disclaimer: I don't own FOP or a blue chevy van. so if either of those hits your car, i'm not responsible.
Thanks to Liz for ruining my life in more than just 11 ways, and sincere thanks to The Killers, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Bloodhound Gang for something to listen to while i wrote this
A rich golden orange sun climbed up and over a tree covered hill. Its warm rays crept along the ground behind the hill until it struck the great white manor of the Buxaplenty family. Slowly the sun illuminated the rest of the quaint town of Dimmsdale.
In a middle class home in the middle of suburban Dimmsdale, dad greets the sun with sleepy eyes that squint in the early light. He finds his way to the coffee maker slowly, and pours himself a cup of steaming black coffee. From pot to mug the coffee falls and the occasional small drop flies off and lands on the counter. The steam rises and fills the kitchen atmosphere with the aroma of the most expensive roast in the coffee aisle.
Just upstairs, the sun peeks into the window of a bedroom and its rays fall on the back of little Timmy Turner's head.
"EEEEEGH! EEEEEGH! EEEEEGH!" comes the screech from the fishbowl on Timmy's nightstand. Timmy raises his head from his pillow and opens one eye wearily.
Of two goldfish in the fishbowl, the quiet one with pink eyes raises her fin, and then falls it right on the head of the loud fish with green eyes. "Cosmo! When I said, 'wake Timmy up,' I meant in a sensible way! Sorry Timmy." Wanda then poofed Timmy's small pink hat onto the top of his head.
"Wanda, Cosmo, do you know what day it is?" Timmy asked tiredly while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Cosmo enthusiastically replied, "It's Leif Ericson day! Yay! The most Viking-est holiday EVER!"
Timmy screwed up his face and explained, "Uh… If I don't get presents or I don't get the day off from school, it's not a real holiday."
"Is it even a holiday today, Timmy?" Wanda asked.
"Nope. Actually, it's the day of the Sadie Hawkins dance, so I'll start the day off right!" Timmy said with one finger in the air.
Cosmo exclaimed, "With a bowl of prunes!"
Timmy and Wanda cringed in unison and made an "ew" noise.
"Well, hopefully with a shower," Wanda remarked. Timmy grinned and said, "Not a chance! I wish Trixie Tang would ask me to the dance and Tootie didn't!"
Wanda and Cosmo raised their wands and set to grant his wish, when their wands suddenly fell flaccid. "Let me guess, the rules?" asked Timmy.
The fairies poofed out of the fishbowl and into their real form, then poofed a magical copy of 'Da Rules' from thin air. Wanda said, "Sorry sport, the rules say we can't interfere with true love."
Timmy said, "You can't grant my wish because of Tootie?"
"Yeah, but we can grant the first part of the wish, you'll just have to find a way to keep away from Tootie until after Trixie asks you to the dance," Wanda replied. Timmy scratched his head in thought.
Timmy then said, "Okay… then, I wish Trixie Tang would ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and I wish that Trixie was the first person I saw after I leave the house!"
Timmy went and brushed his teeth in a lazy fashion and washed his hands and left the soap inside the sink. He went and ate breakfast with his mom and dad before they left for work. Finally, he packed his backpack and stepped outside the front door to go to the bus stop. The very moment the latch caught in the door frame, Trixie Tang appeared out of thin air. She stood on the walkway in front of Timmy's suburban home, combing her long, black hair in front of a mirror that no longer hung on a wall in front of her. Suddenly shocked by the absence of her reflection, she cried a shocked person's scream. "Where's my mirror! Hey! Where am I!" she exclaimed.
"Hi Trixie!" Timmy called out. "Is there something you want to ask me?"
Trixie stopped panicking over her mirror and her surroundings and looked over at Timmy and waved. "Oh, hi, Tommy!"
"It's Timmy," he corrected her.
"Whatever," she remarked, "Do you want to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?"
"Okay!" Timmy replied quickly. Things are looking great today, thought Timmy.
"Where is my mirror?" thought Trixie, as she looked around blankly.
The bus pulled up to the stop in front of Timmy's house, the pneumatic brakes hissed as the bus stopped, and the door creaked open for Trixie and Timmy. Timmy proudly walked the steps onto the bus and took his seat next to Chester. Trixie climbed on board the bus, knowing where it was headed, but still slightly unaware of where she was. She, of course took her place in the popular part of the bus.
"Guess who's going to the dance with TRIXIE TANG!" Timmy commanded Chester and AJ while pointing at himself in an obvious fashion.
AJ replied, "Though you keep implying that you're going to the dance with Trixie, there is no way that you could ever qualify for such a situation. Refer to this chart that I conveniently take with me everywhere," then AJ pulled out a large chart with Timmy, Chester, and AJ icons on one side, and a Trixie Tang icon on the other, and a large red line labeled 'the cool barrier'. He continued, "We are hopelessly stuck on this side of 'the cool barrier' while Trixie has the freedom to traverse between her side and our side. However, Trixie would not cross over the barrier to our side because there is a reason that things from our side can't reach her on her side."
Chester asked, "What's the reason?"
AJ replied, "Because Timmy didn't shower today."
"HEY! Trixie did ask me to the dance and I can prove it!" Timmy exclaimed.
AJ and Chester were led by Timmy down the aisle to where the cool kids sat. He walked up to Trixie and asked her, "Did you ask me to the dance this morning?"
Just as she was about to answer with a stern, resounding 'NO', the magic of Timmy's wish washed over her brain and compelled her to instead answer, "Yes, I did."
