Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly or any of the characters. This is an older one-shot that I wrote a little while ago but didn't bother publishing until now, because I'm frankly not all that enamored of it. But, who knows? Maybe somebody else'll like it.
I've always had this theory about Sam that she's a bit of a closeted geek, and this little story — actually just a web show vignette — takes that notion and runs with it — probably much too far. It's set shortly after iTwins, and Freddie does an expose of Sam's geeky tendencies on iCarly as revenge for Sam's "Gullible Freddie" bit. The genesis for the sketch came from seeing a bit on the iCarly DVD bonus material where the cast goes through each character's locker on the set. In Sam's locker is, for some reason, a copy of "Theoretical Physics" by Georg Joos, prompting somebody to say that maybe Sam's smarter than she lets on.
In other news, it's been over a year since I've last had the chance to eat a real beignet, and I fear I might be suffering withdrawal. Hopping the next train to head out to New Orleans is, unfortunately, not an option.
iCarly's weekly live webcast was nearly a wrap. ". . . and that's how you brew coffee with a broken accordion and a bicycle pump," Carly Shay announced with pride while Sam Puckett flailed about in a triumphant dance behind her.
"This calls for VICTORY BEIGNETS!" Sam shouted while pushing her hair out of her face with her hands and pressing the applause button on her remote. "Gibby, bring 'em out!"
A Hawaiian shirt garbed Gibby emerged from the elevator with a wheeled serving cart, struck a pose pointing at Freddie's camera with both index fingers, and wriggled his tongue suggestively as Carly, Sam, Freddie tried hard to not be sick. Perched on the cart was a stack of donuts.
"Uh, Gibby," Sam questioned confusedly as she pressed the boo button, "these are plain old donuts. Where in the name of Laveau are the beignets?"
"This is Seattle," Gibby responded matter of factly. "Nobody makes 'em."
"Walk away, Gibby," Sam disappointedly ordered, as Gibby hung his head and slowly walked back toward the elevator. However, Sam's obvious disappointment did not prevent her from grabbing a donut off the cart. "Well, that about does it for this iCarly, so until next time —"
"We have just one more little segment before the end of this iCarly," Carly interrupted her with a smile while abruptly stepping in front of the camera, "and I just want to say I had NOTHING to do with this one."
Confusion reigned on Sam's face while Freddie called, "Playback," and his face cracked into an unusually wide grin. He pressed the button on the side of his tech cart that caused the studio's TV monitor to swing out.
Spencer Shay appeared on the monitor in what appeared to be the middle of an iCarly newscast. ". . . 'lick the lube from the decanter now, or we'll shoot your vlarpin,' said the police.
"And while we're on the subject of descanting, here's our very own reporter Fred Burgundy with a very special Tech Time with Freddie investigative report," the image of Spencer continued.
The introductory music from A Current Affair played as the scene cut to Freddie Benson, who was dressed in a salmon-colored sports coat with a very wide brown and orange striped tie worn over a light green dress shirt. On his face was an enormous fake mustache, and he stood in front of the Puckett house holding a comically large television news microphone.
"Welcome, good citizens, to this special edition of Tech Time with Freddie," he began on-screen. "Tonight we expose the dark, terrible secrets and twisted double life of one Samantha Puckett," as a picture of Sam's vacant-staring, sauce-smeared face with a chicken wing hanging out of her open mouth flashed on the screen, "a well-known persecutor of Seattle geekdom, who very recently tricked this reporter into wearing a clown suit to school and who unsuccessfully tried to convince him that she had an identical twin.
"We at Tech Time with Freddie would like to thank Pam Puckett for her invaluable assistance with this important investigation." The scene cut to Freddie, still in costume, standing on the front porch of the Puckett residence tilting his microphone in the face of Sam's mother.
"This about all those parking tickets?" Pam Puckett asked.
"No ma'am," Freddie replied. "We're from the Internet —"
"That club in North Las Vegas?" Pam interrupted with a knowing smile.
"No, ma'am."
"Somewhere near Acapulco?" Pam replied with a somewhat less knowing smile.
"No."
All traces of joy sank from Pam's face. "Branson?"
"What? No! We just want permission to sift through your daughter's personal belongings on camera."
"Well, as long as it doesn't have anything to do with parking tickets or dog racing, knock yourself out, Mr. Mayor," Pam answered while popping her gum loudly.
