, where a large grouping of mainly blond girls, nicknamed the Perfect 10 are crowded around an open locker with a large mirror in it.. The Tens, are so referred as that because they seem to be perfect, and well.. There's 10 of them. The 10's are the most popular girls in their school. Mysteriously, they are all wearing varying shades of green and yellow, which is apparently not only the middle school's colors, but also the high school's. Must be the budget or something.
.One of the girls in the clique turns around with a cheesy forced smile. This girl is the only one who isn't blond, but a brunette. When she sees Ned looking at her, however, her false smile fades, and is replaced with a rather flat expressionless gaze.
The girl aforementioned is Moze, or as she's now known, Jennifer. Moze hasn't changed much, Cookie reflects with a slight smile sprouting on his face. Physically, anyway. Mentally..It's hard to tell.
Cookie cranes his neck carefully to hear some of what the 10 are saying.
"..Can not believe they discontinued Pomegranate Red!" One of the girls, named Merry exclaims unhappily.
"It's like such a tragedy!" another girl yelps with her chin slightly quavering. Cookie's attention turns back to Moze, who rolls her eyes for a brief second, then expresses the expected response of displeasure.
Nope. Cookie grins slightly It's the same old Moze, no matter how much she pretends that she's different now. Moze looks basically the same, for the most part. Her brown hair has grown longer than it had been last week, with highlights in a darker shade. Popular girls had the weird super power to grow and cut their hair at will, it seemed.
"Ned, I gotta go" Cookie says "I'll talk to you later" He walks away towards his first class with a slight slouch.
"Sure, Cookie" Ned opens his locker, with a spin of the built in combination lock not really listening to Cookie. He gets three text books and a thick blue binder that he needs out, but leaves the door open. As he pretends to rummage through his locker looking for something, he gazes at Moze through the air vents of the locker door.
Ned watches her flip her hair over to her other shoulder and smile earnestly. She'd changed from the fun tomboy girl that he's grown up next door to who became.. that beautiful monstrous.. thing . But.. He noted hopefully, her actions don't seem all that authentic. Maybe he had a chance. He sighs softly. A chance like a snowball in hell. Then he closes the locker door and briefly checks his watch. Cookie always took him to school way too early. Ned spies another look at the Perfect 10's, then carefully pries the envelope open with his fingernail. He unfolds the tri-folded cream invitation , which read
Dear Mr. Ned Bigby (It began)
Can you believe that it has been over 3 years since you graduated from this institution of learning? Neither can I! Your graduation class was my first as principal, so I am throwing you guys a reunion bash. I intended to have this reunion in June, so it would be exactly 4 years since you graduated, but it's far too close to your High School one. Anyway,you are invited to the James K. Polk Middle School Reunion on Friday, September 21. Hope to see you there!
Alistair Wright
Principal
At the bottom of the note ; hastily scrawled, is Ned: I hope to see you there. You were one of my favorite students.
Ned smiles. Then he turns to an invisible camera to break the fourth wall. "Reunions don't happen every day, so when they happen, GO!. It's a great opportunity to see people you haven't seen in years" He pauses for a moment. "But there are extenuating circumstances" He picks his books off the floor where he placed them to straighten the stack. "Like in my case"
One of his textbooks, an blue-covered Economics one, he later sees, falls off the stack of books and binders in his arms and falls to the floor with a clatter. The whole Perfect 10 clique looks at him accusingly, well all except for Missy, whose look is more of an annoyed one, and Moze, whose expression is more sympathetic, like a friend who knows you the best.
Poor Ned, however fails to notice Moze's obvious, but guarded concern.
"Let's go Mosley" Missy corrals her away from Ned. "There's nothing to see here"
Ned plods along to his first period , with his dream and, the Reunion letter replaying in his head in a constant loop in his mind and his backpack seeming so much more heavier than the previous school day.
-db-
Ned and Moze were lying in a field nearby their houses. This field used to be a baseball field until an earthquake turned it into a grassy hill of sorts. It was the kind of place that parents warn their kids away from. Ned and Moze naturally ignored this and came there whenever they needed to think, or to get away from their families.
"Ned?" Moze's voice was jolting, somewhat in the quiet darkness.
"What?" Ned's voice hoarsely replies.
"Do you think.." She rolls over so she can look in his eyes with a soft gaze. "Do you think that we'll be friends forever?"
Ned was quiet for some time. The silence is palpable.
"That's not reassuring" Moze crossly responds. "I'm serious"
"I know" Ned stares at the night sky as if it holds the answers. "I'm just thinking. You girls are sensitive. If I say the wrong thing, you might kill me."
Moze became silent.
"Oh.. Moze, I didn't mean it like that" Ned heard desperation faintly showing up in his voice.
"I know."
So what do you think? Read and Review. Pretty please?