At this revelation, everyone around Timmy, including Trixie, gasped, or worse, as was the case with Veronica, jumped up, shrieked, then fainted, falling forward into the aisle.
AJ clamored, "Don't you see what you've done, Timmy? You've destroyed the concept of 'the cool barrier'! You've made my chart irrelevant! You've destroyed logic! NOOOO!"
"I'll take it, then," said Chester, who then proceeded to play with the Timmy and Chester icons as if they were beating up the AJ icon.
AJ sat in the fetal position, rocking back and forth as his logical world fell to pieces around him. Chester was easily amused by the now defunct chart that AJ spent roughly five minutes making. Veronica lay sprawled, unconscious on the floor, her body slave to the random motions of the bus. Trixie, Tad, and Chad sat scratching their heads in confusion. And though panic and confusion were generally rampant on that school bus, Timmy stood there, oblivious, lost in his pride.
When the doors of the bus creaked open in front of Dimmsdale Elementary, Timmy, glowing with an enormous sense of accomplishment, was the first person off the bus, followed by Chester, who was still occupied by AJ's chart. The others followed very sluggishly, still dazed from the previous panic.
Timmy strutted proudly through the steel front doors of the school with a pink backpack on his shoulders and a green folder under his arm. Through the halls he walked without a single care in the world. His whole world was arranged in such a way that it could only please him. He was impervious to all things… until a call came from down the hallway that struck into him sobriety, like a comical lightning bolt that leaves you alive, but covered in burns.
"TIMMY!" came the cry from a short, ponytailed, ebon-haired girl carrying a half-dozen blue and white flowers. "OVER HERE, TIMMY!" cried Tootie again.
"Oh no! Tootie!" Timmy exclaimed in a newfound panic. "I've gotta hide!"
Timmy jumped into the nearest locker to him and slammed it shut, hoping that Tootie hadn't seen him. "I wonder whose locker this is," he said. "I wish I had a flashlight."
Wanda and Cosmo raised their wands and in Timmy's hand a flashlight magically appeared. He switched the flashlight on and was momentarily blinded. In an instant his eyes adjusted to the light and right in front of him was a collage of pictures of himself. At that very second he knew where he was. "Oh no! I'm in Tootie's locker! You guys have gotta help me!"
And right as his fairies were about to transport him to another locker, Tootie opened the door. "Hi Timmy," she giggled. "These are for you," she said and handed the flowers to Timmy.
"Uh… Thanks Tootie, but I have to go, now," he said hurriedly as he dropped the flowers and started out of the locker.
Tootie grabbed onto each side of the locker, blocking Timmy's path with her welcoming arms. "Will you go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?" she asked with lovesick eyes laid squarely on Timmy's eyes, which he darted about to avoid eye contact.
"Trixie Tang already asked me and I told her I would go with her. Sorry," he apologized insincerely.
Tootie immediately frowned in sincere doubt. "No she didn't! SEE!" and she pulled out a chart identical to AJ's.
"Hey! Where did you get that chart?"
Tootie replied, "AJ was giving them out all last week!"
Timmy said, "Well, she did. I can prove it."
He then led Tootie over to Trixie, who was just walking into the building, still bewildered. Timmy met Trixie just inside the building and asked her, again, "Did you ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance this morning?"
Again magic brainwashed her into saying, "Yes. Yes, I did."
At that moment, everyone that was walking in from the bus mimed a heart attack and fell over backward. Tootie, dumbfounded, took the chart AJ had given her and threw it away.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she said, sniffling, "Okay then, I guess I'll just go with… someone else… I guess…"
Upon seeing Tootie suddenly heartbroken, a weird feeling fell on Timmy's conscience, a bad, weird feeling. "Oh no, guilt. Wanda, Cosmo, can't you do something about it just this once?" he pleaded.
Wanda replied, "Sorry sweetie, you'll either have to live with it or do something to make it up to Tootie."
Cosmo chimed in, "Or you could go to Mexico! Then you won't have to go to the dance!"
Timmy and Wanda both rolled their eyes.
Guilt and desire wrestled each other in Timmy's mind. Guilt kicked Desire in the shin, but Desire came back with a punch in Guilt's gut. Reeling back, Guilt reached blindly for anything to hold onto. It found a baseball bat, then gripped it firmly and struck Desire in the side of the skull. Desire was down and out, and Guilt stood on its body in triumph.
Timmy's eyes twitched with anxiety and he confessed, "Oh… I can't live with the guilt anymore. It's like I have no desire now to go to the dance with Trixie. Gosh, what's wrong with me?"
"Just say the magic words, sport," Wanda suggested.
"I wish that Trixie forgot that she ever asked me to the dance," Timmy wished.
A moment later, the magic that had fogged her logic suddenly cleared away and she was free to ask anyone to the dance.
Tootie was about to walk into her class with tear-streaked cheeks, when Timmy grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her. She turned around and, surprised, wiped the tears from her face.
"Timmy… Uh, what do you want?" she said trying her hardest to sound angry, though she was brimming with happy optimism.
"I, uh, screwed up Tootie. I…" Timmy struggled, "I will go to dance with you. Ugh."
Tootie could no longer withhold her enthusiasm. She screamed, joyously, "OH TIMMY! I knew you would! AAAAAIIIIEEEE!"
She wrapped her arms around Timmy and began showering him with love and kisses. Timmy tried his hardest to push her away but he was powerless compared to the love she showed for him.
Inside Timmy there was a deep, clichéd regret, but somewhere deeper, there lay an uneasy feeling that everything was truly as it should be. The rest of the school day was oddly different, as though something good had happened, though Timmy thought surely this was not the case.