The scene cut again to a costumed Freddie standing in the middle of Sam's thoroughly trashed bedroom. "It's a well-established fact that Sam Puckett claims all members of the Ridgeway A.V. Club are nerds, and that she picks on them, and especially yours truly, mercilessly. But why does she do this?" Freddie continued. "The truth is there are some things about Miss Puckett that just don't add up. If she finds anyone with a high degree of technological competence insufferable, how is it that she's so good at photodocking images of teachers into humorous caricatures? How could she secretly rig up video cameras and microphones throughout the Shays' living room a little over a year ago to spy on me while I was on a date? When we were forced to share Locker 239 recently, how was she able to single-handedly wire it for electricity and set up a fully computerized home entertainment center in there? How does she keep hacking my blog on this site? Could it be that she picks on those she calls 'nerds' because they remind her a little too much of something in herself? This reporter aims to find out in tonight's special report.
"We begin this investigation with Sam's trunk," Freddie continued, "for which my resourceful cameraman, Gibby, acquired a key from her mom in exchange for promising to not tell anyone named George 'about the rabbits.' This could be bigger than Al Capone's vault, folks."
Freddie slid the key into the lock of the white, bumper sticker-covered trunk and the lid popped open to reveal a strange combination of makeup, explosives, nunchuks, and throwing stars. "Nothing weird here, for Sam at least," Freddie mumbled disappointedly. "Wait. Snap, Gibby, what's this?" Freddie asked as he felt the bottom of the trunk's interior and realized it was much higher than the bottom of the trunk on the outside. "There might be a false bottom in here."
Freddie felt around for a tab or string to pull up the false bottom, and he barely missed getting his hand caught in a spring-loaded trap that snapped just as he found a tab. "There's gotta be something she's hiding down here," Freddie continued, and he lifted the bottom.
"Gibby, I think we've hit the mamalode," Freddie said with surprise as a large number of books revealed themselves. He knew Sam had gotten into reading after plowing through The Penny Treasure to win a bet with him, but he didn't know exactly what Sam had been reading. "This is amazing," Freddie murmured, holding up a copy of Georg Joos' Theoretical Physics in front of the camera. "Wait! I think we've just found how Sam's gotten so good at photo editing." Freddie held up a copy of something called Grokking the GIMP. "Apparently Sam uses open source stuff to do her photodocking, and she owns a technical manual on it with the word 'grok' in its title. There's a word for people like that. We geeks call them 'dorks.'
"No way! Back issues of Wired." Freddie held up another book, Principia Discordia. "I have no idea what this one is," Freddie said, examining the book, "and what the heck is she doing with all these DVDs of Firefly? An H.P. Lovecraft anthology, creepy . . . Oh, wow; Neuromancer! Not sure what Temporary Autonomous Zone is supposed to be . . . Okay, Gibby, shall we move on to her PearPod Touch?"
"Indeed we shall," Gibby answered in a bad attempt at a British accent.
"Let's see what was most recently played." Freddie approached the stereo, which had Sam's PearPod docked in it. Loud but strangely intricate rock music filled the room. Shortly, a voice sounding like a cat being strangled on-key joined the instrumental. "Yep, Geddy Lee," Freddie said bemusedly. "And here I always thought Rush was supposed to be a natural girl repellent." He leaned in closer to the PearPod's screen. "Song's called . . . Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres . . . You're making this way too easy, Puckett. Wait a minute," he continued while navigating the PearPod, "is that an RSS feed for Ars Technica?"
"Should we move on to the dresser?" Gibby asked from behind the camera.
"Nah. I think we've found enough to prove my point, and I'm a little afraid to know what we might end up seeing in there," Freddie replied.
"Like what?" Gibby wondered.
"Oh, Gibby."
The scene cut once more to a hallway in Ridgeway High School. Shawn, president of the Ridgeway A.V. Club, was on the screen.
"Now, Shawn," Freddie's voice asked from behind the camera, "having reviewed the evidence I've presented today, would you be prepared to immediately offer Sam Puckett a full membership in the A.V. Club?"
"I would," Shawn responded evasively, "if it weren't for the fact that she scares me."
Freddie once more appeared on camera in his "Fred Burgundy" persona. "Well, there you have it, loyal iCarly viewers. Sam Puckett has been a secret geek all this time. It's okay Sam. There's nothing wrong with being one of us. 'One of us; one of us,'" Freddie chanted. "This is one round 'mama' didn't win. You stay classy, Seattle."
The monitor shut off and swung back to its unused position. Carly smiled nervously at the camera while murder shone in Sam's eyes.
"And that does it for this week's episode of iCarly." Carly's forehead glistened with sweat as she spoke with a strange tremble in her voice.
Sam snatched the camera right out of Freddie's hands. "And your head'll be clear as soon as I'm through thrashing it. Count zero interrupt, Fredifer!" Sam growled just before shutting down the camera.